On Monday, we rented a car (again) with Safina and set out to tour the island. This time we got a small Peugeot with standard shift. The car was great fun, especially trying to get started when stopped on the steep hills. We toured the Atlantic side of the island as there are no anchorages on this side and the only way we could explore was by car. The countryside was beautiful. Banana and sugar cane orchards were in abundance. With all the rain, the forest was different shades of green. Our first stop was Clement's Habitation. This was a rum distillery and the grounds and houses had been restored to their original "plantation" format. The grounds were incredible with a palm tree walk exhibiting many different varieties of palm trees. The houses and grounds are now used for entertaining foreign dignitaries so are kept in top form. From there, we went to a banana museum where we saw - bananas. There are over 300 varieties of bananas. The museum actually has many of the varieties growing on their grounds and we were able to sample any that were ripe. It was a banana lover's heaven and the different flavours were incredible. We even had banana ice cream while watching a video on growing bananas. By this time, we had worked our way up the west coast of Martinique and it was time to head for home. The most direct route was along the side of Mt. Pelee (of volcano fame) and through the central mountain along switch back roads. Actually, you drive these roads by continuously turning the wheel in one direction, then the other, while either climbing or descending a mountain. To make it entertaining, there was usually only room for one car in the blind turns. We even had some showers along the way to liven things up. Still, the drive was great fun through dense rain forest and we made it back to the boat safely at dusk.

The next few days were rain days and we appreciated all the green in Martinique. Actually it rained buckets and the streams washed dirt and branches into the anchorage. Le Marin was a handy anchorage but the water was not the cleanest. Karen was thrilled with all the clean rain water in the dinghy and did a large laundry. Unfortunately clean water isn't all you need when doing laundry and our lifelines were full of clothes "rinsing" for a few days until we finally started getting breaks in the weather for drying. The only way to dry them was to keep bringing them in when it rained, then hang them back out when it stopped. Quite a scramble when you also have to close all the ports when it rains and open them again when it stops. How we get our exercise!

On Friday, we moved to St. Anne, just around the corner in the next bay. Here the water was clean and we could restart our water maker and go for a swim. Also we had to give Vagus's bottom a good clean. The antifouling paint for the Great Lakes does not do well in tropical waters and we will have to get her repainted in Grenada. Meanwhile, it was over the side with a scotchbrite pad and scrub, scrub, scrub for me. All in all, it took me 4 hours to do the sides and rudder. J.P. on Safina had scuba tanks and did the keel for me, which was much appreciated. So that was my exercise for the day. J.P. (who did his boat) and I were exhausted. Of course Karen took advantage of the situation and beat us all at dominos later in the afternoon.

St. Anne was a nice quiet town with not much happening at this time of year. The first thing we do when arrive at a new place is look for grocery or marine stores and see what is available. Generally different stores stock different products so we have to shop around. Of course, we also have to buy our freshly baked baguette for lunch and carry it around under the arm, looking decidedly French as we wander about. We bought a book - French for Cruisers - by Kathy Parsons, that we would highly recommend. It is a great refresher for our high school French, has all French words for different the boat and engine parts (with diagrams) as well as food items and has useful phrases to get you started. We carried it with us when we were on our own to help when we got stuck on words.

We really enjoyed Martinique and look forward to revisiting the island in the future. One point we missed was the exchange rate on the Euro - the official currency for Martinique. The Euro had strengthened in relation to the US dollar and we were surprised to find (after buying a bunch of boat parts) that one Euro was now worth $1.70 Canadian - ouch. We had hoped to pick up some duty free wine but the prices scared us off. We did not see any real bargains. It was just a fun place to visit.