Martinique, 7/17/1937
Dear Marie and Valdemar,
I think it is 4 months since we have gotten a letter from you, but it is our own fault, one day a bigger shipment will reach up from Trinidad, because we have chanced our minds and don’t ‘sail to Trinidad but stay here through the hurricane season . Since the harbor here is good and safe and we have such a nice life here We have written to eventually get mail there but the connection is bad, so probably it will take a week before we get it and since it and since it probably time that you get some news from us since we don’t have a lot of news on the wallpaper (Tapete), and if I take a little strong drink of the coffee to get energy not after Marie’s understanding of a cup of coffee with a little rum in it and then I’ll write something down. Furthermore, we have found a friend here a light colored doctor (mulatto), Dr. Lodeon who, is an active sailor and wants to acquire a new boat for himself and since he has been unbelievably nice and hospitable towards us we would like to help him. Because there is no boat builders’ shipwrights here we have promised to ask in Denmark about new or used boats a copy of the letter enclosed has been sent directly to Schluter’s Yacht builders. We couldn’t find the address of constructer berg in Vyviesen on the roadmap and for this reason we ask you to look it up. If nothing else succeeds call K.A.S. or K.D.Y. or shipwright. He is not a shipwright himself but a boat designer. Now we turn to the daily events. As we arrived here, we tied up alongside the yacht club and got a Sunday afternoon visit of some important gentlemen, the president, the vice president, Dr. Lodeon, and the Danish consul Meyer, who is a brother of the president. All of them were very friendly and organized a program for our visit here with car trip, Chris craft trip, dinners, and I don’t know what else, but Peter said “Stop, I have to repair the motor and the and we have to leave very soon.” they said, “We take care of that, it’s a pleasure for us to help you.” “Thank you, said Peter, “that’ great, ” and then the motor and sails were taken care of and in the evening the doctor invited us for dinner. We were picked up in his car chauffeured by a native and driven out to the hotel “Le Lido” were we ate dinner on an open terrace with moonshine and waves lapping ashore It started with cocktails and ended with champagne. In the middle of the whole show Lars and Musen slept in a lounge but Musen clever to wake up and try the champagne. An other day we drove with the consul and his wife and daughter to the volcano mount pelee a beautiful trip and a nice picnic and something especially nice here. You could get cold up there. The consul is form the same family as Benny Dessar but he manufactures rum instead of Tuborg beer. Peter has been in the factory. There is a tank with 50,000 litres and a couple with 25,000 liters, in addition they also have smaller ones. A less successfull trip we took to the eastern side of the island. It was the islands richest man so to say who invited us to look at his boat which he is rebuilding, while the gentlemen examined the boat inside and out the childrenhad to stand in a dirty sugar factory and Musen got a pair of white shoes she wore them for the first time and got full of asphalt. We were outraged. Forget about it. The next event was that Dr. Ledeon got the idea that he wanted to go to St. Lucia, an island nearby. The children and I were installed on “Le Lido”, a room with a bath, while Peter and the doctor and 2 other gentlemen sailed off. We enjoyed life, it. is a luxury beach hotel as good as the Belleview north of Copenhagen. We ate and drunk everything on the doctor’s bill and couple of days later they arrived home. The doctor came with something for the children, 1000 francs, he really is a nice man. Furthermore, we are supposed to sail to this summer cottage next week and stay there a couple of days. He is half colored and very much esteemed and well known on these islands as a gifted surgeon. He has a private clinic.