Arrived in Martinique! 14/02/2022
I have finally left Grenada! What an interesting experience it was to spend just over six months living on one Caribbean island. Grenada is a lovely place, really enhanced by its friendly, easygoing people. There are not many countries where you can check in for a 90-day stay and then extend your stay twice more without any questions. After checking out with Customs & Immigration on Friday morning, I glanced at my passport – and saw that my stay had actually expired the day before. Nothing was said. There was simply an exit stamp alongside. Extraordinary.
Filled up with fuel and water on Saturday morning (the 12th of February) and set sail at 10:00. The voyage to Martinique was 180 nautical miles (207 land miles) in a northerly direction (21 degrees to be precise). I did consider doing this trip in say 3 or 4 daylight sails, anchoring in suitable places overnight. But I really wanted to get there, so decided to just sail straight. That meant a trip of 30 hours, sailing up the leeward (west) side of the islands. It was a fairly rough passage, especially when passing the channels between islands. They act like funnels, pushing the wind speed up from 16-18 knots to 26-28 knots at times. This was despite giving the islands a wide berth of 15 miles or so. Sea state was very choppy, although wave height was moderate, around 6 feet.
We sailed into Fort de France, the capital of Martinique, at 16:00 on Sunday. Anchored just under the fort, which is on a small promontory, giving complete protection from the prevailing wind, which is easterly. It’s a small anchorage, with maybe 30 boats. I found a good spot, well sheltered. Not that much room, but my anchoring skills have certainly improved a lot! A year ago I would not have been confident enough to come in tight between other boats, drop the anchor in the most appropriate spot, pay out an ideal length of chain, and then swing as expected, keeping clear of the others. It was a relief to arrive – I was sticky all over from the flying spray – after securing everything, I dived overboard, swam a bit and then had a nice fresh water shower.
It’s a lovely little anchorage, considering that it’s in the capital. I’m 250 metres off a boardwalk which runs along the bay and – brilliantly – doubles as a dinghy dock, with metal rings attached for tying up to. Between the boardwalk and the fort is a little 100 metre beach and the water is clear – I swam there an hour ago. It’s a nice town, small, with quite a number of old French buildings. It’s attractively located on the Baie de Fort de France, which is huge and opens to the west of the island.
The funny thing is that I’m now in France! Legally, Martinique (like Guadeloupe) is a department of France, and the inhabitants are represented in the French parliament. The process for coming in here is now very easy. Last year, Martinique was basically closed if you were not French. Now, if you’re double vaccinated, you just need a PCR test within 48 hours of departure from your previous port. You email them all your details, attach photos of your vaccination cards, the negative test result and a sworn statement declaring that you have no symptoms and no reason to believe that you have Covid, and that’s pretty much it. Unlike the English islands, which have formal Customs & Immigration offices where you have to go and check in, here the process is outsourced and very simple. A chandlery five minutes walk from the dinghy dock has a Customs computer – you go in, put your details into the computer, hit print and take it to the person working there, who signs and stamps it. That’s it. No checking your passport or boat papers or anything. It’s amusing: the French rules look severe, but in practice it’s all very laissez faire – the shop woman said I might be visited by Customs, but I suspect the chance of this is about 1%!
I’m not sure how long I’ll spend here, possibly four weeks. In a couple of days I’ll head around to the south of the island to a place called St Anne, which is supposed to be beautiful with long sandy beaches. A French Canadian guy I met in Grenada is already there and we agreed to meet later this week and have a good dinner somewhere. I suspect I might stay there for a couple of weeks, we shall see!
Anyway, this is an interesting change of location and has a very French atmosphere, making it feel very different. Interestingly, although it’s only a couple of hundred miles north, it’s noticeably cooler than Grenada. Where Grenada at midday would have been 29 and felt like 33 or 34 degrees, here it was 27 and felt like 29. At night it’s a couple of degrees cooler too – a minimum of 23 rather than 25. Still rather warmer than the UK in February…
