POINT de BOUT-MARTINIQUE
I will admit, I struggled with this port up until about a week or two prior to cruising.
I knew there were basically 3 main beaches, reachable by the ferry. But so many inconsistent reports on the beaches that I decided that I would just get on whatever ferry took me where ever and that's the beach I would go to FIRST then head to another. I knew I definitely wanted to do Pointe De Bout and Anse Mitan.
So...on the info I gathered on here...this is what I came up with for Pointe De bout, Anse Mitan and Anse A L'Ane...just in case we made it there as well.
We started walking and followed this blue walkway. I seen the words Exit and Taxis and knew we needed to go that way. We headed to the ferry, which was about a 30 minute walk from our dock, purchased our tickets and boarded the ferry. Make sure to keep your tickets because they are round trip and you will need them to return.
It was a 16 minute boat ride over to Pointe de Bout.
I knew from the research that I had done that you walk right across the street, to the right, and it would take you right to the beach .
I stepped onto this beach and I believe the first thing out of my mouth was "wow". It was beautiful!
I loved every little thing about it from the size of the beach to the swimming area, the landscaping and everything. Just beautiful.
Immediately this happens of course... mermaid morphing time.
So we put our things on the sand and by a deck. There was a lady that had been standing on the deck but I wasn't sure what it was she had come out of. Maybe a small gift shop or store? I didn't investigate.
She finally came out and sat on one of the chairs...not like she was relaxing on the beach, like she was only going to sit for a moment and was waiting on customers or something.
So, I said do you rent these chairs? She said "no" then she said "do you speak French?". I returned with a "no" and she said "yes, please sit" and gave us a hand gesture to the lounge chairs. Hmm, ok. So they allow you to come here without charging for the chairs? Awesome.
Looking back at the hotel. I would just love to stay here for vacation.
The water was crystal clear. This was taken standing in the water looking down. Yes, there are some rocks here.
It was time for a little bit of snorkeling. I just had to check this place out immediately.
Ok...I don't know how the heck I spotted this, but it caught my eye instantly when I was going by. It just didn't look like a normal rock. Do you see it?
IT'S A CLAM!! I have never seen one in the ocean before (I think???). I wasn't even for sure until I decided to dive down a little closer and it closed up really quick. I was so excited!!! Another first for me! I love when I have "firsts" on any trip.
So, I took a better look and seen that there was actually another. It was open one minute and then closed the next. (It's to the right of my name) and the other is at the bottom to the right of a rock that is shaped like a conch kinda.
We decided to head across the water toward the other side and explore around the dock and restaurant that was out over the water.
Daddy was resting since I have had him up at the crack of dawn every day.
A beautiful nice sized feather duster on the rocks. I love these things. I want some big ones for my tanks. I recently had a few show up on some of my rocks, but they are VERY small and will take awhile to grow to this size. I have one that has a white double head on it (2 feather dusters in 1) and another that is blue. For those that don't know...they are a worm.
For some reason I drifted away from the dock area and looked down. I have no idea why I did this but something was telling me to go out a little....THEN I SPOTTED THIS...DO YOU SEE IT????
My very first SEAHORSE!!! By the way, that's a sea urchin to the right of it covered in its prized possessions it found for the day. LOL
I couldn't believe my eyes! I was actually looking at a sea horse in the ocean...that I found MYSELF! I have been looking for seahorses since 2011 and I have even scuba dived a place that is known for seahorses all the time and still never found one.
I yelled for Sakari to come...she hurried. She seen it right before it went into this stuff.....She was able to find it and held it for a second very gently (our neighbor has seahorses and she loves them). Did you realize you that seahorses can get air bubbles in the pouch (the male) and you sometimes have to burp them? Our neighbor has to take him out and burp him every so often. How do you know when they need burped? They swim upside down!!! I seahorse sit for them when they are out of town or on a cruise. They are such neat creatures...especially during feeding. Their jaws slam shut and you can hear the snapping outside the tank and it's LOUD.
More snorkeling under the dock...this place was amazing with so much coral, Christmas tree worms, clams and so on. It was a beautiful site!
I always felt like I was being watched for some reason...
I found a new and exciting creature this time around. I have been looking for this for a long time. Sakari managed to see a HUGE one when scuba diving last time.
