We returned to St. Pierre. We absolutely love this anchorage. I can get fresh produce at the daily farmer's market.  Since we get a mooring buoy, we don't have to worry about dragging anchor or someone dragging into us. We're close enough to shore to see the locals going about their lives.  Naturally because it's France there was yet another holiday on May 1st. (Labor Day) so everyone out enjoying themselves. The local boys enjoying a ride on their ponies.

After a few days in St. Pierre, it was back to Le Marin for more boat work. On our way we were surrounded by Sargassum seaweed. There must have been a huge bloom going on, because our friends on different boats  also has issues with Sargassum during this time. If you're running your engine, it can get stuck in your prop, and either just slow you down, or get tangled in the prop all together. Our solution is to occationally put the boat in reverse to remove the Sargassum from the prop. It made for slow going to Le Marin Marina.

We had planned this trip back to Le Marin because our MiniMe washing machine had stopped working, so Alubat had agreed to send us a new washing machine. Since they were already shipping the washing machine, we also had them send us a new cockpit hatch cover, as the one we currently have is wonderful, but it's a pain to open when you are inside the boat, so we decided to purchase the one that Alubat had suggested as an upgrade 2 years ago. Now they only use the new hatch cover.

Since Martinique is actually part of France there is no import duty or tax due. Luckily Blair had no issues with the new washing machine, and we gave the MiniMe to a young couple who are good with computers, and they thought they could fix it. 

Because we were going to be at the dock anyway to install the washing machine, we took the opportunity to do order another pole for the boat. We knew that we couldn't just order a pole from any place. Since the boat is French we needed French parts, so we also order a pole here as this is the last French country until we're in French Polynesia. The rigger said it would take 4 days to get the pole. However, there was yet another holiday. May 8th Victory day, so it took 10 days to get the pole. I still haven't learned to tripple the time it will take to get a boat project done. 

So total of 2 weeks in Martinique. What did we accomplish between all the rainy days? 

• Ordered a new pole
• Picked up the new washing machine & hatch cover
• Installed the washing machine
• Gave away the old washing machine
• Purchased a new Aircon with 12,000 BTU's This is much stronger than the last one, and can actually cool the entire boat when we are plugged into electricity at a marina.
• Measured the amount of Fabric we need for window coverings and shade for the boat. 
• Designed and fabricated custom brackets to hold the new pole along the boom
• Measured the head sail and ordered a new furler, headsail and a code zero from England (Dolphin sails)
• Got my last of my french provisions, as I won't be able to get these items again until French Polynesia. 

We did take an afternoon for a "date" and took the dinghy out and cruised around the mangroves and looked at all the derelict boats. There are quite a few in the bay. 

This may not seem like much in 2 weeks, but there is generally a lot of research for everything. I felt we had accomplished alot, but we were definately ready to leave, and departed just an hour after we finally got the pole to the boat. We were off to St. Lucia to catch up with friends.