To Market, to Market

After a couple of hours of snooze, the crew reassembled in the salon to respond to Frisha's ringing cry: "What's the plan?!" Going ashore was the crux of it. WW needed to go into the Capitainerie and clear us in (and out...the French do have some nice touches to their red tape) and we needed to get lovely French provisions.

As we prepared to depart, Frisha looked out and observed that the boat formerly anchored next to us was moving astern, toward the shipping channel, at a fairly good rate. Her inhabitants had taken their dinghy ashore earlier. She was dragging her anchor and had no intention of stopping. We tried to radio the marina to alert them, but got no answer. We watched as the boat gracefully missed a buoy, stopped for a bit as her anchor caught, was carried off again as her anchor dragged, crossed the channel and finally settled in on the other side of the harbour. This was, of course, an opportunity for a reliving of various anchor-dragging horror stories.

When the drama on the high seas had run its course, we loaded ourselves into Boffo and went into the marina. While the captain dealt with immigration and so forth, the crew went into the marina, found a nice spot for coffee and a croissant, and indulged in a pleasant little nosh (breakfast had, after all, been at about 5:30 a.m.). WW appeared in time to join us and then we agreed that "the plan" would be a walk into Pointe-a-Pitre.

Guide books describe this city as not terribly interesting from a tourist's point of view. It is about a 20-minute walk north from the marina; a fairly industrial walk with some frankly dicey bits that we all felt we wouldn't want to walk at night. But, upon clambering up a grotty stairway behind decrepit buildings, we emerged onto the crest of a hill with a road leading down to what was very obviously the market.

The market is housed in and around a building on the waterfront. Fishermen cry their wares along the dock, selling from stalls and boats. A step farther along takes you to the fruit and vegetable stands. In the shelter of the building, spice merchants give a new meaning to aggressive merchandising.

We stopped to admire the multicoloured fish, huge winkles, slabs of conch, and huge spiny lobsters at the fish market. Much muttering about lobster dinners occurred.

At the Pointe-a-Pitre fish market.

The vegetable stalls carried the usual array of delicious local produce. We even found something called "toupin ambre" which I translated as topinambour or sun choke. Silly not to: I bought some. In the spice market, vanilla, ginger, turmeric (called 'saffron' locally), cloves, great scrolls of cinnamon and scores of other spices and herbs scented the air. WW bought some vanilla. (We had learned, in the Jardin Botanique at Deshaies on an earlier trip that vanilla is the pod of an orchid. WW has always been an orchid fan...)

WW buying vanilla at the Pointe-a-Pitre spice market.

We continued our explorations, finally arriving at a pleasant streetside cafe where we lunched on salads and sandwiches. We then returned to the market to lay in some lovely fresh fruit and veggies, as well as a slab of bacon from a salt fish and pork vendor over by the stairs.

Discerning shoppers in the Pointe-a-Pitre vegetable market.

We had located a taxi stand and treated ourselves, burdened with purchases, to a ride back to the marina. There, we did further shopping in the supermarket. A very annoying place. You need to weigh your vegetables in the vegetable section. The first time WW and I had been there, we hadn't known that and had lost our place in the incredibly slow line. I was not allowed to run over and weigh the stuff while the cashier processed the mountain of goods we were getting. The other cool thing they do (customer service seems to be anathema) is to let you get to the cash, ask for ice, tell you to go get it and, yes, make you line up again. I think they should hand out the rules at the door.

All set, with many fine things like baguette, French cheeses, French wines, French saucisson, French rillettes, we returned to Django, delayed only briefly while WW went in to pick up Important Documents from the clearance people.

Boffo full of galley slave and provisions.

Back aboard, the plan having been completed, Frisha needed to know what the next plan would be. In summary, then, The Plan became: RPs, dinner ashore, WW and Whit to run ashore first thing in the morning and purchase lobsters, cross to Les Saintes, RPs, grilled lobster dinner. All of which is coming soon to a blog near you.

Photos, again, by Whit and Frisha.