Martinique - St Pierre

Although we had a great time in Dominica, I was excited to once again be in a French country - the land of wine, cheese and baguettes! 


On our trip over we had our first whale sighting, a pilot whale not more than 2 boat lengths off.  Sorry, no photos, too busy being in awe and trying to avoid a collision. 


We arrive in the early evening and are given the most wonderful welcome by a family of cruisers we had met earlier.  The crew of Blue Kai, including two small children, speed around Toodles in their dinghy waving and singing our welcome.  I have not had a better arrival.


St Pierre is a particularly picturesque French town that was made famous by the 1902 Mt Pele eruption.

We decide to have dinner out, and manage to adequately converse in French to order the crayfish that is an absolute bargain.  The crayfish was part of a set menu of three courses and drinks for $25Euro each.


The next morning we wake early and go exploring.  Gary's "must do" is the rum distillery.  With the help of Susan from Blue Kai's fluent French, we gather from the tourist office (that doubles as the customs office), that the distillery is about 2km away.  What I hadn't gathered was that it was 2km from when you get to the bottom of the hill to get to the distillery on top of the hill!  Hot and bothered, we reach the distillery and do the self guided tour, including past the steam engine that powers the distillery.  Gary takes notes on the process to pass onto our  rum distillery at home, Mangrove Bay run by our good friend Adrian.

The view across the sugar cane (which is picked fresh for the rum production)

Our tour ends with a rum tasting, and we pick ourselves up a few bottles, despite it not being quite as good as Mangrove Bay Rum.

On the way back into town, we stop at the ruins from the Mt Pele eruption.  Some ruins still take up prime real estate on the waterfront, as if no one considered to rebuild and instead chose to build right next door.  Even some of the new buildings share a wall with the ruins.

My last stop of the day, as per usual, is to the market to grab a freshly baked baguette, cheese and a bottle of bordeaux wine - YUM!