Day 8 – Thursday, March 6, 2025 – Fort de France, Martinique
So, another early morning, but I felt caught up on sleep. John made it in about 11 pm, so he was dragging just a bit. We grabbed a quick breakfast and got ready to head out for our tour. All of us are doing the same tour today, so that’s always fun!
We took a quick bus ride to the downtown area and Joshua, our guide, started us at the library and we basically meandered around the town and got a bit of history. He took us to a local market, which was huge, where you could smell all the fresh spices and look at all of the local fruits and vegetables. We stopped for a taste of sugar can juice, which there is nothing added, and it was sweet but not overly sweet. We tasted a pastry, which was extremely dry, IMO, that was filled with some sort of fish. Not my cup of tea. We walked around some more and then ended up at a local restaurant where we were given a pastry that was filled with guava. It was not too bad, but they really need to work on their pastry! We were given some freshly squeezed apricot juice and a bottle of orange liquor. Part of our tasting also included what the locals eat, normally in the morning, of a salted cod fish and fried banana, with a piece of okra on the side. A strange combination but I did sample it. After the tasting we started working our way back to the library, where the bus was waiting to take us back to the ship. Out of all of the excursions we have done, this one was the most disappointing to me, especially for the money.
Once we got back to the ship, we had a couple of hours before we arrived at one of the local beaches where we could go ashore. I did a bit of reading and catching up on the blog, John went to the gym (of course) and the rest of the gang were up top by one of the pools. We all ended up there and spent the afternoon chatting and having a few drinks.
Tonight’s the captain’s dinner so we all got a glass of bubbly while he thanked us all for sailing with him and hoping to see all of us again. We have already picked out our trip together for next year, so mission accomplished!
After dinner we all headed up top to get a spot for the talent show. Most of the talent is done by the crew, but there are always a few passengers that join as well. We had two gentlemen that sang, one of them being Walter, who we all met last year on the Star Flyer. As usual, the crew are awesome, and love being recognized as part of the group. We made it back to the room about 11:30 pm and I was grateful we did not have an early excursion in the morning, though we are usually up early enough anyway.
Tomorrow we will be at Marigot Bay and then Soufriere in St. Lucia, and we have a hiking excursion that leaves around 1pm. Hard to believe the week is almost gone!
