After a rather short stay in Dominica, we moved on to Martinique, the last of the French islands.
Our first stop was St. Pierre, the old capital city. The town is quite small but picturesque, with lots of remainders of the 1902 eruption of Mt. Pelée. Very close to the anchorage you can find the remains of the prison where the only survivor out of 3,000 inhabitants lived. Cyparis was imprisoned the night of May 7, 1902, after a bar fight and was spared of the deadly pyroclastic gasses due to the thickness of the prison walls and lack of good ventilation.
We stayed a few days in St. Pierre. We walked around the town, we snorkelled and the kids were introduced to diving. They grabbed some weight and using Ernesto's octopus, they went down about 8 ft. This is something we'll continue doing so they get more and more comfortable with the equipment.
After that we sailed to the south and anchored in Anse Mitan, close to Skylark and Almost There. The town there is small but full of restaurants, boutiques and gift shops. There's a nice beach too.
Louise, Shena and myself took advantage of being around in a rather big island (and French!) and decided to rent a car and do some shopping and provisioning. We all needed some new clothes, especially the kids that won't stop growing. The men very kindly offered to pile all the kids together and do school in Almost There (Stewart, from Skylark, being the exception as he was enjoying a cricket game in Dominica).
The next day the 11 of us got on a rented mini-van and went hiking the famous Mt. Pelée. There we met with our friends Arthi, from Brazil, and Wind Whisper, from Argentina. We all hiked for about 4 hours but couldn't get to the very top due to weather. The day deteriorated and it got rainy and cloudy with very poor visibility. All in all, it was a great experience and the fifth volcano we hiked in all. The kids are fascinated with hiking and are learning quite a lot about volcanology.
Our first stop was St. Pierre, the old capital city. The town is quite small but picturesque, with lots of remainders of the 1902 eruption of Mt. Pelée. Very close to the anchorage you can find the remains of the prison where the only survivor out of 3,000 inhabitants lived. Cyparis was imprisoned the night of May 7, 1902, after a bar fight and was spared of the deadly pyroclastic gasses due to the thickness of the prison walls and lack of good ventilation.
We stayed a few days in St. Pierre. We walked around the town, we snorkelled and the kids were introduced to diving. They grabbed some weight and using Ernesto's octopus, they went down about 8 ft. This is something we'll continue doing so they get more and more comfortable with the equipment.
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| St. Pierre and Mt. Pelée on the background |
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| Walking around St. Pierre |
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| Matias exploring the remains of the prison |
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| Cyparis's cell. |
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| The old theather |
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| View of Mt. Pelée from the theater |
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| The theater with its original floors. |
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| Local fishermen cleaning three really big tunas. Wish we could catch one of those! |
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| Diving with daddy. |
After that we sailed to the south and anchored in Anse Mitan, close to Skylark and Almost There. The town there is small but full of restaurants, boutiques and gift shops. There's a nice beach too.
Louise, Shena and myself took advantage of being around in a rather big island (and French!) and decided to rent a car and do some shopping and provisioning. We all needed some new clothes, especially the kids that won't stop growing. The men very kindly offered to pile all the kids together and do school in Almost There (Stewart, from Skylark, being the exception as he was enjoying a cricket game in Dominica).
The next day the 11 of us got on a rented mini-van and went hiking the famous Mt. Pelée. There we met with our friends Arthi, from Brazil, and Wind Whisper, from Argentina. We all hiked for about 4 hours but couldn't get to the very top due to weather. The day deteriorated and it got rainy and cloudy with very poor visibility. All in all, it was a great experience and the fifth volcano we hiked in all. The kids are fascinated with hiking and are learning quite a lot about volcanology.
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| On our way to the top... |
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| About half way there it got cloudy |
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| Walking around the crater |
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| The whole gang! |
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