# Speed boat from St. Lucia to Martinique



## runlikeanantelope (Feb 28, 2007)

Anyone ever take the speedboat from St. Lucia to Martinique?  Wondering the price per person and what to do for the day over there?


----------



## riverside (Feb 28, 2007)

I assume that you're talking about the Flying Ray, a 60 ft. fast cat.  We did this a couple of summers ago as a tour out of Windjammer Landing.  We had fun and were glad that we did it but probably wouldn't do it again.  We just weren't impressed with Martinique.  You don't have much time to venture out of the city and there wasn't much to do.  The people that worked in the stores completely ignored us and were basically nasty because we didn't speak french.  In fact many stores didn't have anyone who even spoke English.  But that was just our impression of Martinique and I know others like it there.

It's a rough ride and people were crawling off to get sick.  We were fine but there were definitely people who weren't.  And they told us our crossing was quite calm.  The crew on the boat was great.


----------



## Aldo (Mar 1, 2007)

riverside said:


> In fact many stores didn't have anyone who even spoke English.




"Even" spoke English?  Come on, you're in France, why should anyone "even" speak English?

If you wonder why they aren't friendly, perhaps it's because you seem to have some expectation that a magasin d'outremer ought to have someone who speaks English.


----------



## johnmfaeth (Mar 1, 2007)

Aldo,

Not to restart the Hundred Years War but I am the first to recognize the issue that a sadly large number of Americans (mostly unknowingly) are a perfect fit for the "Ugly American" stereotypes. Thinking that everyone everywhere should speak english and that american cuisine should be ubiquitously available is a problem and deprives them of the full cultural experience they paid for.

That said, and my being particular sensitive to this after many years of working with European business partners and many European business trips, the fact exists that the French speaking people of the world do have a higher degree to parochialism towards their mother tongue that any other bunch I have met.

Normally when you give saying something in the local tongue a "college try", most foreigners will laugh at your pronunciation, give you an A for effort and try their best to speak in English or pass you off to someone who does. You have won their friendship through your attitude the "yes, I'm not good at this, but I respect you enough to try".

I'll never forget the time 20 years ago in Paris when I asked a cab driver to take us to the Rodin museum, completely butchered the pronunciation. He feigned ignorance and made me repeat it about 5 times. Finally said "ah Rodin, you Americans just cannot learn our language" with a real condescending attitude. Completely ticked at this point, I told him his language would be German if it wasn't for Americans...that he understood perfectly well the first time and shut up. Of course, that was wrong to say and I should have held my temper, but it was effective too.

If someone goes halfway, go the other half...we're all in this together...

John Faeth


----------



## riverside (Mar 1, 2007)

Good post, John.

Let me go a step further since you reamed me for my expecting someone to speak English.  The shop owners didn't acknowledge us in any way...just pretended we weren't there.  They didn't ask if they could help.  And this was in several stores.  I'm sure we could have communicated somehow.  It was pretty obvious to us that since we American they had no interest in helping us.

If I do it over and respond for the first time to the OP I would just say the ferry ride was rough but the crew was friendly and leave it at that.  There has been too much on this board lately from people slamming posters for trying to help others.  Pretty soon no one will bother.  We ought to be able to state our experiences or thoughts without recriminations.


----------

