Friday, 6th July 2012

I woke up in a pretty bad mood. An aftermath of the quite uncomfortable evening before, probably the worst evening since I started this trip. I’ll just mention the key words „restaurant“, „sitting and waiting for dinner for hours and hours“ and „no one to talk to“.

But I was also looking forward to our last day in Martinique a little bit because I hoped to see a little more of the island, the beach, and the waterfalls.

I got up early so that I would already be finished with breakfast before the cadets and Christoph’s girlfriend arrived.

Then I wrote the rest of my postcards and waited until Pasquale
gave the signal that we could leave.
At around 10:15 a.m., we set off for the duty-free shop, which was small and expensive. I was done after 10 minutes (without buying anything!!) and then we had to wait another 30 minutes.

In the meantime, Pasquale drove Virginie to the supermarket and
took Gaél back to the ship so he could get his wallet.

At around 11:30 a.m., we drove on to the supermarket, where I bought a new beach bag for 10 euros. The bag I had with me, which I was using more or less for the first time, started to fall apart on the very first day, leaving black shreds everywhere.

Afterwards, we went to the La Favorite rum distillery, where Pasquale stocked up on rum and souvenirs and we got a tour to see the distillery. Unfortunately, maintenance is currently the only thing happening there.
If I understood correctly, distilling will not resume until February.

I’m not really into rum, but even I could taste that the most expensive rum (85 euros a bottle) tastes different from the other varieties, and it was definitely interesting, even for a non-rum drinker.

Some impressions of the distillery:

After that, we continued on to the beach restaurant in or near Schoelcher. Since we couldn’t find the right beach right away, it was around 1:30 p.m. by the time we got there. The boys quickly jumped into the water while I wanted to eat something first.

Once again, I hadn’t counted on the French and Martinicans‘ customs:
First, there was a course of entrées… then we waited and waited and waited and waited.
Pasquale and Jerome ordered an aperitif and we waited and waited. In the meantime, Gaél had already been in the water for the second time (I wish I had done the same).

It was around 3:00 p.m. when our food arrived. At 4 p.m., we were still sitting there – the boys with their digestifs and coffee.
Then I’d had enough, gave Pasquale 50 euros and finally went into the water as well.

Afterwards, I lay in the sun for a while. But at 5 p.m., Pasquale called for us to leave because he had forgotten something to buy at the supermarket.

The waterfalls had already been ruled out because the others had realized that it would take an hour to get there and another hour to walk, and there simply wasn’t enough time.

So we drove to the supermarket again and then back to the ship.
In the meantime, they had also called from the ship to say that the boys should be back earlier (at 6 p.m.), although in retrospect I wonder why.

We arrived at the parking lot at the same time as the cadets,
and Victorien and Pierre-Antoine were sent straight to the captain. I threw my things in the cabin and sat down by the pool see the departure from a different perspective.

However, nothing was happening. When there was still no sign of movement at 7:15 p.m., I went to the starboard side, but there was
no one to be seen on the pier either.
So I went to dinner first.

Two new passengers were sitting next to me, but they were only talking to each other.

After dinner, I went back up to the pool, where nothing happened for some time, until the pilot boat finally appeared at 8 p.m.
Then another 10 minutes or so and we finally set sail. I stayed seated for a while because I was hoping to see something of the
other islands this time, but by the time we were really moving, it was already pitch dark.