Five days with Mirkil

Our friend Jay arrived on Feb. 28th, just as Marc, the engineer, was installing our re-built windlass. Jay’s plane literally flew over the boat, so we waved as it went by. An hour later, he was waiting at the Etang Z’abricot Marina office for Andrew to pick him up in the dinghy. The next few days, we explored Fort de France and the surrounding bays with our friend.

We visited the Grande Marche in the city where fresh fruits & vegetables, spices and other goodies are sold on Saturday morning. We saw some of the beautiful colonial architecture such as that found on the Hotel de Ville and many government buildings.

We took a short motor sail to Anse Mitan, a lovely beach across the Fort de France Bay. It was busy with kids playing, beachside restaurants and little shops. We enjoyed the people watching (mostly scantily clad people that shouldn’t be) as we walked around and took a meal at Barracuda’s. 

The next day, we took the boat along the green hilly coastline to another bay called Grande Anse D’Arlet, where we anchored with hundreds of boats of all types. On shore, we walked the promenade along the beach, spotted these two young girls selling “coiffures” and the occasional topless bather and enjoyed a meal of crevettes (shrimp), curried chicken, and pomme frittes at P’ Ti Bateau.

Our last day with Jay, we took a land tour to La Mauny Rum Distillery, where we learned that different rum brands use various methods for creating their special flavors, including using steel or copper distillation vats and sugar cane from different areas of the island.

After the rum distillery, we drove by Le Diamant, a huge rock that was apparently thrown 2 miles offshore by a volcano many years ago and today provides a landmark for cruisers and quite a site from shore. We saw it up close the next day, which provides some additional perspective.

On the other side of town from Le Diamant is a modern sculpture installation called Cap 110, which provides another view of the rock and a poignant memorial to local victims of the slave trade. 

Next we stopped for lunch of King Mackeral and fricasse of lambi (which turned out to be conch) in Ans D’Arlet, a quaint seaside town with a beautiful church grounding it’s center.

The last stop on our tour was the Village de la Potterie, where we saw beautiful vases and bowls made of the local red clay and got to purchase some handmade chocolates to restock my dwindling on board dessert offerings.