Martinique

Windward Islands

local boats

Martinique is the largest island of the French West Indies, which means it is Europe. The anchorage in Les Marins was very convenient. Sheltered, full of sights and a huge French style supermarket within dinghy reach. How we enjoyed the variety of European food...

On weekends there were regattas of the local sailing craft, which were always a lot of fun for everyone.

Colourful island style houses and the birthplace of Napoleon's wife Josephine. Formerly being a rather modest plantation, today it is a carefully preserved national heritage museum. The park with all its exuberant flowers and odours, not to mention all those exotic birds, is a real must. The staff is friendly, very much into the history of the place, and, what is most important for ignorant travellers like us, multilingual.

Fort de France is the capital, where everything happens. The anchorage beneath Fort St. Louis is a bit rolly, due to the swell and the ferries roaring by. But we got used to it and enjoyed the amenities of a real French city.


Like usual, we didn't see enough of the island, due to boat maintenance, medical conditions, provisioning and so on. But we will certainly come back... It's so beautiful... And we had one week of "da Carnaval", which was absolutely fantastic, have a look at our special page about this event. Carnival in Martinique

Backwaters in Fort de France

The architectural beauties of this real Victorian city are numerous, especially the Victor Schoelcher Library, who was a 19th century philantropist and promoter of the abolition of slavery. He must have been a very impressive personality, we found his traces on almost all of the former French colonies we visited.


But there is always time for a sundowner...


Well, on occasion you have to run back to your boat, before one of these tropical downpours arrives.