It has been a very eventful week in Martinique so I will be dividing this week’s adventures into two weeks’ worth of blogs. This week will focus on the usual Martinique-isms as well as hikes, beaches, churches, etc. Next week we will tackle the world of Yo Ho Ho and an Island of Rhum. We started the week by renting a car. Renting a car seemed like a simple and mundane task until we remembered we were in Martinique. Bill went online and made a reservation with a company called Flizzr. We had never heard of them but it is not uncommon in the islands to have small companies and Flizzr was far cheaper than the others so we grabbed the deal. We had the marina call a taxi and off we went. The cabbie had never heard of Flizzr but we had a street name (places here do not have actual addresses usually). He headed toward the airport and we found every car rental company in existence except Flizzr. We had Hertz, Avis, Thrifty, Enterprise, Sixt and multitudes more. As we watched the taxi meter ticking upward, Bill suggested we pull over and ask one of the Sixt employees where we might find Flizzr. The Sixt employee pointed to the Sixt office and said, “In there”. Well, quite logically! Why didn’t we figure out that the Flizzr office was located in the Sixt office? As we entered, there was no Flizzr counter, no Flizzr sign, no Flizzr employee. Just the Sixt girl. We explained that we did not have a reservation with Sixt and she nodded and said, “Flizzr.” Giving up on logic, we gave her our name and she found the reservation in the computer and we were on our way. We are still not quite sure what Flizzr is but evidently, you can walk into a Sixt office and get a car for one-third of the price of the Sixt cars by just saying the magic word “Flizzr”. As we began our adventure, I did have to give Martinique credit for their amazing roads. They have lines painted on them, very few potholes, signs that give you direction and wide enough lanes for two cars. It has been amazing driving around the island this week! Bill had to pull out his long forgotten driving skills which included driving on the correct side of the road again as well as driving a stick shift which he had not done in years.
Bright and early Monday morning, we took a deep breath and headed over to Digicel in the mall to tackle our internet connectivity issues. First let me clarify that the Digicel was in a mall. An actual mall that could have been in any US city in the 1990s. It was full of stores including clothing, sporting goods, jewelry and a store much like a super Walmart called L’Eclerc. It made me very nostalgic for the good old days of wandering the mall! We easily found the Digicel with the one employee. She did not speak any English but she was quite willing to use Google translator to help us. After several back and forth communications, she settled on what we needed and went to work getting the sim cards ready. She slipped one of the sim cards into the phone we had purchased in the Dominican Republic and we were ready to go. Except we weren’t…the sim card was not connecting to the internet. Hour one. She got on the phone and called for technical support all the while helping other customers that came to the counter. At one point, she was talking to tech support about our issue, handling payments for two other customers and selling a new phone to another. After a long while on the phone, she typed into her translator that our DR phone was the problem. It was a 3G phone and the sim card was a 4G card. First of all, let me say that while the cards here may say they are 4G, I would guess 2G on the best day. So, we told her to sell us her cheapest phone. Hour two. The last and final hour consisted of her getting the new phone ready to go and getting rid of us. Hour three. I am pretty sure I heard the entire counter cheer as we made our way out of the mall but with new phone in hand, we were finally happily connected to the rest of the world! Following the Digicel fiasco, we decided we had earned some fun. We head to downtown Port du Prince which is the capital of Martinique. I had several sites on our list so we started with the fort because we can never pass by a good fort. Alas, the fort was closed on Mondays. On to the library. Closed due to Covid. Since everything else on the island is open, I am pretty sure the librarian moved away and no one else has figured out the library has never reopened. On to St. Louis cathedral. Closed but at least I could get a nice picture of the square. On to the Balata gardens. Open. Finally! We ventured up to the gate and presented our vaccination cards which were from Grenada. It clearly says on the card “fully vaccinated”. The two girls at the gate looked confused and then said, “Booster?” to which we replied, “No” to which they replied, “PCR test?” to which we said, “No, not doing that”. If I had known French, there would have been a come to Jesus meeting about how our vaccine cards were good enough to get into their country but not good enough for their gardens….which were outdoors! We took our wallet and decided to spend our euros elsewhere. We found it quite ironic that just the previous day at lunch, a herd of police officers had come into the restaurant and searched everyone in the restaurant to make sure we all had vaccination cards. We had no issues with the police yet the garden girls thought we had broken the law. On the way back down the hill, we came across the Sacre Coeur which was an amazing cathedral in the middle of nowhere. It looked like it had been shipped over from Europe! It also had an amazing cemetery and I was intrigued with how many family members they put into each crypt. Each family member had a plague sitting on top