Back to Martinique

Martinique continues to be one of our preferred places in the Caribbean. It has nice hikes, nice beaches and, being one of the biggest islands in the Lesser Antilles, it has quite a bit of infrastructure. Being on a boat, this means that if anything breaks, you are most likely to find a spare here. And on top of all this, there's the food: great wine, lots of cheese and baguettes. And all very cheap too. What else can you ask?

This time, we stayed in Ste-Anne and Le Marin. Ste-Anne is a small and picturesque town. It has a nice anchorage and a nice beach. Very close to it is Le Marin, where you can do some provisioning, something that we needed to do.

Walking around St. Anne

Regatta day in St. Anne.

We were told we could get to the nice beach of Les Salines by walking about 30 minutes from Ste-Anne. So we decided to make it a day and go explore. We found a path in the middle of trees and started walking on it. The path was great but a bit muddy as it had rained a lot the day before. After walking for about 40 minutes and being at least another 40 minutes away from the nice beach, we decided to get back and just picnic on a closer beach. But it wasn't that nice...

Trying to get from the trail to the beach proved to be a bit of an experience.

Our dirtiest feet ever after the hike! Note mine are not so bad :)

After walking for 40 minutes we got to a crappy beach only to realize we could've taken the dinghy and gotten there in 5 minutes!

 The following day we decide to try again to find Les Salines. This time, though, we took the big boat and voilà!

Finally at Les Salines!

We rented a car for a day and drove around the island. We visited the place of birth of Josephine, Napoleon Bonaparte's first wife. And we also went to the Botanical Gardens. We enjoyed both of these places and highly recommend them. Being used to the less than great quality of some of the museums we visited in the Caribbean, these two places were an unexpected surprise. Both of them are very well maintained and well worth the money spent.

Our very  small rental car :)

The mill at Josephine's birth place.

Museum of Josephine Bonaparte. 

Botanical gardens.

There's a nice bridge in the botanical gardens. The kids loved it!

A river at the side of the road.

We are currently anchored in St. Pierre. Tomorrow we'll move to Les Saintes, in Guadeloupe.  Goodbye Martinique, it has been great visiting here!