We’ve found our 110v coffee maker doesn’t work, we’re going to have to figure something out there, hopefully we can find a 220v machine that uses Keurig pods.

We head out towards Presqu’ile – the roads are good, traffic medium but we are going in the opposite direction of traffic generally. We’ve decided to visit the town of Saint Marie first, it has an interesting island you can walk to if the tide is low. We get caught in some kind of protest blocking the main roadway so have to zig zag through the backroads to get back on the main highway.

Saint Marie is quaint, looks a bit like a cheesy tourist town in the off season. The tide is too high, we’re also a bit early in the season, so can’t make the walk across the sand spit to Tombolo, the island. Too bad it looks interesting. Still, we walk along the beach and make it about half way to the island before it gets too deep to go further. Pretty short swim but no one really wants to and they say the currents are dangerous. (Two different swells converge here from around the island.)

We walk back through the town looking for a store that sells ? can’t remember. Don’t find it, but Scott and I bravely try a double espresso from McDonalds. For a fast food store it takes forever to make but is surprisingly good. Pretty soon we’re back on the road headed to Presqu’ile.

It’s about another half hour south and looks very interesting. We drive as far as we can into the park, wisely avoiding the last 900 m walk that many people didn’t and you can see they are hot and tired. Trails go everywhere but we take the main one that should be about a 9 km circle. 1.4 km in there is detour to see the lighthouse that started up in the 1800s. Great views all around, we stop for a snack at the base.

Back at the junction, Scott and Carol don’t want to continue on the hike around the peninsula, they are still fagged from their hike up Gros Pitons. We return to the parking lot, then take the short path down to the plantation ruins. It looks very interesting but don’t feel like paying the E$8 per person for the 45 minute self-guided tour, seems it might make us late to get back to the boat. We head back to the car and go to the nice little beach in the bay that marks the entrance to the Presqu’ile peninsula. Have a great swim in the very nice sandy waters.

Soon enough we depart and I zippity zip the little Renault Clio back towards Fort-de-France. We stop at the mall with the Decathlon store – there is a Canadian-tire-like home store there where we go to look around and I find the plumping valve I need to fit the aft toilet (the one I brought from Canada is too big).

Then we go to Decathlon which is a mammoth sports store. Scott and Carol get some clothing and Christy and I invest in some better snorkel gear for her – we’ll see if there is much improvement over the SportChek variety.

On the other side of the highway is the big mall so we go over to investigate the grocery store. It is even bigger than the Carrefour so we load up, including the purchase of an E$40 220v Espresso-style coffee maker. We also buy a bunch of pods. Turns out there is no Keurig in Martinique so our other pods are no good unless we can somehow retrofit them.

The girls continue to shop while Scott and I go on the hunt for a decent cup of coffee. We find it upstairs in the mall – in fact an excellent cup and they have ice cream too. Back downstairs we collect the girls and head back to Milu where Christy makes us a meal on board.