of the crypt and some families had at least a dozen plagues. I’m not sure I would want that much togetherness for eternity! We woke up early Tuesday morning and headed to the south end of the island to further explore Ste Anne and get some shopping done in Le Marin. We had a tourist map that had marked all the hikes on the island. The map key rated the hikes from one little hiker (easy) to four little hikers (difficult). On the way to Ste Anne, there was a hiking trail by some ruins that was rated one hiker so we figured we could handle a one hiker trek and the exercise would be good. The hike was marked as a 30 minute hike up easy terrain. We began what we assumed would be a nice stroll and the path was a long, flat road. After 10 minutes, we came upon the stairs. Vast, sprawling stairs of different shapes, sizes and depths loaded with rocks and tree roots. Figuring the stairs must only be a small portion of the hike, we continued. Uphill. Up a long and never ending hill of stairs after stairs after stairs. I am not sure who timed the hike on the map but they must have had very long legs because getting to the top took us about an hour. The views were breathtaking which was not a positive since I had no breath left to take! After a long rest, we began the arduous trek down the mountain. Once we reached the bottom, all I could think of was what the four hiker rated treks must look like. They would have to airlift me out since my one little hiker needed CPR by the time I reach the bottom of that mountain. Following the death hike, we dragged ourselves into Ste Anne for lunch and had a successful afternoon of shopping for Galt parts. The next day we went to La Savane des Esclaves which was a recreated slave village that told all about the history of the island and its’ inhabitants. The Martinique history is a confusing one because control of the island switched fourteen times between the French and English. Each time England would sign a freedom document, the island would change hands back to the French and enslavement would continue and vice versa. The French even tricked Dutch Jews into coming to the island with the promise of land and profit shares only to enslave them for 3 years prior to giving them any land. It was a brutal history and Bill and I were perplexed that all of this brutality was going on at the same time as the Renaissance in Europe. There was certainly no enlightenment on Martinique at that time. After our educational morning, we headed to Anse Mitan to soak in the cool water and relax on the beach. Each night we had to make our way back to Galt because I could not get a place to stay. I tried Airbnb, Booking, Travelocity and Kayak. Each time I would reserve a room, the next morning I would receive a denial message stating that the room was not available. It began to feel like online dating all over again. For the life of me, I could not get anyone to swipe Right and I was definitely getting a complex! Finally, I managed to get Serge on Airbnb to swipe right so we had a place to stay! We ventured our way over to the windward side of the island which was made up of mostly small beach towns. The windward side is on the Atlantic so the waters were much rougher and the seaweed often sent a stench into the towns that was definitely unpleasant. Not learning anything from our death march earlier in the week, we saw a hiking trail that had the one little hiker marking again so off we went. Luckily, this trail was much easier and we enjoyed visiting ruins of an old sugar plantation with an amazing ocean view. Now it was time to make our way to our Airbnb. As I mentioned before, there are very few addresses in the islands. These were the translated directions I received from Serge: “Head towards the Lorrain then towards Morne soap villa Serge Melgire opposite the water castle”. Well that was certainly crystal clear. I asked for more specific directions and received the same text. We finally pulled over and had a man who spoke French call Serge. With a lot of pantomime, we figured out that Serge would meet us at the gas station and then there was something thrown in about flowered clothes. Sure enough, once we found the station, there was Serge and his wife and she was indeed wearing flowered clothes. They directed us to the Airbnb and we had a nice night with an amazing ocean view. At one point, the flowered lady came walking in and placed a dish of fish on my lap, gibbered in French and left. While the fish did not look appetizing, they were quite good and we appreciated the kindness. Upon return to the marina, I was greeted by one of the dockhands who said, “Gone Galt?” and when I responded, “Yes?”, he stated, “You check out on 22. You must leave now.” I sighed and explained for the umpteenth time that we were not leaving until the beginning of April. He argued with me for a few more minutes until he realized I was not going to move my boat. I am pleased to announce that we have been “approved” to stay in our spot until April 3rd……at least until the next time he tells me we have to leave! We rounded out the week with a trip to the Martinique Zoo and another death hike. The zoo was quite impressive for an island zoo and had a variety of monkeys, birds and reptiles. We were not quite sure how the birds and lizards lived in harmony but they seemed to be making it work. Our final death hike on Martinique was to Cascade Couleuvre and Anse Couleuvre. All the reviews described the area as “lush and isolated” and “a private getaway”. Evidently not on a Monday! There had to be easily one hundred people hiking to the falls and enjoying our private getaway with us. I have also decided that the local map maker must be dyslexic because he