IT'S A PORCUPINE PUFFER FISH!!! I was so excited I almost took a big gulp of saltwater from gasping.
He was so cute! I love porcupine puffers. I've been waiting to get back from vacation to get one for my predator tank as a tank mate for our lionfish. They have such a neat personality.
He was watching me with his big eyes and fluttering around. I yelled for Sakari and she coming running...well, swimming.
I probably took about 20 pictures of him. I just couldn't get enough. I have been experimenting with my camera and trying to use the flash. Most did not turn out very good when I used the flash. Boo! I could have captured the cutest picture of him going behind this rock and then peeked up at me with his big eyes. It was adorable, but didn't turn out good. You can see him and what he's doing...just not a good picture though.
Porcupines are known to get so friendly with their owners (in tanks) that they will come up to the top and to get your attention, they will spit water and play. I can't wait to get one.
VIDEO: porcupine puffer fish
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I decided that my day was completed. This was the best place EVER! It was beautiful here. It was awesome snorkeling. I managed to see several things I have never seen before. It was amazing!
I knew we needed to pack up and head out because I still wanted to walk down to the other beach to give it a try. Sakari wanted "one last time" and went out. She raced back to tell me that she had just seen "one of those clam things with the red stuff sticking out of it like at the pet store mommy". She grabbed her camera (for the first time this cruise) and went back out.
She came back in and was so excited and said that she managed to get a few pictures of it and it finally scurried away.
The clam looking thing with the red hanging out of it at the stores is a a flame scallop. I can guarantee that it wasn't that. I know what those look like and once I got home and looked at her pictures from the computer, it definitely wasn't that. It looks like a feather duster to me in a way. But, it's not fluffy like one and it doesn't have a bunch of layers like one so I have no idea.
She swears that after a few pictures of it (and that it was in a shell) that it sucked into the shell and swam off sideways. Any ideas???? If it was a feather duster, it wouldn't have swam off.
It looks like there's a head or tongue or something poking out in the middle.
After that, she said she picked up a big rock...then jumped because there was a big crab under it.
She came back to report her finds and we started packing our things up to move along. At that point, the hubby told me when I was out in the water a guy came by about "did you pay for those chairs"....oops. His reply was "I don't know, you'd have to ask my wife and she's out there" and points to the water. He never came over when we were packing up and he never approached me.
I snapped a few more pictures as we were leaving. I didn't realize my lens had fogged up. This is one of the drawbacks to having an additional lens on the camera (my fisheye). It will fog up easily. The other draw back is the water line you get sometimes as you tilt the camera. You have to wait for it to fill up and go away, otherwise you'll get a line in the picture (like the line in my porcupine puffer fish pic). I'm inpatient, so I get a lot of pictures with lines. LOL
It was now 11:30am and we headed back the way we had come to exit the beach area.
We made it to the street and turned right to head toward town.
There were beautiful flowers everywhere. It was so pretty there...or maybe I was just used to the snow back home that everything and every color was magnified x3.
I stopped to take some more pictures of the flowers along the way while the hubby went into a small grocery store to get us some pop.
He hubs came out empty handed and said they did not take US $$. Well crap.
People on the boards always talk about "go here or go there to eat" in this little town. However, no matter where we stopped, none of them took US money! We stopped at 3 different places.
We decided to keep going. We headed down a hill and I really hoped that we hadn't missed a turn to the beach because if we did, that meant we'd have to walk back up this hill and I really wasn't trying to do that.
I looked to the right, after getting down the hill, and I spotted water. I decided to head that way. I mean you can't go wrong if you actually see water right?
OVERVIEW OF THE AREA BELOW: VIDEO
We had made it to Anse Mitan Beach. Time to explore...
You will find my review on Anse Mitan Beach located here ---->
FINAL THOUGHTS:
My final thoughts on our day in Martinique!
So, you can probably guess that I was blown away by the first beach at Pointe de Bout. Absolutely loved it there from the beach, water, snorkeling, landscape and over all layout of the place! When we return...I will definitely go back there! I will also explore a little more on down along the walkway as well. I definitely want to return. If you get a chance to go, GO! It's a very small beach but very pretty and some awesome snorkeling to be had...very colorful coral and we were able to see some amazing sea animals.