Saint Pierre, and a great sail

We left Marin on Sunday morning, hit a squall almost immediately - wet, not terribly windy - then had a good sail most of the way up to Saint Pierre, on the northwest coast of Martinique.  We had information from an old guide that suggested that we might have been able to clear out from there on Sunday, but that was out of date, so we decided to stick around on Monday and visit the town.  Saint Pierre was wiped out in the last major eruption of Mont Pelee, on May 8, 1902.  It was a 200-year-old city of 30,000 people, known as the "Paris of the Caribbean" - gone in under two minutes, and the entire population (except one prisoner in his underground cell, and a cobbler in his cellar, and a few people on one boat in the harbor) with it.  This is a photo of the ruins of what was the 800-seat theater; the current town is full of bits and pieces of ruins like this, and some buildings are built on top of the rubble.  The volcano gave plenty of warning; it had been rumbling for weeks, and had already killed about 150 people a few days before the eruption. 

To the right is Mont Pelee today, in one of the moments when you can actually SEE the top - it is often covered with drifting clouds. We had a somewhat hot but interesting walk around, and crossed a small river to the Fort district, which was the site of the original town, founded about 200 years before the eruption.  Of all things, we encountered a feed and grain store, and so of course we had to snap a couple of photos:
 

 

We left Saint Pierre very early (around 0630) Tuesday morning, and had a truly fabulous sail (with dolphins) up to Dominica; we had originally planned to stop at Roseau, which is about 35 nautical miles or so from Saint Pierre, but we were making such good time that we came on to Prince Rupert Bay (Portsmouth).  Here's photographic evidence of the speed:

And the dolphins ("Talk to my agent"):