Monday, 2nd July 2012, 8:48 PM

Now I’m quickly writing this before I fall asleep… even though I’m supposed to go play darts in a minute… argh…such a stressful life 😉

Anyway, the day started early: I woke up at 5 a.m. because the engine stopped (the pilot came on board). I looked out the window and saw lights, which was really strange.

Since I couldn’t sleep anymore anyway, I got up right away, gave myself a lick and promise and brushed my teeth (or did I??) and went up to the bridge. Since it was still a bit early, I took my hooded jacket with me, but when I opened the door to go outside, I was immediately hit by muggy, stuffy and, above all, very warm air. I estimate that it was already 25°C at that time of day.

There was nothing unusual about the docking maneuver, except that we almost ran into a small tugboat because they were pushing another large ship and obviously didn’t notice that a mini 200-meter container ship was approaching directly behind them *eye roll*.

Fortunately, our crew was able to warn the crew of the tugboat in
time, but the captain said afterwards that it had been a very close call (well, we certainly wouldn’t have been able to brake in time).

After watching the maneuvering for a while, I got ready so that
I could tag along with the cadets (somehow, the whole taxi and how-do-I-get-out-of-the-harbor story was a little scary to me). At half past six sharp, I was sitting at breakfast and immediately got a nice scolding from Jean, who asked me what I was thinking, getting up so early, and whether I had fallen out of bed… well, that was pretty much what happened 😉

When I had finished breakfast, the cadets weren’t there yet, but the captain came by and we had a little „So, how’s it going? How do you like it on board“ chat. I said that I liked it very much and
when he asked me if I would do it again, I had to think about it for a long time. But only because at that time of day, I couldn’t think of
the right answer, which would be: „I’d prefer not to leave the ship at all,“ but something along the lines of still considering which profession might suit me best, because the engine room, steward, or kitchen are definitely out of the question. He then said I could work as a deck officer (I’ll have to ask him about the specifics on our way back) or marry one of his French crew members, then we could become friends and I could sail with him again. I must admit that even 12 hours later, I still don’t quite
understand the whole context, but I’m working on it 😉

I suspect that maybe the crew’s families are allowed to travel for free with the captain’s permission, but no idea.

In any case, I then received the information that the cadets were still on board and were not allowed to leave the ship before 8 a.m.
(originally they wanted to leave at 7 a.m.).
This meant I could finish packing my things in peace and even spend a whole half hour on the phone with home.

At around 8:15 a.m., Pierre-Antoine knocked and we were ready to go (theoretically). After waiting for Sandra and Adrian, my room neighbour, we set off about half an hour later, I think.
First, we walked out of the harbor, and it was already incredibly hot, or rather, it was “only” the humidity that was uncomfortably high.
We walked along the road for a while through the industrial port area, and I was wondering why we kept stumbling over cow dung before we suddenly found ourselves right next to a cow that was just lying there in the industrial area, in the shade by the side of the road, feeling slightly annoyed by us.

Shortly afterwards, Thomás stopped a shared taxi and what felt like three hours later (we drove criss-cross through the various industrial areas of Pointe-à-Pitre to pick up and drop off people), we arrived in the city center.

It was still hot and humid there and not particularly nice.
We strolled through the ugly streets. You get the feeling that
everywhere you look, there are sales of cheap clothes, shoes, and
accessories made in Taiwan. Music comes from all the stores—and cool air from the air conditioning. We also strolled through
various markets, where bored women pounced directly on
our promising group of customers. I think everyone except me
bought something.

There were spices that you got into your hand to smell them and afterwards the spices were thrown back into the bag, hand-filled liqueurs in bottles that had definitely not been sterilized, straw hats, and dolls made from banana leaves.

On our way through another, somewhat nicer side street with
small street cafés, we passed a street market selling handmade jewelry, which I would have been more interested in, but since our group consisted mainly of boys and Sandra wasn’t particularly interested either, in my opinion, we quickly passed the stalls. So quickly that one of the passers-by said to Pierre-Antoine: „Don’t run so fast, there’s a speed trap up ahead“ *lol*

From the bus station, we took a bus — I simply followed the others — and got off at Gosier beach. At first glance, it looks simply
fabulous: white sand, light blue water, trees on the beach that
provide shade, and hardly any people (well, it was Monday morning).

We looked for a shady spot. At least I did while the others settled down in the blazing sun. We put on our swimsuits, and within three minutes we were in the water.
This was my first time at an ocean in which you can walk right in: no shivering and saying, “Ugh, it’s cold,” or carefully cooling off first.
Here, you walk into the water, let yourself fall and enjoy 🙂

We spent the rest of the day reading, lying around, sleeping, and the others chatting. For lunch, I got a sandwich from a food truck parked in the beach parking lot. For €4.50 euros, I got half a baguette with a fried egg, fried minced meat, and cheese. And I wouldn’t have guessed it, but it was damn tasty and I even stayed full for the next few hours.