had the distance gauged at 1.3km. No way was it only 1.3km to the waterfall but we made it and then fell into the ocean for a long soak. Our last educational experience on the island was to learn about the history of the Pelee volcano. The worst eruption thus far was in 1902 when over 30,000 people died from ash and a tidal wave. We spent time walking around St. Pierre which was demolished at that time. Ruins of the theatre, jail and houses were easily explored and the map of ships that were sunken in the bay was overwhelming. While Pelee is still an active volcano, scientists closely monitor its’ activity to hopefully avoid a repeat of 1902. I will leave you now with the knowledge that next week you will learn everything there is to know about making rum! Given that we visited at least half a dozen distilleries, you’ll have more knowledge than you ever wanted! Until then, Yo Ho Ho! ***More pics on Picture tab
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It amazes me that a culture that could build Versailles can’t build simple infrastructure in a society. How has France been around for hundreds of years? Their internet is run by a squirrel. There is simply no other explanation. We still have no reliable internet options so when one of our phones makes a “ping” sound, we know we have possible internet for a couple of minutes and jump on as fast as we can to get our daily checklists done. Generally, we chalk up infrastructure issues on most islands as “first world problems” and we move on about our business making do. However, Martinique touts itself as “first world” but thus far, we do not see it. One of our friends described “first world” as “no one sells chicken on the side of the road.” I have come to the conclusion that Martinique can’t sell the chickens roadside because they are needed for some form of menial labor such as running the electrical plant. Our marina sits next to the airport and several times daily I find myself praying that the airports’ infrastructure is not run by a squirrel. Perhaps at least a nice strong donkey. In addition to internet issues, the marina we are in is very confused. Before we moved the boat up the coast, we had clarified that we would be staying for about a month. One morning, I went to pay the marina for the week and the guy said, “You were supposed to leave yesterday”. “No,” I replied, “We aren’t leaving until April” to which he replied, “No, I have another boat going where you are in two days.” Since my head was going to pop off, Bill stopped by the office to clarify. When he returned to the boat, he asked, “Do you want the bad news or the stupid news first?” He had clarification on the move…..such as it was. They needed to “move us” to the slip next to ours which would entail untying Galt, heaving on the lines until he shifted six feet to the left and retying. “Why can’t the other boat just go in that slip or one of the other empty ones?” I asked. Bill shrugged, laughed and said, “Because that would make sense.” That was four days ago. Each day, the dockmaster stops by and says he’ll be around to move Galt later in the day. We just smile and nod. To date, we still sit where we have since we arrived.
This week we are renting a car to go exploring. The island has so many rum distilleries that I lost count. Bill often tries to make the rum distilleries more interesting to me by pointing out other things they have. “Oh, this one has a garden”….”This one has a windmill”…..Just like when I try to point out things that would be of interest to him…”This garden has a brewery next door”….”This windmill is close to a beach bar”. We have definitely learned to balance our adventures over the past two years! I have spent the week trying to map out all the sites to see and we have at least a week’s worth of sites so I look forward to having some wonderful pictures and stories to share with you next week. I have to go feed the squirrel now so I can hopefully get this blog uploaded in the next 24 hours! PS: I spent all of lunch today watching the restaurant staff fight table umbrellas in the wind. The umbrella would blow over, they would pick it up. It would blow over and make its’ way down the dock, they would chase it, pick it up and reset it again. On and on went this routine for an hour. Seriously, how has France survived for hundreds of years? To me, it seems an impossibility. And now, I ordered the Lava Cake at the restaurant and the response was "no cake". What happened to "Let them eat CAKE???" Prior to leaving for Martinique, we purchased a new Racor filter for the fuel system. The new Racor is about a third of the size of the last one so it is very petite. I decided that based on how it performed on the crossing it would either be named Mighty Mouse or Underdog. I am very happy to report that Mighty Mouse has now been christened! While the fuel system is not at 100% yet, we are making progress and Mighty Mouse was a big step forward. We pulled into Martinique without issue and were welcomed by a bay full of hundreds of boats. Since we left the States in June, 2020, we have never sailed without the influence of the Stupid. With travel shutdown, we could sail for days and never see another boat. This season has been quite the awakening! I used to think to myself, “I never realized how many people live on boats” but this season, I believe that at least half of the world’s population must live on a boat. On top of cruisers, we now contend with vacationers who are on cruise ships as well as those who are flocking to the all-inclusive resorts. This week, we have learned to dodge boaters, skiers, sailboarders, kiteboarders, swimmers, snorkelers and jet skiers. Martinique is definitely a lively place!
