South America 2023 - day 15 - Monday 20/03

We wake up in Europe again, specifically Martinique a French colony pre 1946 and now an “overseas department.” We open the curtains and look straight in another bedroom opposite! The narrow jetty means we can almost shake hands with the people on the balcony opposite, belonging to P&O’s Arvia, moored alongside us. It’s a large ship and towers many decks higher that us. In fact between 11.5 and 13.9 times larger by passenger count, or about six times by displacement. 

We enjoy a fabulous lobster egg tagine for breakfast, before getting ready to leave, when the heavens open, so we delay our departure. People watching across to Arvia is fun for a while - they have glass sided jacuzzi dotted along the promenade deck! Each of their lifeboats could hold all our 450 passengers when full, and with current numbers almost the entire ship (not quite, we’re about 200 passengers and 330 staff.)

When the rain has abated we head off on our planned route, walking to market place, cathedral, town hall / theatre and through the red light area!

We head up a hill to a small shrine for a good view back over town, back past several government buildings complete with pickets protesting à la française. We walk down to the fort but it’s not open to the public. Heading back along the front again the rain comes for a couple of minutes.

We continue past the jetty and out of town, suddenly into a quiet area along the coast. Walking past some young adults in matching shirts, we presume there’s a school nearby, which in fact turns out to be the city’s college. It’s a nice walk, even the local bus driver tries to persuade us to get on board, but we insist we want to walk. Later he drives past again and gives a fist-pump salute! 

We find a tiny marina complete with an hefty iguana basking in the noon-day sun. On our return we walk up to the Simon hotel and apartment complex, with splendid view down the jetty towards Quest. Then it’s back onboard rather earlier than some times, but we sun ourselves for a while before heading down to lunch. 

During lunch the heavens open yet again, and for 10 minutes it’s like a tap is running. Although deck hands are summoned, the flood is already receding and within 15 minutes the decks are cleared and dry again. Fortunately our pizza doesn’t get wet. 

The afternoon is mostly sunny, and as we sip cocktails, the poolside stage is set for our sailaway party, which gets underway at 16:30. It’s all Abba tunes, and before long we notice that many people on Arvia are on their balconies dancing along. It certainly the best sailaway we’ve had and the additional two or three hundred extra guests seems to bring even more energy. Someone in a glass jacuzzi moons over us, which we all find hilarious - thankfully it’s nine decks above us and well into the distance, as it isn’t an attractive bum by any measure. 

The menus tonight prove quite a challenge - all restaurants have numerous great options we could happily enjoy, but for once the Colonnade wins out. Colonnade is the very large eatery at the rear of deck eight and we generally don’t go there at all, born out of our dislike of buffet food (in a public context, I mean, for health and safety reasons - one cannot simply trust the hygiene of fellow travellers.) Dinner is always served, but it has a stigma we don’t often overcome, except tonight there’s a set menu from Thomas Keller, the US celebrity chef I’ve mentioned before. And so we enjoy Waldorf salad, rib eye, cheese with honey and chocolate pie. 

We don’t make it to the show in time so sit and chat with Davide at the patio bar for a while, where we learn about this crazy concoction of herbs - it tastes like medicine!