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Published: March 11th 2013
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Les Saintes Leaving Dominica we enjoyed a fabulous sail, in close company with Open Blue, to Les Saintes. The winds were light and we ploughed along cutting through the narrow Passe Des Dames and into the collection of low-lying islands belonging to Guadeloupe, and again part of the Departments Outre Mer (or overseas territories). France maintains these islands with the same level of oversight as it does with say, the Haut Savoie. We looked to stop in Anse du Bourg but it became apparent that our indecision on where to go was our downfall, as coming in fast on the left flank were a band of sweating Frenchmen at the maximum speed a Sun Fast 36 can muster under engine, they therefore snaffled the last mooring buoy. This was actually to our benefit as we turned and went to sit behind the Pain de Sucre in the very beautiful Anse a Cointe.
Having dropped the hook we dived straight into the beautiful clear water and swam along the rock edge to the bay. We have, aboard, a waterproof sheet covering most of the tropical reef fish of the Caribbean. We have ticked many off but occasionally we see others
and then have to dive into the reef fish books to find out what we have seen. We are spotting conger eels, lionfish, all sorts of turtles and even the poisonous stonefish – which sits stone-still waiting for to pounce on his prey. Even when I touched him with my flipper he refused to budge. It is not exactly Jacques Costeau territory but it gives the boys the chance to do a little research after each snorkelling exped.
The following morning we were up early and onto one of the buoys to avoid the afternoon rush-hour! The town is dangerously pretty and filled with small bijou shops. Even more dangerously as we ventured ashore – equipped with the shopaholic Freddie and whilst I cleared us into Les Saintes and updated the blog the girls perused. I escaped lightly this time.
We ploughed over the hill to the beautiful beach of Baie de Pompierre. This used to be a well-protected anchorage but now anchoring has been banned. Freddie and I swam around the bay and we all climbed round and overlooked the island from the peak of Roches Percees. On the way home I was able to find a
goat and prove, much to the Blues disbelief, that indeed goats do have square pupils – weird animals of Satan!
Guadeloupe
We had hoped to head for relatively unexplored Marie Galante and the Iles de Petit Terre (rated by Yachting World as having one of the top ten anchorages in the Caribbean) from the eastern corner of Guadeloupe, but this would have meant a long upwind slog into a marginal anchorage at St Anne. We decided to change the plan and stick to the leeward side of the island. In many ways this was a shame as we experienced a period of calm weather where we could have explored. Nonetheless the sensible money was on a sheltered couple of days on the west coast and then hiring a car to see the parts of the east coast that we couldn’t reach by boat.
Guadeloupe is a butterfly shape with a mountainous west “wing” (Basse-Terre) and a flat eastern “wing” (Grande-Terre); bizarrely they are misnamed. We could find no sound explanation for this. Having spent one night in Anse a la Barque where we encountered the Scottish boat that we had sailed behind from Gibraltar to
the Canary Islands –it was one hell of journey which resulted in a shredded genoa and some very seasick and scared children plus one wife – I did not care to remember it long. They had shed their red ensign for the yellow flag of Scotland – a sign of Scottish nationalism but surely incorrectly dressed? Luckily they were gone by morning.
We too moved on to the pretty anchorage of Deshaies (or otherwise known as “Dez Hay”), well-protected and fringed with colourful restaurants. Lisa and Freddie had to head to the airport at Pointe a Pitre (on the eastern island) to collect the hire cars while I played with loo electrics and pumps! Bizarrely I had the easier task as travelling to the airport entailed 3 buses and 1 taxi and in total about 3 hours travelling time! Lisa felt on the way back that she had not spent enough time driving so, in search of adventure, she and Cameron decided not to take the coast road but instead to take on the mountain pass to spice things up – La Route de la Traversee which cuts through the spine of the island is a series of hairpins
and steep ascents and descents on a treacherous narrow road with ditches on either side. She arrived in darkness with frazzled nerves and eyes on stalks. I decided to let her off making dinner, by throwing together “Force 6+ Carbonara” – can’t say fairer than that, can I?
Eating in the French islands is generally far better than in the other Caribbean islands and Guadeloupe was to be no exception we had a couple of cheap meals in Deshaies and each was very good. There we met Chris and Maggie aboard the beautiful 76-foot long aluminium Progression. Progression is so solidly built and is quite simply a home on the water. The galley, cabins and bathrooms are so homely and the boat looks like it has a fair turn of speed too, despite her 56 tonnes. Tim and I popped around to look at Progression’s generator, and after my poor fault diagnosis and Tim’s better skills and observation we were able to find the loose exhaust heat-sensor cable which had come loose, isolate it and get it going. Progression lives normally in Jolly Harbour, Antigua and is unfortunately to be sold (would make such a lovely family boat for
some serious round-the-world adventuring) – we are both hoping to pop in and see them again when we head up the west coast of Antigua.
With the hire cars revved up we visited wonderful beaches, spent the day in the river at Cascade aux Ecrivisses (building dams and laying on the wonderful flat stones in the sun whilst staring up through the jungle vegetation). It was a really nice change to be able to swim in fresh, flowing water.
On our last day in Guadeloupe we had the Blues across to us for a play-day. We left Open Blue in Deshaies, up-anchored and went back south Ilet Pigeon, which the aforementioned Jacques Costeau had bought as a diving Mecca. We picked up a visitor mooring close in to the rocks and snorkelled in quite the clearest waters that we have ever encountered. The selection of fish is no more extensive but with crystal clear visibility the colours of the fish are so much more vivid. Cousteau, or his followers, have cemented a figurine of the diving-god to the bottom and it is supposedly good luck to descend the 10 metres to the bottom to touch his head and
attain good luck for the rest of your diving life. With full lungs we tried to descend to tap his bonce and rise like a cork out of a bottle to gasp for air. Less luckily for Jacques hand – as someone has pinched it! It was a fabulous day-out, spent with the lovely Penfolds aboard and rounded off with takeaway pizzas back in Deshaies. Pizza and G&T are not a well-known mix but work very nicely – ashamedly when Lisa asked Samuel to pass the Gin from the cupboard he replied “It’s OK, I’ll just have tonic!” They grow up fast these days...
After a few days we, with the Blues in tow, had sucked the goodness out of Guadeloupe and needed to get to Antigua to collect Auntie Sally and Richard. The wind was dropping still so we needed to nail the 45 miles to Antigua before we would have to motor all the way. The fish mocked us both by getting hooked and then biting their way through the trace or taking all of Tim’s line. It was such a shame as we have all developed a love of fresh seafood and there is simply nothing
in a Caribbean butchers or fishmongers that is so amazing as “off-the-line fish” – unfortunately ours seem to be doing exactly that. More effort required!
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