We arrived in St. Pierre  on Christmas Day. It was a fresh start and a new island. Makaela and I went to the little zoe on St. Pierre and were very impressed with the landscaping. The animals were well cared for, but I think the star of the show was all the fantastic plants and how the zoo was laid out , including a creek and an old rum factory.

We loved the town of St. Pierre. It's a small community, even with all the cruisers that come to town, you still get locals greeting you, and a daily farmer's market.  St. Pierre is the site of the 1902 Mt. Pelee volcanic eruption that killed 28,000 people and decimated the community. The town shows off its history by many of the buildings that remain in disrepair 125 years later.  

Makaela flew out on December 26th, so it was time to get back to work. We had planned this trip to Martinique because we had heard that the Marina in Le Marin Martinique is one of the best places in the Caribbean to get work done, especially if you have a French made boat like ours. Martinique is actually part of France, so you can get parts from France more easily than in all the other Caribbean islands. 

We had planned on spending 1 month doing upgrades and getting parts shipped in. We ended up spending 7 weeks at the dock for everything. Most of the time was waiting for parts to arrive through shipping. It wasn't too bad, as I could walk to the end of the dock and pick up croissants.  I ended up going back to Truckee for 4 days just to pick up over 300 lbs of gear for the boat.  This is what we accomplished during our time in Martinique.

• New Generator
• New 15 HP Yamaha 2 stroke
• New stainless steel around the entire boat, replacing the lifelines
• New Cars for the mainsail
• More Solar
• Improvements on the electricity
• A bracket to hold the new outboard motor
• Setting up the BBQ
• Improving the davits for the Dinghy

We did take time to watch the local skiff racing. It's good fun to watch the local boats. 

We also started to connect with other cruisers, and our social calendar started booking up with hikes. dinners and enjoying the parade for Carnival. 

We started to work our way north with a stop in Grand Anse to see the fish and turtles. I was finally able to use my go pro to take photos of animals underwater.  We stayed for a few days and then back north to St. Pierre and moving north to Dominica again. 

Great fun with Tally Ho and Geronimo of Orwell!