In the film Groundhog Day, Bill Murray plays a TV presenter who finds himself repeating the same day over and over again. We've had a similar experience this week, since we have wanted to leave Marin almost every day, but every day we have decided to stay anyway.

It has become quite a joke amongst our fellow cruising friends now, because of the number of times we've said goodbye to them!

Carnival in Martinique
The past week the yearly carnival in Martinique has taken place. Fort-de-France is the main city on the island, but the locals we talked to were all going to the carnival in Marin, so we decided to stay in the town also. We had made arrangements to go together with some other cruisers, and I had made sure that we left early, so we would get a good spot. It turned out, though, that there practically wasn't a single person on the street!

After a couple of hours a small group of drummers came by, and an additional one an a half hours later a truck came by with huge speakers and around 100 people walking behind it dancing - And that was it!

I thought it was great fun anyway, though, and later a young guy from Martinique told me in French that my eyes were like the oceans. It doesn't get any better than that!

The pursuit of an American visa
One of our excuses for staying in Marin has been to figure out once and for all how we can sail to the US Virgin Islands and USA later in the season. In order to do so we need an American visa, but this can be quite a complicated affair. We've heard many stories about how people take the ferry from the British Virgin Islands to the US Virgin Islands where they get a 90 days visa.

After that they take the ferry back to their boat and sail to the US Virgin Islands on their own boat. However, when we flew to Miami in February, we were told that our visa wouldn’t be valid after we left Miami. For months we have discussed what to do, but now we have decided to keep to the beaten track and apply for a visa at an American Embassy. The nearest embassy is in Barbados, so the big question now is whether we do as the lazy cruisers and fly to Barbados or pull ourselves together and sail the 100 nm against the wind, current, and the waves of the Atlantic.

And we still haven't decided!

Signe Storr freelance journalist and friend of Boatshed