Just outside
the bay of Le Marin, facing the Diamond Rock on the east and St Lucia to the south, a sleepy little village with all the charm of the French Antilles. We spent 5 days at anchor, escaping to the shore to explore the many miles of walks along the bottom edge of Martinique.
Truly beautiful scenery…
We love Ste Anne in Martinique, actually we love all of Martinique!
After 
4 days of scrubbing, sanding and anti-fouling, we have now a very smooth, black silky bottom. It does look very nice and it was not as hard as we were expecting it to be. I had forgotten how satisfying working on the hull was… you can definitely see the results.
Let’s hope we go like the wind now without having to drag the barrier reef! Wonder if we will now average at 7 knots?
Afte
r waiting for an hour and a half to be lifted out of the water, we are finally in the sling. We daren’t look as Mr X is hauled out of the water, we are expecting the barrier reef to be attached to its bottom. As it turns out the fauna and flora does not seem so bad, and it is quite pretty. Only 3 to 4 cm to be scrapped off, although we do have a whole eco system down there from algae to crabs and plenty of barnacles who are going to take some persuasion to evict.
Operation clean bottom can now start, hopefully it won’t be too gruelling…
Le 
Marin is a very busy anchorage but so vast and with so many nooks and crannies that it does not feel crowded. There is plenty room and it is very pleasant to be surrounded by green hills. We spent spent 5 days at the anchorage dodging the showers. Real deluge of a rain!
Crossing the mangrove to get to shore is quite special, you can hardly believe you are so close to the hubbub of the town, it is full of birds. Shame it is marred by so many rotting hulls!
After crossing the channel between Dominica and Martinique, we go down the east coast. The journey is not without its ups and down as well as wet and dry patches. After a particularly painfully slow passage, a decision is made to haul out in Le Marin, we just need to get rid of the flora and fauna in residence on our bottom…they are really dragging us down. We have been watching the coral reef develop on our hull for a while now, fascinating stuff.
Time to make our way back down to Martinique before we head south to Trinidad for the hurricane season. Ian is looking forward to our few days in Le Marin, boatie’s heaven by all account, ship chandlers on every corner. It will also be a good place to stock up on food before we set off, we now know what is available (or not) further down.
The weather is very unstable lately so we decide on day sail only, so we will be stopping off in Dominica.
One night only… we need to go south, looks beautiful in late afternoon sunshine! And much quieter than the last time we were here.
We had a great sail from Marie Galante…pure joy!
The
whole island sounds, smells and tastes of sugar cane… It is in the air. We had a fabulous time even if wet. Rum Distilleries, walkies and chasing up windmills….
