Martinique-Barbados

At sea Martinique-Barbados 20 Dec.2007

We left Fort-De-France, Martinique, yesterday but since we are not allowed to be at anchor without prior clearance (Customs, immigrations… etc) the Captain decided to go at anchor in Grand Anse, Just around the corner from Fort-De-France, since we just “checked out” we couldn’t go ashore. A pity ‘cause maybe it was our last chance in the next coming weeks with all the cruises, the schedule for that looks absolutely crazy. Anyway we had a nice afternoon/evening at anchor, had a few beers, went early to bed and had a good night of sleep! I needed that, I think we all did. So now we are on our way to Barbados to pick up the 26 Americans for the next coming Christmas-cruise…
I was very happy to leave Martinique, I didn’t like it there. It was a strange place, people where not so friendly as they are on other of the Caribbean islands and eh well I don’t know, just not a nice place. The night before yesterday we went out, we where supposed to have dinner all of us, but eh it was my dear friends last evening on board, so we decided to leave a bit earlier and catch up on all the girly chitchat before she left, when we finally met up with the rest, they where paying their bill and was ready to go back to the ship, so eh we joined them and started walking back, at some point just before the gate to the harbour I was walking about 100m in front of the rest, so I turned around a corner and walked towards the ship, I noticed that a white car followed me around the corner. There was a truck parked and behind that one the car stopped, I didn’t really pay attention to it, but somehow I must have, ‘cause when this tiny little guy jumps out of the car and tries to steal my handbag, (which I would never carry if I was alone) I hold on to it and tell him that he shouldn’t even try ‘cause “I have friends behind me” he got surprised, he looks at me, like “what are you doing? You’re supposed to just give it to me” he tries again and by then I shouted straight in to his face that he shouldn’t do it ‘cause I wasn’t alone, with one arm I held on to my belongings and turned away from him and pushed him away with my elbow, again he looks funny at me, but then a colleague of mine comes running around the corner, and three other big guys and two girls right after, he runs off really scared, and tries to catch up with his “colleague” in the car who drives off really fast… it all happened within 2min, and honestly I think that the guy who tried to rob me, got more surprised than I did, both because I kind of fought back and because all of a sudden, I was not alone, we where 7! If he had succeeded he probably would have been very disappointed, I had a pair of flip flops and 5euros… I never carry my money in my bag, and normally I would never go out with a handbag in place like that. The risk is just too big, it’s like walking around with a pink neon sign *BLINK* “please rob me, I’m a stupid blonde” *BLINK* being a white blonde girl, is usually enough to make it risky. No need to make it worse by carrying a little handbag and too much jewellery, which I don’t normally do either, not even when I’m not at work, I never really liked wearing all that stuff anyway, except maybe a watch, but that I usually leave at the ship when we go out anyway. So my golden rules, is not to wear a lot of jewellery, watches, high heels or hand bags, when I go out in places, where a white blonde girl could never be a local. So far it has kept me out of trouble, the one night, I didn’t stick to my “rules” some moron tried to rob me, so eh I guess I’ll stick to them from now on!!!
Well apart from this, our stay in Martinique has been relatively uneventful…
As I wrote we are now on our way to Barbados, to pick up cruise guests. We will sail them to some fantastic places and tender them a shore and while they are away, we’ll clean, clean, clean and do the dishes… we have a saying on board for these situations,
“sailors is what we are and cleaning is what we do!” we will stay in the sea watches, which will mean that none of us, will be able to go ashore at any time the next coming weeks! That’s not entirely true, since we have Christmas coming up, we are thinking that since the guest will have a fantastic dinner in the longroom and there’s not enough place for us in the crew mess we might get to do a Crew-only barbeque on the beach… that would be nice, but eh since we as Quartermasters have be a good example at all times, and my watch normally does the evening dishes, I volunteered to do them. It was a “split-second” decision, at a moment where I could only think of reasons for me not to like Christmas. But now when I come to think about it, it will most probably be one of those evenings, where I wished I was there, not because I’m a big fan of Christmas, but because it will most probably be a really nice evening. But oh well somebody’s got to do the dishes, and then hopefully I get New Years Eve of!!!
Oh well “tuff titties” as we also say a lot out here, there always has to be some one to do the dirty jobs at the most inconvenient times…
As in now for example, where I have to be on watch in 15min, I’d rather just, turn this thing of, turn around, turn my mp3 player on and listen to Kasper Winding reading Winnie-the-Pooh and fall asleep in the mean time. But eh no, 4hours of watch is coming up… So eh I’ll better stop for now and continue some other time, hopefully I’ll soon have a chance to actually put this on the internet instead of just writing stories to myself…
Laterrrr Ninon