Tuesday, 13 July 2010

Back in Martinique

Our sail down to Martinique was far better than anticipated – hard on the wind but no tacking. We anchored overnight in Ste Pierre at the north of the island and made our way down the coast the next morning to Marin. We are here to stock up on wine, beer, cheese, pate etc and to renew one of our French-made roller furling systems which failed as we left St Martin.

We decided that this was the last chance to replace our fridge freezer. We have a European domestic appliance, now 7 years old, and if we keep to our current plans, this is the last island we will be able to purchase a 220 volt replacement. When our existing fridge breaks down we will be faced with an expensive and time-consuming re-build of the kitchen to install a boat fridge or an equally expensive import.

After a reconnoitre in Lamentin via bus and hitchhiking we found a suitable candidate for under 300 euros but the delivery was going to be 45 euros. We returned to Marin and rented a car (43 euros for a 5 door hatchback) so that we could collect the fridge freezer and also deliver our still-working old appliance to a new owner (the parents of our helpful and friendly car rental woman, Gladys). It all went very smoothly except for crunching into a lot of road closures due to the Tour de Martinique cycle races taking place this week. We definitely attracted some attention transporting fridge freezers back and forth to shore with our dinghy!

Now replete with booze and goodies, repairs done and new fridge freezer installed, we are on our way down to Rodney Bay, St Lucia in the next couple of days.

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