About eight seconds after I posted the photos below, I looked around the cafe and noticed that there was a new bunch of guys making a lot of noise. There was something going on on the big tv, so I figured they were making a big noise about that. Bunches of Caribbean men can be noisy. Then I caught some pushing and shoving out of the corner of my eye. Hmm. Michelle (from Mi Amante) and I both stopped what we were doing.

More pushing, more shoving, lots of yelling. Definitely more guys than there were when we came in.Maybe ten, twelve. I'm thinking, we don't need to be here for this, and I start shutting down the laptop.
Then some of the guys are screaming at each other, and there's fighting behind the patisserie counter, and everything that's going on is between us and the only exit. I'm like, Michelle, pack up. More yelling, someone's yelling into a cell phone, and there's a real barney happening now. The glass on top of the pastry display case shatters. Behind us at another table, there's a woman with two teenage boys - she's closer to Michelle, so I say, Michelle, ask her if she speaks English, ask her what they're saying. She does, and tells us the man says nobody should move. I'm still stuffing the laptop in my bag, and she puts her hand out toward me and says, don't move.

CRAP! We have no idea who the bad guys or the good guys are, so we just freeze. A big guy that was sitting close to us is now in the middle of the fray, quietly picking up members of the yelling and screaming and punching contingent and trying to move them toward the door. This bit of the struggles seems to go on and on. He finally gets one of them moved to the other side of the cafe, where, it turns out, there's a glass door, and all of a sudden all the curtains on that side of the cafe are being yanked off the wall in the struggle, nd there's a few cheers when a couple of the guys hit the street.

The place is still full of screaming and flailing, and most of it was the owner, we figured out later, having hysterics. The door closest to us was still blocked, but by this time, we were packed and ready to make a break. The lady translated that we were not to move until the police came. We couldn't get to the door anyway.

Moments later, a tiny French beater car, dents all over, zoomed from the wrong side of the road, jumped the curb, and out jumps these four huge guys, tshirts, jeans, bloody dangerous looking. They swarm the owner, now screeching and squealing on the sidewalk like a girl, a really angry hysterical girl, and I see a black night stick tucked under one guy's arm. Bloody hell. I grabbed the woman and said "those are the gendarmes, right? the police? that's the cops?" Michelle and I both thought that the Other Gang had just arrived, and we should probably hit the floor.

Yes, yes, the gendarmes, she assured us. Who would know? These guys were totally thuggy, white, undercover cops. A moment or two later, the doorway was clear, and we asked the woman if she thought we could leave. She was the high authority as far as we were concerned, since she could understand the shouting. Okay, go. So we go.

Out we go, onto the crowded street full of shoppers and cruise ship passengers. Life is going on like normal! We compare notes, and decide that from what we can put together, the restaurant owner was yelling that these guys were malade, malade, and had been harrassing him for two years, and the order not to move was because he wanted the witnesses there when the police came. We decided we wouldn't be much help, so headed back to pick up Charlie and head to ND for a rum.

Once we'd debriefed and calmed down, both Michelle and I agreed that our first reaction when we realized that we had to get out of there was "shit, and we had such a good wifi connection." Michelle even said to me in the middle of it, Well, if we're not allowed to move, at least I want to keep reading my email."
The music ashore has just cranked up to PAIN, PAIN, PAIN volume. What the hell are these people thinking????

Next morning: The incredibly loud music last night was brief - we figured it was a sound check for whatever atrocities will happen on New Year's Eve, so we're glad to be getting ready to go. Martinique is great, Fort du France is a great city to explore (except for the contretemps yesterday) and I've had the opportunity to view a lot of penises here in the anchorage. I think that Randy and Charlie are the only two men who don't enjoy urinating in view of all their neighbours.

We walked to the laundry the other day with a good-looking fellow from a French boat anchored in front of us. He was naked all the time on his boat. So I'm walking down the street with him and Randy thinking 'I've seen both of these guys naked every day this week!' Not that exciting, but something you don't get around to considering in Halifax in December.

Also we did find a laundromat, very nice, big Electrolux machines, and all in all, we spent about 30 Euros doing a month's worth of laundry. Randy went to the corner store and brought us back cold Heinies to drink while we watched the laundry go around. Also not a regular Halifax routine, but it does help with the monotony.

Yesterday, as we were getting ready to go to town, probably just for fresh bread, Randy watched a chartered catamaran drag by with people aboard sunning and fishing. They dragged about a half a mile, and there was no indication that they knew what was going on. We figured that the only people who knew how to run the boat had gone ashore, and sure enough, about a half hour later, when the cat was well out into the middle of the bay, we watched a dinghy zooming off to catch them. How embarrassing, and potentially dangerous. How far would they drift before they tried to turn on the engine?

We're waiting for the early morning showers to break up, then ashore (more bread) then we'll head for Marin to fill up with water, then off to St. Lucia the next day. We have to move, Randy's almost out of rum, and there's no rum in Martinique fit to drink. Ask anybody. Happy New Year.