12-5-17 Martinique:

On to the city of Fort De France, Martinique.  I had thought we might walk to the ferry and go to a beach on the other side of the bay. But the ferry was over a mile away from the port we docked at.  i was hoping we'd be at the one right next to the ferry like we were last time we were in Martinique.  Didn't really matter.  As the tv showed, there were thunderstorms which lasted most of the day.  And lots of rain,  So we did another first---we stayed on board the ship. 

I did take pictures from the ship, though.

2014-April 18, Good Friday-Martinique (7-1:30):

Why does planning things for Martinique turn out so difficult?!  I had planned to take the ferry to the other side of the bay and hit a beach, but Ken was paranoid we'd miss the ferry back.  I had read that the ferry dock was only about 5 minutes from the cruise port and was confused since when we were here on the Noordam we had to walk 1.4 miles to the ferry dock.  This time we were docked right by the ferry.  Now I know there are at least 2 cruise ship ports!---The larger Point Simon Cruise Terminal and the smaller one we were at today, Quai des Tourelles Cruise Port.  Anyway, we decided with such a short stop, we would try to go on a taxi tour.  We knew it would be expensive (about 60 Euro/hour), but decided to do it anyway.  The hard part was finding 2 more couples that wanted to do the same tour we did and having a taxi large enough for all of us. 

Our ship docked in Fort-De-France

2012 Noordam 11 night cruise

11 night Southern Caribbean Cruise

After our last 2 November Caribbean cruises in less then ideal weather conditions, you would think we'ld learn not to cruise the Caribbean in hurricane season!  But we persisted and gave it another try.  This time we did our longest cruise yet---11 nights on the Noordam and had almost perfect weather the whole time!   We actually booked this cruise while we were on the Eurodam last year.

I chose this cruise , (Holland America's Noordam) mainly because it went to St. Lucia.  I've always wanted to see St. Lucia.  The cruise also included stops in St. Maarten, Barbados, Dominica, Martinique, St. Thomas, and Half Moon Cay.  It was very port intensive, which I loved---6 port days in a row, another port later.  Ken's more of a sea day fan, but he held up pretty well.

2012 Noordam ship

2012-11-5,6, and 7  Up to and including our first 3 nights:  Sea days

2012-11-8  St. Maarten 

2012-11-9  St. Lucia

2012-11-10  Barbados

2012-11-11 Martinique

2012-11-12  Dominica

2012-11-13 St. Thomas


After 6 port days in a row, the next day was a welcomed sea day!  Even though I'm not a big fan of sea days, the day of rest was nice.  Althought my plans for sleeping in didn't go so well.  Somewhere in the Caribbean waters I encountered what I assume was sea lice---invisible to the eye, larvae or jellyfish or other stinging ocean critters that attacked me---and I ended up with an extremely itchy rash.  I had this happen before on a couple of our trips to Hawaii (out of about 20 trips to Hawaii), so I wasn't surprised.  Apparently they don't bother everyone---like Ken---but they sure like me.  Took about 5 days for the extreme itching to subside.  At least it happened near the end of our cruise.

2012-11-15 Halfmoon Cay

his was Ken's 4th cruise, my 10th.   Other than my first cruise (when my Dad almost drowned), I haven't had a bad one yet (not counting weather).  I really enjoyed seeing the new places and revisiting the ones we've been to.  We enjoyed it so much we even did the onboard booking for the ship board credit for the next one.  The $200 ship board credit for booking onboard last year and the $100 OBC for having CCL stock came in really handy this year.  After gratuities of $12/day@ , the Canelleto dinner, and a couple other items we bought onboard, we only owed $56 when we debarked. 

Now to start dreaming about where to go next!





2012-11-11 Martinique:

Today we were at the port of Martinique.  It was much more commecialized then the other islands we went to.  They aren't dependant on tourism and it shows.  
Cruising into the port.

Here's a view of a small part of Martinique from our cruise ship. 

This port was more difficult to do a self excursion.  We had hoped to take a taxi to a beach about 30 minutes away and do some snorkeling.  Unfortunately, the taxi drivers here wanted 60 euro/hour and wouldn't just leave and come back.  They wanted to be paid for the whole time we snorkeled.  We had talked about doing just an hour long taxi ride, then be dropped off at a ferry port to ride over the bay and walk to a beach on the other side since.  But the driver then said we had to book him for at least 2 hours.  At that point, we took off on foot to the ferry. 

Along the way, we passed this fort that we saw from our verandah earlier-Fort St. Louis.  It is a fortress on a peninsula at Fort-de-France.  Today the fort is both an active naval base and a listed historic site of France.



 

 We also came across this ceremony.  That's when we remembered it was Veteran's Day, or Armistice Day in France.

 pretty flowers along the way

  We came upon a ferry port and waited in line only to find out that port was for ferries to other islands.  The ferry we wanted was another 1/2 mile or so down the road.  Another person walking near us was wearing a pedometer and said the walk was 1.4 miles from the cruise port.  It was a pretty nice walk, though.

 We waited about 30 minutes for the ferry which was suppose to run every hour.  While waiting, I thought it would be nice to grab a drink from McDonald's across the street.  I was surprised to find it closed, along with everything else in the area because it was Sunday.

 While waiting, I took a few more pictures from the immediate area.

 Don't know what this statue is for, but I thought it was pretty neat.

 Map of the center of town.

 On the ferry.

After our 15 minute of so ferry ride which we paid $10/person rt for, we had another walk to the beach.  I figure that walk was about another mile, but it was more like a residential area then a town.

Finally reach the beach (I believe we ended up at Anse Mitan).  It was pretty.  Lots of little restaurants/bars along the beautiful beach.

I knew the snorkeling wouldn't be any good, but I was surprised to see there were some critters there.

 The water was probably about 82 degrees and very calm and clear.  We spent a couple hours here.

 It even rained a bit while we were here.  It was the only rain we really encountered the whole cruise--at least during the daytime.

looking back towards the beach from the water.

On the way back to the ferry dock, we tried to shop a couple of the shops  that happened to be open.   Found out a lot of people there don't speak English or take the US dollar. 
 I liked this style of painting.

 got a kick out of this Star-Wars like bathroom.

 We did find an ice cream shop that did and I got a Light (not diet) Coke and a soft serve pistachio and mango cone for $7.  Don't know what happened with the return ferry, but we waited well over an hour for it. 
wandered around the marina a bit taking more pictures.

Back on the other side, we were walking back when a taxi drove up and the driver said he would take us back to the cruise ship for $2.  Once we got in, along with a few other people, the charge mysteriously became 2 Euro@. 

For our first time to Martinique and not knowing what to expect, we ended up having a good time.