The sail back from Rodney Bay to Fort de France was a fast reach in good weather.  With Mick having returned home, it fell to the skipper to do the fishing.  As usual, there were plenty of flying fish to entertain us.  Spooked by the whale like appearance of our hulls, they would explode from the water around us like flocks of sparrows leaving a corn field (for those with long enough memories!).  Unlike sparrows they are limited to gliding, but often give an extra “kick” when their tails touch the water to give them renewed impetus and an extended flight (more than 100m in many cases).  Most of the fish we saw were very small (scarcely bigger than a finger), but there were large ones also, the size of small herring, which are considered good eating in the Caribbean.

 

As we progressed, we were joined by a pair of Booby birds (relatives of the Gannet familiar to European sea farers).  These birds were actively hunting the flying fish disturbed by the boat, to the extent that they were trying to catch them both in the water and in the air, sometimes pursuing a flying fish back into the water right under the bows of the boat.  This is the first time that I have witnessed this behaviour.  As if to prove it was a learned behaviour, three more Boobies progressively joined the game, until all five gave up after a couple of hours and sat down on the water to rest.  Their success rate seemed to be no more than one in every four or five attempts, but it was sufficient to keep them going.

 

Flying fish are also a prime food for many predatory fish, such as Dorado and Wahoo, but either there were no predators there or my fishing skill was inadequate.  That was, until we approached Diamond Rock off the south coast of Martinique.  Here there is a shallow bank (10m) which rises steeply from depths of several hundred metres and seemed a likely place to find pelagic predators.  Sure enough, as we crossed the bank we hooked a tuna – the first fish hooked in over two weeks fishing!  Once safely landed and despatched, it provided eight good size fillets, the first two of which we consumed that evening after cooking them in foil on the BBQ.   Such meaty flesh was well complemented by a glass of red wine.

 

Diamond Rock was commissioned by the British navy in 1804 as HMS Diamond Rock, a base for a cannon battery to keep the French pinned down in southern Martinique.  Cannon and provisions were hauled up the cliff faces to the gun emplacements and were manned for 18 months until Napoleon ordered Admiral Villeneuve to destroy it, Martinique being the birth place of Napoleon’s Empress Josephine; and kill Horatio Nelson while he was at it. Nelson had false information that Villeneuve would attack Trinidad, so was absent during Villeneuve’s attack.  Diamond Rock was lost, but Nelson survived to beat Villeneuve later at the Battle of Trafalgar, although Nelson was not as fortunate as Villeneuve who survived the battle.

 

Our arrival in Fort de France was inauspicious.  The whole town appeared to be closed for business during the five days carnival ending on Ash Wednesday, 5th March.  This meant three things to us: No checking in, no provisioning, and lots of very loud music through the night.  The following morning we left for St Pierre in the north of Martinique hoping to find a reduced Carnival fervour – and one of those mind blowingly good Coupe Antillaise desserts at the Le Tamaya restaurant!

 

Diamond Rock

 

Boobies fishing around the boat

 

 

 

The Unfortunate Tuna