Martinique

6:30am 17 November 2011

I can’t believe how stiff and sore I am.  I tried to stretch out this morning and found I can barely move!  My hands are stiff, calloused and raw.  My knees hurt, my back hurts and my neck hurts.  No headache though, which is great and unusual lately.  I still feel great, like I have way more energy than I should – though I might have trouble using it!  You should see all the people out and about at 6am!  The beach is full of people and there are lots of people in the park.  Some people were swimming almost out to where we are anchored (which makes me worry about theft a little).  Last night the park was lit up and kids were playing basketball and there were still families at the beach well after dark. 

Normally I am not much of a city person, they serve a purpose but I prefer nature.  Having said that, this city is winning me over, it’s so beautiful.  It is different than any other Caribbean city I have been to.  Zach says it’s like Europe, with it’s cobbled streets and little balconies where you can get a drink and look out over the city/water.  The place where we went up to try a beer was impossible to find the door, a nice guy sitting on the balcony finally took pity on us and pointed out a plane metal door with no handle or sign which we opened to find steps up to a restaurant!  This is not unusual, many people went out of their way to help us, unfortunately we usually couldn’t understand them or them us!  No one speaks English and we don’t speak French, at all.  I wrote down a bunch of phrases, which no one understood and I forgot the paper so I couldn’t even point to them.  It was very frustrating, it took us 3½ hours to find customs (well, we found the building that customs is apparently in), by this time it was 3pm and the guy told us to come back tomorrow at half past eleven.  Hopefully he was the customs guy, he was so nice and helpful and spoke a tiny bit of English. 

Off we wondered into the city to find an ATM where we could get some Euro’s and internet (I was carrying around the computer hoping to find wifi).  There are so many clothing stores, all of them different than the typical Caribbean stuff.  The styles are so different I wanted everything!  Seems to me they had “hammer pants” all over the place, but softer and more comfortable looking!  We tried to ask about internet and finally in one of the shops someone figured out what we meant and a lady in the dressing room said she would take us there (we hoped that is what she said) we followed her through a few more shops and back through down town and then she stopped and asked someone who pointed and we all saw a cybercafé sign!  Yay, internet, the nice lady (who spoke no English – I can’t repeat this enough of all the people we saw and tried to talk to yesterday only three spoke a few words of English) helped us find the door to get upstairs and we tried to thanks her “merci, merci, thank you so much, merci”.  Upstairs we pointed to the 20 min for 2EU sign and managed to pay the lady, got a receipt with a password on it and where pointed up another set of stairs.  Upstairs we realized that we had to use their computers and we couldn’t get the password to work.  I nice guy came over and typed it in for us, apparently you have to use the number pad.  I quickly realized everything was in French, but also the keys were in different spots on the keyboard so I hunted and pecked my way through trying to get skype to work, finally giving up and sending emails to let everybody know we arrived also checking the weather which is when our time ran out and off we went.  At least now we know where we can get online, even if it is very frustrating!  We looked in lots of cafés and restaurants to see if anybody was using a computer to no avail. 

We made our way back to the grocery store, this is when we stopped on the balcony of a restaurant to have a Italian beer.  When we got into the grocery store I decided we should learn French, the food is great, breads, cheeses, wines, sausages, the canned goods are amazing looking!  By this time we were dead on our feet and Hooch still hasn’t been to shore, we wondered the store overwhelmed by selections and trying to figure out what we should get.  I very nice guy who thought he could speak English ( probably as good as our French) was trying to help us but I couldn’t take it and had to keep wandering away from him.  You have to bring your own bag, they don’t have any, luckily Zach had his empty back pack.  We tried to figure out where to buy ice, nobody knew what we were talking about, glacon is ice, would have been helpful then, this is when we met the second lady who spoke a little English who told us we had to go to a gas station and gave us directions.  After hiking up a large hill through a poorer neighborhood we realized she must think we have a car.  We pantomimed drinking and putting cubes in our drinks to some guys who told us “glaso” which is how it’s pronounced – at least we now knew what word to say while looking for it, though our groceries were getting very heavy and I was ready to give up.  When we were almost back to the dingy Zach decided to go in a tourist store – literally called tourist  (somethingorother) figuring someone must speak English and one lady did who was quickly found for us and gave us directions to very far away, but to try next door first.  Next door we saw the ice machine and learned the spelling “glacon” paid and walked back to the dingy ready to collapse!

Hooch immediately spotted the baguette – he loves fresh bread.  What an odd dog he is, but he knows what he likes and slobbered the part sticking out of Zach’s backpack first thing.  We were going to share it with him anyway, but he claimed it early probably because we can’t be trusted – just look what we do to the poor pup.  Sailing, throwing big fish at him, telling him to potty ON OUR BOAT and not taking him right to shore after we anchor!  I also made him some steak, good thing to because while I was cooking dinner Zach took Hooch to the beach, they had a blast but when they got back Zach dropped  / or Hooch pushed off too much (depending on whose story you believe) anyway, Hooch ended up in the water in the dark by our boat and Zach had to rescue him ending up soaked as well!  I gave them both steak to make them feel better, ours with potatoes and a creamy cheese sauce over everything – yum.  Zach had French wine which he thoroughly enjoyed!

This morning I am making coffee, cleaning the boat up and warming up croissants and other pastries for breakfast.  The ferry wakes here are horrible though making it necessary for everything to be tied down like we are sailing still!