Around 4 p.m., we moved from our spot in the sun to the beach bar, where the cadets played cards and I slowly prepared for the “return trip.”
To my great delight, Adrian came with me. I don’t know if it was voluntarily or out of politeness (or orders) to babysit me and get me back to the ship safely. But I think without him I would never have made it back to the ship.

We took the bus to the city center (that’s the easy part) and after I had bought a few postcards, we looked for a taxi. This time, unfortunately, it wasn’t a shared taxi, and at first the driver didn’t know exactly where we wanted to go. We got in anyway (unfortunately??).

I already had a strange feeling when I saw the completely smashed mirror on the driver’s side, but that could have been a
passing car, couldn’t it?

Anyway, we drove towards the harbor and we could already see the Fort St. Louis (you can also see her from the city center) and I thought, Hey, we could have walked after all.
So we drive through the harbor entrance past the security gate and I frantically search for my boarding pass, which must be somewhere in my bag between my camera, wallet, sunscreen, towel, and underwear, when there was a huge bang.

At first, I had no idea what had happened until I looked out my window (behind the driver’s seat) and saw that the barrier from the harbor entrance was lying directly above me on the roof.
The taxi driver got out to assess the damage:
the taxi sign was completely destroyed, but otherwise there didn’t seem to be any major damage. While the driver was talking outside with the security guard, who had come running straight out of his little hut, I asked Adrian how the whole thing had actually happened (I hadn’t seen anything during my search), whether the barrier had fallen down just as we were driving through.
I could imagine that as a completely realistic scenario, but Adrian
said he had seen us driving towards the closed barrier and was about to say something, but the driver had simply driven into the
closed barrier, presumably assuming that it would open in time.

Well, what can you say… that’s Caribbean life for you…

After the security guard wrote something down in his notebook (I assume the taxi’s license plate number), we entered the port area.
However, we should have turned right, but there was a fence, so we turned left and ended up at the cruise terminal. When it turned out that this wasn’t the right terminal, the driver started to berate Adrian, who had actually spent the entire journey apologizing that he had never been to Pointe-à-Pitre before and unfortunately didn’t know his way around perfectly.

Tsss… that’s more the taxi driver’s problem than his…
So we went back to the entrance, where the driver went into the security booth and didn’t come out for a very, very long time. He was probably sorting out who would pay for his broken taxi sign.

Fortunately, he obviously had also someone explain the correct route to Port Autonome to him, because after that, everything went smoothly: We drove over two highways through at least two industrial areas and were back at our cargo terminal in no time.

There, he spent another 10 minutes filling out the 10 lines on the taxi receipt before we could finally – this time through the right entrance – make our way back to the Fort St. Louis.

At the security booth, the officer just wanted to see our boarding passes and then we were free to go.

I was so relieved when we stood in front of our little boat, you won’t believe it.
For the first time, I was able to take a few photos from the outside while Adrian told Jerôme, who was just on his way into town, about our adventurous taxi ride.

We recorded our return in the logbook and were thus officially back on board.

I threw my things into the room and jumped into the pool again to get rid of all the sand and cool off a bit. The only suboptimal thing
is when you wrap yourself in the sandy towel again after your “cleansing bath”… well, nobody’s perfect and it was a long sunny day (which can sometimes melt the brain as well) 😉

I felt a little odd because Gaél, Pasquale, and one or two other
people were sitting on the sundeck, all of them – except Gaél – still in their blue work overalls, but that’s just life on board.

Pasquale then confirmed that they still had a spot in the car for the next shore excursion on Friday (if three people could squeeze in the back)… yay 🙂

After a long shower, I went down to dinner. As always, I was starving, but I had just finished half of my starter (chicory salad) when Gaél came out of the kitchen and asked if I wanted to play darts. I said that I actually wanted to come over for a digestif after dinner and then we could play some rounds, but that was apparently too late for him. Gaél was… well, saying he was in a good mood would be an understatement… he was more like hyper-excited— maybe he had been on the phone with his girlfriend 😉

So I let myself be persuaded and didn’t play too badly, but Gaél won by a large margin. Note: Being in a good mood makes you a good darts player.

Since the cadets had canceled dinner, I ate with Gaél. Later,
the cook and Adrian joined us.
However, Gaél disappeared a few times during the meal and then, shortly before I finished my apple dessert, he disappeared for good.

So I went over to the crew smoking room, where, strangely enough, the door was closed. I opened it carefully and immediately realized that I had walked into an internal meeting. Pasquale said that now, of all times, was not a good time.
I said no problem and went back to my cabin.

After half an hour, I went back downstairs to see if I could still get in a round of darts, but they weren’t finished yet.
So I gave up and was in bed shortly after 10 p.m., dead tired.