After taking ages to get to sleep, I wake just after 2am realising that I forgot to send Johanne my shopping list. This coupled with the heat, means that I have no chance of going back to sleep. I get up. This is an anathema to me. Since I was a child, I have a thing about getting up in the night. As far as I am concerned, once you are in bed you stay there. Or maybe I’m just lazy. Anyway, normally I just lie there trying to get back to sleep, but I am so hot, I need to get outside.
It’s beautiful. It’s hardly any cooler as there is no breeze and the sea is completely flat. I can see little sparkles of phosphorus in the sea, and lots of stars in the sky, but there is also an eerie haze over the water, some sort of sea fog, and it is really, deathly quiet.
Eventually Mike wakes up and notices I am gone. He gets up and pours us both some cold water and sits with me for a while, before setting the PC up for me to e-mail Johanne. When I have done this we both try to sleep again. Eventually, me later than him, we are successful.
The day promises showers, and they arrive, heavy and prolonged, plaguing most of the morning. Straight after lunch, and after he has fixed the new block onto the main sail reefing point, we pull the anchor up to go to check out at Fort de France. As usual, it is pouring when I have to pull the anchor up, and it takes ages as it has become well and truly embedded in the bottom. I then have to stand at the bow of the boat directing Mike out through the fishing ‘markers’. I stand in my hat, bikini bottoms and deck shoes, soaking wet and enjoying the cool relief that the rain brings. My hat prevents the inevitable frizz.
The sun comes out as we pull into Fort de France. For the first time since we have arrived, we can see the top of the volcano, Montagne Pelee.
Photo: Sunshine and clear skies over Fort de France …
Photo: … but look what we leave behind!
Photo: The Fort
Photo: Baie de Fort de France
Mike goes to check out at the chandlery. This is a very convenient way of dealing with the authorities. Certain nominated businesses have a dedicated computer where people can check in and out if their mode of transport is a boat. Immediately he is back we get the anchor up and leave.
As there is no wind (well I think 3 knots of wind constitutes no wind) we motor. The sea is like a proverbial milk pond. I have never seen sea so flat. I lie on the trampoline for a while, enjoying the freedom of being naked with no one around to see me but all too soon we arrive at Case Pilote and I have to put some clothes on.
Photo: Just outside Case Pilote, a fisherman sleeping in the shade
We tie up in the marina just as Frank, the generator fixer man, arrives – he will hopefully see to Jeannius tomorrow. We wait for the sun to go down a little then take a stroll around the town. It hasn’t changed since last week so this doesn’t take long.
When we get back to the boat, the harbour wall alongside Jeannius is full of men fishing. Well I say fishing, but we watch for some time and nobody seems to catch anything. There is a lot of excited jabbering and high-fiving but that’s about it. The fishing technique consists of throwing the line over the breakwater and reeling it in straight away without waiting to see what happens. Very strange.
Photo: Fishing as the sun sets
Photo: Beautiful cloud formations over the sea
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