Our first afternoon in Martinique, we dinghied over to town for customs and immigration. The customs and immigration office was located in a restaurant called Boo Boo’s Café which was closed so we could not check in. By this time, it was about 5:00 and we were hungry so we made our way over to another eatery. Most of the islands we have encountered over the past two years have either spoken English or Spanish. Martinique is French. I do not know if any of you have ever tried to speak French but we have found it is an impossibility. Basically, you take whatever the word is, drop all the consonants and say “oooo” and you have it. We sat down at the restaurant and the menu was French only. I pulled out my Google translator app and went to work. Bill asked if I had decided on what to order. I simply stated, “According to Google translate, we have a choice between Fish Nose and Earth Glue.” Deciding we would just point and take whatever came to the table, we searched for a waitress. Not seeing one, Bill went to the bar to order. He was informed that the kitchen did not open until 7:00pm. We had forgotten that Europeans tend to eat after 8pm so we went to a small café that offered burgers and fries to stave off starvation. The next morning, we set off for a two mile long, very wet dinghy ride to the main marina to check in (Boo Boo’s had a “special closure” on Thursday so not an option). Customs and Immigration was a simple process and we did not even have to get a swab shoved up our nose! We grabbed a quick lunch at the marina consisting of a huge platter of grilled meats that would have made the vegetarians and vegans of the world cringe. After thoroughly enjoying our carnivorous feast, we headed across the bay to Digicel to purchase a local sim card for internet. The store hours were posted as 9:00am-1:00pm and 2:00pm-4:00pm so we were glad we had arrived at 3:15pm. We could not figure out why the slide door was half closed so I ducked under and entered the store. The employee said something in French. Given my blank stare, she stated, “We are closed.” There were three other customers in the store ahead of me so I guessed that she must have decided that was all she could handle for the day. Can you imagine your local Apple store at the mall closing its’ doors 45 minutes ahead of closing time? There would be a massive riot! Well, it turned out that an ambiguous closing time was the least of our worries…. The next morning, we arose bright and early to make another very long and wet dinghy ride back over to Digicel. We were second in line at 9:15am so we felt that she would be able to help us prior to her 12:15pm closing for her 1:00pm lunch break. I filled out a piece of paper and handed her our passports and credit card. She typed out in Google translate “International credit cards won’t usually work in our system” even though everywhere else on the island had no issue with international credit cards. I handed her the card to try and she entered the information, shook her head and handed me the card. We tried another and another. No luck. I asked how much we owed her in cash Euros. She stated that she did accept cash. We stared at each other in disbelief. After a few choice words that did not need Google translate to be understood, we again left the store without any internet options. We decided at that point to check into a slip at the marina so we could have some internet. Internet connectivity when you live on a boat is a big deal because it is the only way to communicate with the world and accomplish simple everyday tasks. When we arrived at the marina office, the employee stated, “Just go onto the internet and fill out our reservation form.” Sigh. I explained to her that I had no internet option. She then repeated, “Just go onto the marina internet which is free and fill out the form”. I showed her that the marina internet was not working. She then spent the next 15 minutes getting my phone to accept the free internet. I hopped onto the website and completed the form. I received an email that the marina would contact me with our reservation details so we figured we would grab some lunch. By this time, we had been able to figure out basic words on the menu such as fish, chicken, beef, etc. We decided to order the chicken plate which seemed straightforward….seemed being the key word. The waitress returned quickly and set a plate of raw chicken with salad and fries on the table. My expression and the sound I made evidently translated well and she asked, “Wrong?” I said, “Cook?” She smiled, said something in French and walked away. She then returned (thankfully!) with a hot stone to cook the chicken at our table. That still did not address the issue of the fries and salad being on the plate with raw chicken but I let it go and ate the chicken and the fries that were on the far side of the plate. After lunch, we headed back to the marina office to secure our marina berth. The lady who had been so helpful all day walked back to find out an update. She came back out and said, “There is no availability for a month long spot. You could come into the marine on Sunday, leave on Thursday and then come back in on Sunday and leave the next Thursday for a month”. Needless to say, that plan did not sound enjoyable so she called another marina and reserved us a spot. The next morning, we set