MARTINIQUE . PARIS IN THE TROPICS .

Our sail up from St Lucia to Martinique turned out to be our gentlest inter-island passage of the season to-date . Having ripped the tendon on my bicep during the storm off Mustique it was a relief for me not having to face some physical sailing and straining my arm and for most of the crossing we had 15kns of wind slightly forward of the beam and with a full main and genoa we held 7kns of boatspeed until the wind started to die just short of the south coast of Martinique .

To avoid arriving in the dark off St Anne we fired up our Perkins and motor-sailed the last few miles dropping anchor right behind our good friends Jim & Carol onboard Nepenthe . We were welcomed to dinner and spent the evening catching up on all the happenings since we last sailed off in different directions from Union Island in the Grenadines .

The next morning while having our first cup of coffee we switched on our FM radio and we may as well have been in the heart of Paris going on what we were hearing over the radio . The one thing about the French is that they don't short change themselves at all when it comes to living in one of France's offshore territories . Excellent French food not to mention French music and fashion make the island a paradise for Francophiles . The one advantage they have over their counterparts back on mainland France is the tropical climate along with some magnificent beaches .

" Joie de vivre “ is the credo in this French enclave .

Carol had been planning our island tour long in advance but this time our best option was to hire a car and conduct our own tour with me as the designated driver and Carol the navigator and tour guide . We hired a neat little Citroen and set off for the famous rum distillery Habitation Clement which is renowned for their old matured rums . Rum is my favourite tipple and by the end of our visit l was a lot clearer on what goes into producing the Caribbean's most popular drink. In the tasting room l spotted a 1952 vintage selling for 1250 euros .

Apart from the distillery the Creole plantation home which is now 250 years old and is also a listed heritage building was very impressive , set in a magnificent old garden which forms part of a 16 hectare estate . Part of the estate includes an amazing palm grove with a huge variety of different palm species .

The next part of our tour was a tortuous drive up through the rain forests past the pitons along the windiest road l have ever driven on . Steep inclines and tight turns best describes the mountain road we took finally arriving in St Pierre on the north-west coast .

The Mont Pelee eruption and the devastation it caused is clearly visible throughout the town with the remaining ruins that survived the disaster incorporated into the current structures . A museum tells the story that unfolded on that fateful day in 1902 in the Caribbean's most developed city at the time .

Martinique is the largest of the Windward Islands and it is also the island where Empress Josephine , Napoleon's first wife and impressionist painter Paul Gauguin called home .

But it is most famous for Mont Pelee , one of the tallest volcanoes in the Caribbean which erupted in 1902 killing some 30,000 people in just two minutes .

While passage planning to St Pierre l noticed that the chart showed numerous wrecks littered all over the anchorage which pricked my interest as to what had caused so many ships to go down in such a concentrated area . After a bit of research l discovered that most of these ships were casualties of the eruption of Mont Pelee . All in all , twelve ships were lost in one day .

The rise and fall of St Pierre is one of the most remarkable stories in Caribbean history . Martinique's modern history began here in 1635 . By the turn of the 20^th century St Pierre was a flourishing city of 30,000 people . It was the most modern town in the Caribbean with electricity , telephones and a tram As many as 30 ships at a time stood at anchor taking on rum,sugar,coffee and cocoa .

The volcano gave some warning signs that trouble was brewing . Minor rumblings began early in April and on the 23^rd April a sizable eruption occurred covering the town in ash . People started pouring in from outlying villages . On the 2^nd May a major eruption occurred covering the city with enough ash to kill birds and animals . Later on the same day Pierre Laveniere the owner of an estate to the south of St Pierre went to inspect his crops with a party of workers and they were all swept away by a vast avalanche of boiling volcanic mud .

Then on the 5^th May it was the turn of one of the richest estates in the area known as the Guerin Estate . A massive torrent of volcanic effluent including mud,lava,super-heated gasses and rocks estimated to be a quarter mile wide and a 100ft high completely buried the estate killing the family and many workers .

The end came on the 8^th May at 8.02am when the side of the volcano facing St Pierre glowed red and with two thunderous explosions Mont Pelee split in half creating a giant fireball of super-heated gas that flowed down over the city releasing energy 40 times greater than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima . Toxic gases and lava heated to 3600 degrees F raced down the mountain at 250mph completely vapourizing everything in its path including 30,000 people in less than two minutes .

Twelve ships were completely destroyed at anchor and the only survivor turned out to be a prisoner who was locked away in an underground stone cell proving the point that on occasions crime does pay , maybe not in cash . The poor guy being the sole survivor and having lived through this massive human tragedy later hit the road and joined the Barnum & Bailey Circus as a sideshow attraction .

Many ruins still remain today and a museum depicts that era and the tragedy itself . Standing in the town and looking up at the volcano l tried to picture the scene on that fateful day in St Pierre . Fortunately for those who were there, the end came quickly .

Having read up a lot on this event it is fascinating how money and politics played a role in this tragedy which led to the unnecessary deaths of thousands of lives .

Another great story is the one about HMS Diamond Rock which in fact is a rock commissioned as a ship because at the time the British were a little short on ships . In 1804 , Napoleon was in control of Europe but the British had naval supremacy and largely controlled the Caribbean .

Diamond Rock was perfectly situated on the south coast of Martinique and after the arduous task of scaling this steep sided rock infested with snakes , the British had equipped this pinnacle with cannons and enough supplies and water for a full complement of men .

For some 18 months HMS Diamond Rock was a very unpleasant surprise for any unsuspecting French ship sailing to Martinique via it's south coast . Napoleon threw his toys out of the cot . The French got wind of the fact that the British were getting cabin fever on their isolated rock and they arranged for barrels of rum to drift up onto the rock . The French easily overpowered the inebriated British sailors taking control and liberating the rock .

While in Martinique we based ourselves in the St Anne anchorage but decided to overnight anchored off St Pierre on route to Dominica . After a decent broad reach all the way up Martinique's west coast we dropped the pick right opposite the famous ruins on the waterfront . The wrecks of the ships that were destroyed in the eruption were all around us and l tried to imagine what those sailors must have seen minutes before they were vapourized .

On the day of our tour while we were in the museum we were told that Mont Pelee's peak is very seldom seen as it is always shrouded in cloud but guess what , on our last day in Martinique while slowly motoring out of the anchorage at first light , the cloud cleared exposing the entire peak not once but on four separate occasions over a period of half an hour before the cloud rolled over once again .

What a way to end our stay on this beautiful island . We felt very privileged .