OP
elgringoperdido
Registered
Seven-tenths of the world's surface is covered by the sea. I bet you can find some new spots.
I don't know as much about Martinique because I haven't been there, but I do know that the flight I was on from Miami to Guadeloupe via Haiti makes one more stop in Martinique and it's not far away. But it leaves in the morning from Miami so unless you live close to Miami it will involve an overnight stay somewhere along the way. I got the impression that English is more widely spoken in Martinique. Fodor's Caribbean gives Guadeloupe 4 stars (out of 5) as a general diving location, whereas Martinique gets 3 stars. I'm not sure how those ratings are determined.
I was able to read up on Martinique while I was in Guadeloupe. Both condos had an impressive stash of books. All in French and mostly trashy novels ("Romances"), but a few were detailed histories of the islands, the sort that you probably wouldn't see much outside the islands. Apparently Martinique has long had the reputation for being the aristocratic island, whereas Guadeloupe was for commoners. Britain invaded both islands in 1794 but they were repelled by Guadeloupe. Martinique locals allowed Britain to capture and rule Martinique from 1794 to 1815 (in order to avoid the Republicans and Napoleon as well, according to some sources). In Guadeloupe there were enough Republicans to fend off the Brits, and enough monarchists to fight with the Republicans that they destroyed about half the town of Pointe-à-Pitre. Apparently the Guadeloupeans have long had a saying about Martinique people being snobs.
You might be interested to learn that the Wikipedia articles of both Martinique and Guadeloupe in french (fr.wikipedia.org) are much longer and contain more detail than those in the English version. They are not just translations from English but different articles entirely. In fact, you'll find lots more information about those islands in French than English. Using Google, you can avoid the language selection tool by just typing some French words in your search. e.g., plongée + martinique. This is actually how I got detailed news of St. Martin and St. Barthelemy during and after Hurricane Irma. US news outlets were more concerned with Puerto Rico and the Virgins, understandably so. French news outlets covered St. Barts and St. Martin more. You can still search for Ouragan Irma + Saint Martin + récupération or something like that to see how the recovery is coming. It seems to be very slow. (1.9 billion euro is the current estimated price tag for reconstruction on those two islands alone.) It's also how I stayed abreast of Hurricane Maria when it seemed to be headed for Guadeloupe or Martinique while we were planning. Guadeloupe was spared when Maria decided to make a slight southward shift and take out Dominica instead.