sail for the other marina which was a four hour sail up island. When we arrived at the marina, Bill managed to get the boat into the slip despite gusting winds and rain. We walked over to the office to check in and the manager stated that I needed to go online and fill out a reservation form. Sigh….explained again. He gave me the password for the marina internet. Thus far, it has worked for about a total of 3 minutes so needless to say, he has not received his form. To finish off the week, the lock on the marina bathroom stall broke locking Bill in the bathroom this morning for about an hour. They are not like American stalls, they are actually entirely closed rooms so no climbing over or under to get out. Finally some men showed up and helped him break the lock so he could escape. As you can tell, our first week in Martinique is going swimmingly well. On the plus side….Martinique has full sized beers and they are only $1.50 each! As I sit in a restaurant attempting to upload the blog, a fly just flew into Bill’s beer and drowned. Even the flies are frustrated with Martinique! Here’s hoping for a smoother week for us and that someday you too will get to enjoy some Earth Glue! While last week was a week of adventure, this week has been a lesson in patience. As we prepared to leave for Martinique, we had a very small weather window before the wind and waves increased to uncomfortable levels. We readied what we thought would be our final projects. Earlier in the week, Bill had been replacing a small part on the engine starter when several wires sparked and melted. He replaced the wires in what should have been a simple fix but on a boat, nothing is ever simple. The starter relay had evidently been damaged during the wire shorting event so we watched as our small weather window came and passed. We ordered a new starter relay and are expecting its’ arrival early this coming week. As we settled into an unexpected week in St. Lucia, we made a list of other boat projects that needed to be done. While Bill worked on bilges and sump pumps, I pulled out my acrylics and painted a picture of palm trees to pass the time….okay, not a necessary boat project but passed the time as we watched St. Lucia earn its’ “wet season” title with rain all week. We also voted to purchase a new Racor fuel filter. Our old Racor has been one of the issues (we are hoping the main issue) in our fuel saga. Bill had rebuilt the Racor three times in the past month and when it was still leaking after the third rebuild, he popped his head up from the engine room and calmly announced, through gritted teeth, that he was going to beat the Racor with a hammer and toss it into the ocean. It was at that time I knew we either needed to purchase a new fuel filter or new health insurance that would 100% cover Bill’s heart attack that was surely coming if he had to rebuild the old Racor for a fourth time. The new Racor is shiny and clean and does not leak so we have our fingers crossed that it will do the job!
On Friday evening, the clouds cleared and we decided to take a walk over to Gros Islet’s neighborhood. Bill read that Gros Islet had a Fish Fryday weekly so we thought that would be a good way to get some exercise with a reward at the end! Gros Islet consisted of several blocks of houses that had converted front porches to become small bars and restaurants. All along the way, grills full of fish, chicken and pork blazed as the locals enjoyed an end to their work week. As we rounded the corner at the beach, we spotted a line of people waiting for grilled fish so we figured that would be a good spot. While in line, we met a group from Charlotte who were on vacation so we enjoyed a dinner discussing travel and Charlotte traffic…which evidently has not improved in the last two years! Our fish selection for the evening was barracuda which we have avoided due to concerns with ciguatera which is a neurotoxin that large reef fish can carry that makes humans very ill. However, ciguatera is only present on certain reefs and is not a problem this far south on the Caribbean chain. So, we decided to give it a try since neither of us had eaten barracuda. It was delicious! We had a huge plate of barracuda, rice and a delicious relish sauce so our exercise reward was definitely worth the walk! Our funny for the week came from an incident that happened in town on shopping day. We had just finished eating lunch and were making our way over to the grocery store when we were approached by a man. In general, we are approached by a lot of men because we stand out as tourists without a doubt. They are usually selling tours, jewelry, fruits and vegetables or juice. However, on St. Lucia, they are most often selling pot. As we passed by this one gentleman, he leaned in and said, “Something nice for you today?” Since we did not see any tour brochures, jewelry, fruits, vegetables or bottles of juice, we figured out very quickly what “something nice” must have been. His wording humored us greatly and it has been our go to saying this week. So, as we wait for our part, aim for another very short weather window midweek and hope for an increase in sunshine, we hope that life brings “something nice for you” that won’t get you into any trouble! |
AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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