Happy New Year everyone! I think it’s OK to say that right throughout January so I’m not too late on the 7th! We were in Ste Anne in Baguetteland, oops I mean Martinique, for the night but after a hairy sort of day couldn’t be bothered going out – along with most of the people we spoke to over New Year – we must be all getting old! The hairy day started off well, as they usually do. We had motored round to Marin where there is a good range of chandleries and had a very successful day getting bits and pieces for the boat – some necessary (new compass) and some not (new directors beach chairs). We planned to stay there for NYE but no - the anchor god had other plans! We had gone ashore in lovely sunny weather to do a supermarket top up that turned into torrential rain and high winds just as we had loaded the dinghy up. Got back to the boat absolutely soaked and me in a white singlet (of course) to find chat Eau Bleu was tied off to the catamaran in front having dragged the anchor. Now I know some of you will be beginning to think that we are crap at anchoring but we’re not really – it happens to everyone in some of these rubbly anchorages. Anyway no harm done and a kind act by the boat in front. It was boat karma as the night before we had stayed up helping a couple find their boat in the dark who had been driving around in their dinghy for hours! Luckily they had left their AIS transmitter on so we were able to spot the location for them. (Probably a little more embarrassing that dragging an anchor) So by the time all that had happened and we’d gone back round to the better anchorage at Ste Anne we were not really in a festive mood. Did watch the Sydney fireworks online though and listened to the local ones at midnight here.
On Thursday in Fort de France I managed to speak enough French to get Pete an appointment at the local University Hospital for a spot on his back. After the taxi driver from hell who was quite mad and took us for miles in entirely the wrong direction despite me showing him the route on the ipad we swapped taxis and had a very good experience of Medicin Francaise. The doctor in dermatology took the spot out and thinks it is nothing but we have to hang around for the lab results for 5 days. (and the whole thing cost only 100 euros) That fits in quite well with us as we want to find the soda stream supplier tomorrow and tour the fort.
Today we sailed 2 hours up the coast to one of our favourite places – St Pierre where there is an excellent fresh produce market that sells the world's scraggliest looking but best tasting lettuces. Off to Dominica next en route to Guadaloupe.