To arrive in Martinique has turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax for both of us, even though we barely talked about anything else during the crossing or before for that matter. Martinique hasn't live up to our expectations, which for my part have been have been completely off. I thought I had read somewhere that Martinique and especially the main city Fort-de-France was full of high-end and luxury brand shops, so I imagined Martinique to be something like the French Riviera with and island flavour. I do wonder where I've picked that up, because Fort-de-France couldn't be less like Cannes or Nice!

For Henrik, coming ashore has been an anti-climax as well, and maybe even more than it has been for me. (I can live with the fact that I haven’t arrived in Southern France.) It has been Henrik’s dream to cross the Atlantic, and we hadn't been ashore for long, before he said that he needed to sit down and think about the fact that he had just accomplished what he had been dreaming about since he was 7 years old! He doesn't care about seeing new places to the same extent as I, though, so I think he finds it difficult to figure out what he is supposed to do now that he’s here. That is besides fixing the boat, which he’s really tired of at the moment, and he’s constantly talking about buying a new boat. These days he’s trying to seal several leaks in the boat, since rain is coming in. It was raining a lot on Christmas Eve, so when we came back from our Christmas dinner, the mattress in our front cabin was wet. That it’s raining so much has also come as a surprise to us. The first couple of days we left the boat with the hatches open, though we quickly learned not to do that!

Since we came to Martinique, that boat has been in Marina Le Marin, and even though we have a great spot close to the showers and washing machines, we are getting tired of being here. The chandleries don’t have what we need, the supermarkets practically don’t sell any meat, and everything is expensive – some groceries are even more expensive than in Waitrose in London! The marina is more or less like a huge parking lot for boats, so we’re looking forward to leave the marina and experience the real Caribbean – if it exists that is!

All photos and blog by Signe Dorothea Storr - Free lance Journalist