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Admin | Friday, May 29, 2009 at 12:57AM Hello the world from Merlin!
2 days ago we did a dive course with our friends from Alouette.
Dad had the tank and he was holding us under the water with the BC.
It was GREAT!!
Admin | Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 12:11PM La planche de Victor avait ete recuperee sur la plage de l'Anse Ste Anne par le gerant d'une petite boutique. Avec elle, Victor a retrouve le sourire!
Admin | Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 12:07PM Nous avons decide de redescendre vers le Sud. Le mois de juin est synonyne du debut de la saison des cyclone. Arret a Rodney Bay ou il y a un agent Spectra (et nous avons un petit probleme de filtre avec le dessalinisateur). Nouvelles coutures aussi a faire sur le genois qui semblent etre fragilise a plusieurs endroits.
Soiree a bord de Lou un autre cata Dean, Francais, rencontre a l'Anse d'Arlet.
Admin | Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 12:04PM Cela fait 2 semaines que nous sommes en Martinique et nous sommes revenus a l’Anse Ste Anne. Nous sommes remontes jusqu’a St Pierre et hier nous avons redescendu toute la cote Ouest. Nous esperons pouvoir continuer vers le Sud des que le vent reviendra a l’Est ou au Nord-Est.
Impressions sur St Pierre:
St Pierre est un petit village qui autrefois (jusqu’au siecle dernier) etait la plaque tournante du commerce aux Antilles. Des dizaines de bateaux etaient ancres dans la baie et vidaient/remplissaient leurs cales d’epices, de cane a sucre, de mules, ...
En mais 1902, l’eruption du Mont Pele a tout detruit et tue tous les habitants de St Pierre (sauf un prisonnier enferme pour son alcoolisme).
Les navires ont coules, certains avaient de la poudre a bord et ont explose.
Il ne restait rien de cette ville active et animee de Martinique.
(j'ai la une pensee pour tous mes eleves que j'ai eu en 2nde car il avait des photos de St Piere dans leur cours du Cned!)
Il y avait une eglise, apparement tres belle, qui etait le repere des flibustiers. Elle aussi a ete demolie et reconstruite 20 ans plus tard mais sans les frioritures argentees d’avant.
Aujourd’hui, les maisons sont parfois construites avec quelques vieux murs. Il y a des ruines un peu partout qui rappellent ce passe douloureux du village. Les maisons sont petites et parfois tres colorees. Ce melange de tres vieux et de plus recent donne un etrange resultat. Les rues sont plutot etroites et sombres. On entend les familles discutees derriere les volets fermes. La plage est de sable noire et sous la chaleur du deut d’apres midi il n’y a personne.
Le brassage des construction et l’histoire rendent ce village acceuillant.
et vu le nombre de restaurants (environ une trentaine pour un village de quelques milliers d’habitants) les touristes le lui rende bien.
Mise a part quelques restaurants d’ouverts, le musee retracant un peu l’histoire de l’eruption est aussi ouvert. Felix et moi y sommes alles. Felix etait impressionnes de voir des verres tordus par la chaleur, des piles de clous qui ne font plus qu’un gro stas solidaire, des objet divers et varies emprisonnes dans des morceaux de lave refroidie.
Les navires coules ont donne quelques belles epaves qui ont laisse Greg tres frustre de ne pouvoir plonger (il manque d’un partenaire).
Lorsque nous sommes arrives, le vent avait tourne au Nord et il y avait une grosse houle qui chahutait Merlin dans tous les sens.
La pente de la plage descend a pic rapidement et nous avons mouille a une profondeur inhabituelle pour nous (12m) mais a une distance relativement proche de la plage.
Je suis allee marcher et decouvrir le village avec Felix alors que Greg gardait le bateau car les conditions etaient vraiment agitees et une veille etait recommandee.
Le vendredi matin (jour de l’abolition de l’esclavage en Martinique), apres de bonnes baguettes bien fraiches, nous sommes tous alles nager un peu car il faisait extremement chaud. C’est alors des meduses (Pelagia?) que nous avons vu.
Puis nous sommes repartis vers le Sud, au pres serre. Vraiment ce n’est pas la meilleure des allures avec Merlin!
Admin | Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 10:34AM Martinique: French food and friendships
We are in France (Martinique is an oversea province of France but runs the same way dixit Greg!). So, Emmanuelle feels somehow at home. Even if it is a tropical France, we can still find some good bread, some cheeses (quite expensive though) and some other goodies to excite our palate. We went shopping and filled our shelves with biscuits, jams, pate, saucissons, th efridge with industrial yogourts... The kids were playing the game pretty well and wanted to have what they knew from their few previous visits in France.
For Emmanuelle, it feels strange to speak French to people and sometimes, English comes first (eg in a shop).
Greg is trying to practice his French and with the support of the boys he does quite well in some very specific situations (eg in boat shops). The boys are always impressed.
Martinique is a green volcanic island. It is hilly, lush and seems quite wild.
We’ve been to 6 various bays and we liked St Pierre, even if the anchorage wasn’t great: it was rolling and the shelf was going deep quickly. The village was destroyed in 1902 by a volcanic eruption and everybody (except 1 drunk guy who was in jail) died.
There are still lots of ruins. Some houses are built with some of the remaining ruins giving an impressive architectural mixture of old and new. Greg would like to come back to this place as St Pierre was full of wrecks that he could not dive on as he didn’t have a dive buddy.
Before, we went to Fort de France: the BIG city!
We had a specific shopping list of things we wanted to buy there: mainly books and sun suits.
Emmanuelle spent 3 hours wandering by herself in the streets, shopping around and enjoying some freedom without the kids.
The kids loved their visit (too short) at the library
One of the big events is that we finished school and we sent the last tests from Fort de France!
We are officially on holidays. The boys did really well and this is encouraging.
We had some difficult times when we left and few more latter (mainly with Victor) but they understood it was important. They learnt a lot and are proud of that as they did it mainly by themselves. They are able to start their work without any help. We should continue like that. The new school year should start by the end of August. In the mean time we will try after few weeks of complete break to work on some maths and French.
We spent some time with two other “kids boat”.
2 American boats: one with 4 kids (between 9 and 4) and one with 2 (9 and 11).
Victor, Felix and Clea had great fun coming and going from Alouette, Pickles or Merlin (the 3 boats). They were jumping for hours from the different boats, were comparing their Lego collection, or were watching movies all together. They are becoming quite independent...radioing their friends on the VHF to plan their afternoons! Victor is even picking up some US intonation when he speaks (time to meet SA boats!!).
Being all together was great because it allows us to share lots : usually technical stuffs for the men, more practical ideas for the women : recipes, boat organisation tricks, but also fears and laughters.
It was also a party after another one: each boat had to host the crowd!
The kids were finished after few nights like that - and us too as it was also more drinks that we usually have!
But it was fun!!
Now we are back in Anse Ste Anne , in the South of the Island as we are waiting for the good weather to go back South, may be with a stop in St Lucia.
We were happy to meet Alouette again as they were supposed to have left Martinique while we were exploring the North coast of the Island.