Two more weeks in Guadeloupe

From  Marie Galante we popped back west to Îles des Saintes for some more snorkeling. We thought about diving, but the hookah is loud and there are a lot of people snorkeling where we wanted to dive, so we just snorkeled. The visibility is very good, so snorkeling is just fine. We spent two nights at Îlet à Cabrit, our favorite snorkel spot in Guadeloupe, and one night at Pan du Sucre. The snorkeling at the latter was good, but not as good as Îlet à Cabrit. 

Hoping late March would provide an opportunity to head to Antigua, we decided to revisit the west coast of Guadeloupe, where we had spent six days back in late January/early February as we island hopped down to Dominica. On 3/22, we headed north to the anchorage about 1 nm south of Basse Terre, outside Marina de Rivière-Sens. Shortly after arriving, we dinghied into the marina and tied up to the wall so we could walk to Fort Delgrés. It was only a 20 minute walk, which turned out to be a good thing, because the fort was closed due to lack of water. Bummer! So back to the marina we went. It was hot, but at least there was a breeze, and most of the walk was along a pretty esplanade. 

The next morning we traveled the 10+ nm north to the anchorage at Plage de la Malendure. We’d been here for two of those six days in early February and knew then we wanted to return. Just after our arrival and lunch, we snorkeled right off Lady on the north end of the bay, which we had not done last time. It was soon obvious why so many people from the little beach in the NE corner of this bay snorkel up and down this stretch; there is so much to see! It’s almost as good as Îlet à Cabrit. There’s lots of rock rubble for structure, covered in a fair amount of coral, including soft corals like sea fans, plus there were a ton of sea plumes (also a soft coral), many sponges, and lots of fish. The closer we got to the NW point, the more barrel sponges we saw. We snorkeled here two more times over the next few days.

Also while in this anchorage, we snorkeled the south and east sides of Pigeon island again, which we had done in early February. This visit, however, we also snorkeled the north and west sides. There is a lovely wall with lots of coral, sponges and fish. We thought it would be hookah-worthy for a dive, but weren’t sure it was worth setting up hookah for just one dive. There is also a spot with dive mooring balls just north of the NW point of the Bay, aptly named Pointe de la Malendure. We dinghied over to it and snorkeled there. Great reef! Now there were two spots we thought were hookah-worthy, and we knew there was another spot with mooring balls another mile north of this one. That afternoon, we set up hookah. We did dive the site just north of Pointe de la Malendure and the site one mile north of that, but we opted not to dive the wall at Pigeon Island. Pigeon Island is very busy with tour boats all day long, taking divers and snorkelers. Trying to navigate all that with the noisy hookah and two 60-foot hoses just seemed rude. The other two sites are much less busy. When we dove the nearer dive site, there was only one other small boat with divers, who we never saw and was gone by the time we resurfaced. At the more northerly site we had the reef to ourselves. Both were very good dives, with the nearer one being a little more diverse in its flora and fauna. We were glad we set up hookah.

About 4:00pm on 3/29, a National Park Service boat pulled up to tell us we were in a no-anchoring zone, along with 3 other boats. They kindly explained the markers that our charts simply labeled as “special purpose buoys” (not a helpful label), and gave us a QR code for their Marine Park app that shows where one can and cannot anchor in all their marine park locations. Very helpful, once I translated the French 🙄. So we and the three other boats moved a little further south in the bay. Sadly, we are no longer right next to the good snorkeling, but we had our six days, so we can’t complain. Had we recognized the official park boundaries, we wouldn’t have anchored there in the first place. 

I’m writing this on April 1^st (no joke) and we’re still anchored at Plage de la Malendure. Today is our 10^th day here. It’s nice and all, but I am starting to get a bit bored. Yes, it is possible to be bored in paradise. We’d hoped for a weather window to head to Antigua, but that didn’t pan out. Then we thought maybe we’d go to the other marine park on the north side of the island between the “butterfly wings,” Grand Cul de Sac Marin, but that’s a lot of shallow reef navigating and there were supposed to be increasing winds and a big swell from a northerly direction, plus intermittent cloud cover which reduces the light needed to see the reef well. We don’t have local knowledge of the place, so it seemed unsafe to risk trying our hand up there. On top of that, it looks like we’re stuck on the west side of Guadeloupe at least through this coming Saturday.  

Now what? We’re being indecisive. We know we don’t want to risk the marine park on the north. There’s not much sense going back to Les Saintes, because (a) it’s a bit far in the wrong direction for going to Antigua, and (b) the conditions the next several days won’t be great to head there anyway. Ditto for the south coast of Grand Terre. That leaves us three main anchorages on this side of the island. As long as we’re being indecisive, we may as well stay put and get some stuff done.

Over that past two days, I made cookies, weeded through a bunch of photos and did a small load of laundry. We went ashore to grab a few items at the nearby grocery store and discovered a reasonably priced laundromat with a washer and dryer large enough to wash two complete sets of queen sheets, plus a mattress cover in one load. On Lady that would be five loads and take two days. Score! After our grocery run, we got our bedding and headed back to the laundromat. We had lunch at the nearby boulangerie during the wash cycle. During the dry cycle, Dave explored the hardware/homegoods store next door while I caught up on email. Back at dinghy, we met two American men, cruisers just setting off for a bike ride. We chatted with them for a bit. It was our first socializing since our cousins left March 5^th 😳. I miss socializing with other cruisers. 

Now it’s April 1^st and we still aren’t sure what we want to do with ourselves. We’re pretty certain we won’t stay in this anchorage the rest of the week. We’ve exhausted the activities we care about here. We had hoped to go to the zoo nearby, but there’s no good way to get there from here. It’s at least 1.5 hours walking each way. The bus schedule is limited and might give us at most an hour at the zoo, IF the buses are on time, which we’ve heard is an issue, and a taxi would double the cost of the excursion. Not sure the small zoo is worth it. This is an issue on this side of the island. The bus routes and schedules are limited and there are not many places accessible on foot from the anchorages. There are only two other anchorages on this side of the island that provide an opportunity to do anything ashore. If we head back south to the anchorage near Basse Terre, we may be able to rent a car and go see some sights. If we go north to Deshaies, we could rent an electric scooter, but I’m not sure how far we could range on that. At any rate, we’ll likely move someplace new tomorrow.

Mother Nature is having her April Fool’s joke today. She’s been sending us sunny moments punctuated by periods of rain. We’ve given up trying to sit in the cockpit or trying to keep the hatches fully open. We’re now inside with only our slider and the two small side hatches open. Good thing it’s not hot.

When this posts on April 5^th, we’ll still be somewhere in Guadeloupe. Hopefully the post after that will be from Antigua, but we won’t hold our breath, and I suggest you don’t either. 

Until next time, stay safe and take care of each other.