Martinique, St Pierre
Martinique is part of France and the EU, and uses the Euro.
We spent the first few days at St Pierre in the north-west of the island, this is a very pleasant small town which is decidedly French. There are no boat boys here. Prices are also at least French. There is a big market every week, but on all days someone has a stall selling vegetables. While we were here the Carnival started, generally this involved processions, loud music, loud drums and dancing through the streets, and food stalls in the square. The atmosphere was good.
The anchorage is breezy enough to keep cool, although there is a limit to the number of boats as the shelf of anchoring depth by the shore is narrow. There is a ferry dock which was ideal for tying the dinghy, right by the square. The customs procedure here was just to visit the local cybercafe and fill in the form, it was stamped and we took away a copy. Quite relaxed!
We did not use the internet here, but when we tried wireless access from the anchorage we could find nothing which we could access.
We spent time with the Canadian couple we had met in Dominica, as well as seeing a few other boats we knew. The water was clean and we swam off the boat every day to keep cool.
The town was an important port in the 1850′s but the eruption of the Mont Pelee volcano above the town in 1902? killed virtually all of the inhabitants, and the current town is much smaller. The town buildings are built upon the ruins of the old town buildings, often mixing old walls with new.
We visited the local rum distillery a few kilometres up the hill, this was very interesting for all of us especially because the sugar cane crushing and various other processes were still being powered by an old steam engine, and there was an old water wheel which was now just decorative but used to power the distillery.
Soon it was time to move on, and we continued to the capital, Fort de France, which was a couple of hours motoring away, in the lee of the island.