Le Marin, Martinique

We sailed (yes, sailed!) into Martinique yesterday afternoon. Wind was about 15-20 knots and seas were 5-8 feet, so at first it was a little choppy but it smoothed out as the passage went on. Our chartplotter gave us a maximum speed of 21.9 knots, which we know is not true since we were passed by a much faster-moving monohull while we made the passage. So the chartplotter must have got hold of an invalid data point somewhere. I'll just blame it on lousy programming, ha-ha.

We cleared in at customs and immigration this morning, which is usually a pleasure in the French islands. However, Le Marin is all modern and sophisticated and instead of filling out paperwork with something as archaic as a pen they require you to enter the data by computer. But there are only four workstations and there was a long line of people waiting. Making things worse was the excruciatingly slow rate at which all four people were typing. I say typing, but really every one of them was using the hunt-and-peck method, which is normally fine but when ten people are waiting to use four PC's it can be annoying. So it was finally our turn to step up to the plate and since I am the faster typist, I sat down at the keyboard. Qnd proceeded to ;istype qll;ost every word. Apparently French keyboards are not qwerty -- seems they have rearranged the thing to suit their own language, so 'q' is where 'a' should be and 'm' is hiding way off to the right with a semicolon taking its place. No wonder everyone was typing so damn slowly! But we finally finished and printed our form and were good to go. The customs official didn't even look at our passports or our St. Lucia paperwork. The French couldn't care less who you are or where you've been. Bienvenue a France!

The town of Le Marin isn't anything great as far as tourist attractions go, but it is chock full of boat chandleries, sail lofts, mechanics, and pretty much anything you'd want if you needed to work on your boat. We didn't need any of that stuff so we headed off to the grocery store, which puzzlingly is simply named "Ed", not sure why. We didn't need any food but we did want to get ahold of some wine. French wines are cheap here (well cheaper than in the US anyway; there's no duty because we are technically in France) so we made a resolution to try a few bottles. Neither of us knows the first thing about wine so we formulated a brilliant plan: hang out in the wine aisle until some French-looking person wandered by to pick up a bottle and then just get whatever they got. The master plan was foiled by not one but two French matrons who each grabbed a box of wine (a la Gallo) instead of one of the many bottles on the shelves. Argh. Determined to return to the boat with something in a glass container, we ended up randomly choosing a white Bourgogne chardonnay and a red Brouilly (which I can't even pronounce since it has too many l's. Must be good, then.) Wonder which one will go best with pizza, since that's what I'm making tonight. Classy, I know. Bottoms up!

Where we are:
Location=Le Marin, Martinique
Lat=14 27.947
Lon=60 52.547