March 20 - Fort-de-France, Martinique

Here we are in France.  Yes, Martinique is an official overseas territory and department of France.  The currency is the Euro and everyone speaks French, the official language, and some Martinican Creole.  The island has been under French ownership since 1635. Columbus had charted the island during his first voyage, but for whatever reason the Spanish weren’t interested in it. Like most of the other islands in the Caribbean at various times other countries would attack and control the place for a while before being run off by someone else.  The French ultimately maintained control and there is a very different flavor here from what we experienced yesterday in Barbados, which is very British.

This was the second port we visited on our first cruise in 1983 and we took a tour of the island then.  I’ve come back a couple of other times so today I decided not to go on the tour I’d booked and sleep later (Yay!!).  There are a few things about the island that I find interesting so I’ll tell you about them.  First, there is a volcano on the northern end, Mt.Pelée, which is still active.  In 1902 it erupted and destroyed the nearby town of Saint-Pierre.  The story I was told on my first visit was that the only survivor of that event was a man who was locked up in a basement jail cell in Saint-Pierre.  It was his lucky day, I guess.  The other thing I found interesting is that a very famous woman came from here.  Empress Josephine, Napoleon’s first wife, was the daughter of a wealthy French planter on Martinique.  I know it’s not a historically important piece of trivia, but I’ve always been intrigued by that era and have thought of Josephine as a sort of tragic figure.

Back to the present.  One of my friends and I went ashore in the late morning and walked into the city which is quite picturesque.  It reminds me of some of the towns you can see along the coast in the Mediterranean.  We found a pedestrian street that we walked on away from the waterfront and eventually came to a square with cafés at every corner so we decided to stop and have lunch.  It was one of those places where you go in and order and they give you a beeper to tell you when it’s ready.  The menu was in French and I used my high school French (that was a long time ago!) and sign language to order. We each had a fish filet sandwich and a local beer.  As we ate, a shower came along with a substantial breeze so we shifted to be more undercover, but it passed quickly.  Across the square a couple of musicians were playing guitars and singing so it was very pleasant.  It was a nice little interlude.

Fort-de-France from the ship

Nice little square

The blue and white sign on the left is for the Carrefours market (the large French grocery chain) just around the corner

The old French fort near our dock

After lunch we decided to head back to the ship since neither of us really needed to do any shopping.  On the other side of our pier was a new P&O ship which looked like a monster next to us.  I asked a couple who were walking back to that ship how many passengers it carried. They told me there were 4600 aboard, but its capacity was a little over 6000 plus 3000 crew!  One of their lifeboats could hold slightly more people than the Quest’s maximum passenger load.

Sort of a David and Goliath kind of photo

We had a sailaway party on deck and the band played all ABBA songs.  There was dancing of course.  I missed that because I was taking care of some business and talking to some people I’d met.  I’m sorry I did because evidently the passengers on the P&O ship began dancing on their verandas and open deck, and one man there who must have had an awful lot of rum punch decided to moon everyone. Classy move, n’est-ce pas.  I'm very glad I'm on this ship not that one. Tomorrow we'll be in Antigua.  Au revoir for now.