December 3 - Fort de France, Martinique

 (Edit - Jan alerted me to the fact that I originally had this as Gustavia again.  It has been corrected.)  

We had no tours again scheduled for this port.  We were told it was a 15-minute walk into the town center so we left around 10:00 to try to beat the worst of the heat and humidity.  There were a few typical shops right here at the pier to cater to us and the Aida Diva - a large German passenger ship.  The walk was as advertised and most of it was in the sun, unfortunately.  But we saw a few interesting things.

Getting ready for a race of some kind.  Lots of people were there with their lawn chairs to cheer on their team.

Pretty tile work on the pier area and 2 more cruise ships at this cruise terminal closer to town.  On the right is the Oceania Insignia, a sister ship, which is dwarfed by the Mein Schiff 4, another German ship.

A little like New Orleans

After wandering through the covered stall market and buying a new handmade sunglasses holder, we headed towards the cathedral.  It's very pretty, but Sunday mass was in progress so no photos.  Too bad, because I really wanted one of the credit card machine in the vestibule where you could make your church donation.  

It was getting really hot and we had neglected to bring water with us, so we bought a bottle of water from a street vendor for 1 euro which gave us a bit of a boost for the walk back to the ship.  We ran into Jan and Tom in the little market area at our dock.  They weren't going to bother walking into town.

After getting back to the lovely cool cabin, we put on our swimsuits and headed up to the pool where we found loungers in the shade and relaxed and I had a burger at the outdoor grill.  One funny story - I have a scab where my dermatologist froze an area on my left leg.  It looks sort of ugly so I had a bandaid on it.  I completely forgot that and noticed after taking a dip in the pool that it was gone.  I thought that was not very kind to leave it in the pool, so I went back in to look for it.  I tried to be stealthy since there were others in the pool.  Needless to say, I couldn't find it.  Just as I was giving up and heading out I felt something sort of sharp hit my right leg.  Lo and behold, there it was!  What are the odds?  I quietly retrieved it and got out of the pool.  

We did OK at trivia again.  Peter is very generous with the points; he doesn't stick to only the 3 top scores get points.  I think he wants everyone to win most of the time so we'll keep coming back.  And honestly, the prizes that you get with the points aren't that great.  

We were able to get reservations tonight at the Tuscan Grill specialty restaurant.  We all had the 6 oz filet and I think we agreed that, while it was tasty, it was a bit tougher than it could have been.  But the creamed spinach and mashed potatoes were good, as was the tirimasu dessert.

As I've said, the wifi on the ship is good.  We were all able to join the weekly sibling Zoom call tonight using Jan's iPad which was a pleasant surprise.