Martinique, day 8 – Trinity

Tuesday 24 April: Before 6am we awake to Darius chirping in the cockpit. Oana is up to get them breakfast but Glen just puts in ear plugs and goes back to sleep till 7am.
At 8am the guy arrives with the hire car …. only he hasn’t. He has actually arrived to take us to the airport to get the hire car. Sounds easy but in the rush hour traffic this takes almost an hour before getting back to Cloudy Bay.
Before we set off for the day, Glen pops up the mast to seal the end of the AIS antenna to prevent any water ingress, if we haven’t had it already.
Then we set off to the east coast, Trinity area. We are amazed at just how developed Martinique is. Roads are excellent, farming the sugar cane is on industrial scale and frankly it’s like driving in the France countryside in summer. This island contrasts so much with its neighbors.
We drive right to the end of the Trinity peninsula and walk to the ruins of Dubuc Chateau, which was a rum plantation and processing plant from 18th century. All that’s left are the walls and foundations but it’s well presented. Darius has a great time running through the ruined walls which seem like a maze to him.
At midday sharp it’s lunch time for guests. Although Oana has prepared sandwiches, we stop at a beach restaurant where Teo, Geta and Glen have a salad whilst Oana woos Darius to sleep. Once he is in dreamland we place him on a towel on the beach in the lovely cool breeze (28 DegC) where he sleeps for 2 hours solid. It seems he and parents are finally getting over jet-lag.
Just off of this beach there is a school teaching surfing in the Atlantic swell, which is much less today but still making waves crash on the beach, so we drive on and stop at another beach which is much more sheltered. In fact, it would hardly been blowing more than 10kts – a crossing to St.Lucia today would have been much more agreeable. Hmmmm. Would-have, could-have, should-have comes to mind!
At this second beach, Darius is soon in the water where clearly he loves to be. And aunty Oana is really enjoying playing with him. We are sitting in the warm sea water when our guests surprise us by saying they would still like to sail to St.Lucia. After yesterday’s sea sickness we thought they would never want such a venture ever again!
On the way back to Cloudy Bay we take the scenic D4 route via Fort de France, then Teo and Geta pop into Decathalon while Glen and Oana wait outside with Darius. We have been in Decathalon twice already, we cannot go in a 3rd time!
Back on Cloudy Bay, Darius is asleep very quickly. It seems we completely wore him out today! And after dinner, parents are not far behind him. And having been up since 6am we are also not far behind. It looks like it’s all 4 of us that are now on Darius’ timetable! So ends a good day … or at least a significant upgrade on yesterday!