Martinique: Anse Chaudiere and Sainte Anne

Les Anses d'Arlets

Anse Chaudiere
After a couple of days in the big city, we were ready for a quieter anchorage and sailed about two hours south to Anse Chaudiere.  This is a quiet anchorage just south of the village of Les Anses d’Arlet.  We spent two days here swimming, working on school, and just relaxing.  It was a quiet couple of days – the most excitement was when we went to the ATM in town for more Euros and the machine kept Brian’s card.  The bank was not yet open so we had time to consult our resources, figure out how little cash we had, and learn how to explain the situation in French.  Fortunately, the card was available once the bank opened and we were on our way to Sainte Anne at the south end of the island.

Sunset our first night in Sainte Anne

Sainte Anne
We arrived in Sainte Anne around noon on May 2.  Earlier in the week, we had received an email from Janet on SV Maple (we met in Dominica) letting us know of two other kid boats anchored in Sainte Anne.  As we motored through the anchorage, we looked around for the other boats.  It was a large anchorage with at least 150 boats and we weren’t sure we’d find them right away, so we just picked a spot and anchored.  However, once we were securely anchored, we looked around and felt that the neighboring boats were just a bit too close for our comfort.  So we picked up the anchor to find some more space.  We found a nice big spot with plenty of swinging room near a couple of catamarans.  Hmmm – a couple of catamarans – we got the binoculars to take another look and realized that we had found the other two kid boats – they were the ones right in front of us!  While we were tidying up the boat, Shaun and Sherrie from SV Element (home to Jordan, 7, and Paige, 13) dinghied over to say hello.  Soon afterwards, Greg and Melanie from SV The Amazing Marvin (home to Allie, 10, and Tommy, 12) came by and introduced themselves.  The kids were very excited to meet, and school was completed at a record pace that day.  Once school work was done, they swam from boat to boat throughout the afternoon, swimming and playing.  Later, after the day’s boat work was done, the adults gathered for sundowners and a beautiful sunset on The Amazing Marvin. 
 
We spent a very enjoyable few days at Sainte Anne, with fresh croissants most mornings, playdates every day for the kids, a sleepover, and family gatherings most evenings.  Just before we left for St. Lucia, another kid boat anchored nearby and on our last night in Sainte Anne, the Counting Stars and Element families met for sundowners with the SV Flip Flops (Erin, 8, and Michael, 14) family.  We were sad to be leaving our new friends, but as we are all headed toward Grenada for the hurricane season, we knew it was ‘see you later’, not ‘good-bye.’ 

View from hike to Grand Anse de Salines

This was quite an idyllic spot