Baie du François, Martinique

I loved the colorful boats of the local fishermen!

Fish house and fishing boats on the muddy river

Old building...

...new building

 Our next stop was Baie du François.  The channel (with real channel markers) weaves between the reefs before opening up into the bay where we anchored.  The Rivière du François flows into the bay here, so the water was pretty opaque due to the considerable rainfall we’d received the previous day; the river itself was like chocolate milk. We dinghyed ashore and walked to the village of François. Outside the village center was a little neighborhood with an ugly apartment building and cute houses, each property delineated by fences, most not so cute. The architecture in the French islands really is distinct from the non-French islands—low houses with broad roofs instead of the stilted houses more commonly seen elsewhere. The village itself was small, with a newly constructed church across from the police station in an historic building, and an interesting cemetery spread out over an entire block. We stopped at a market to pick up a couple of essentials that we were running low on: a baguette and local rum. We also picked up a little friend on the walk back, a dog who only loved me for the bread I carried.

Essential shopping in the French islands

A new friend