Marie Galante

We had a comfortable 20 nm cruise from St. Francois to Marie Galante on Friday, March 14^th. We anchored in Anse Canot (Anse = bay or cove), off Mays beach, in crystal clear turquoise water. We’d planned to go ashore to walk the beach after lunch, but just as we were finishing said meal, the starboard generator randomly started itself, more than once. Say what?! Several hours of trouble shooting ensued. The bottom line is that we have no idea why the generator did that, and the only thing that finally “fixed” it (at least for now) was shutting everything off for a while and restarting it. Basically, Dave rebooted the system. He was so frustrated. We spent the rest of the afternoon in our hammocks so Dave could decompress. Poor guy.

The following morning we did go ashore after breakfast. We beached dinghy, locked her to a tree and set off. We were heading for Plage du Vieux Fort to find a trail we’d read about in the cruising guide. The trail we found wasn’t “the” trail, but it was a lovely walk through the forest. At one point, it abutted the mangrove river, but on the side opposite what we’d been looking for. There was a small structure with educational signs (in French, of course) about various species of flora and fauna found in the area. There was also a little dock. Eventually, the trail dumped us out onto another road, but we opted to retrace our steps along the forest trail because it was a shorter distance to get back to our starting point. Once there, we continued a little further along the road along Plage du Vieux Fort and finally found what we’d been looking for, sort of. Turns out that the mangrove “trail” we thought we were looking for was really the mangrove river, but that was fine, because there were pedal boats we could rent for $9 euro per person for an hour. So we did that, and we slowly pedaled our way ¾ of a mile up the river until it was no longer navigable, then turned around and pedaled back, slowly. We even passed that educational building and dock we’d stopped at along our hike earlier. It was a lovely way to see the river and its surrounding area.

Back at dinghy, I stayed with her while Dave went to unlock her from the tree. He returned with blood pouring down his face, dripping down his nose, and covering his glasses. I reached for the small med kit I always have on hand. All Dave wanted, however, was something to staunch the flow until we got back to Lady. I found some toilet paper and that did the trick. How did Dave gash his scalp, you may be wondering? The brim of the bucket hat Dave was wearing obscured his view of one of the low-hanging tree branches and he hit hard against it. Remarkably, the hat was not torn and stayed on, until Dave yanked it off his head, that is. Back at Lady he gave the 2 ½ inch gash a thorough cleaning with soap and water while sitting on the sugar scoop. It wasn’t deep, so no stitches needed. Good thing, too, because we would have had to move Lady down to the next anchorage to get to a town and hope a doctor was available on a Saturday on this small island. Instead, five wound closure strips later, the wound was sealed. Glad we have a comprehensive med kit onboard! For extra protection in bed at night, we added a gauze pad secured with two additional wound closure strips and Dave wore his thin dive beanie. Fortunately, scalps tend to heal quickly, so he was able to ditch the gauze and beanie after a couple of nights. The event rather subdued us for the rest of the afternoon, so we just swung in our hammocks. 

The following morning we walked the long, lovely Mays beach, then hauled anchor and popped down to Baie St. Louis, 2 nm south. We stayed aboard all day so that I could do a bunch of laundry while Dave made water. We also did a lot of reading in between.

Monday morning, 3/17, we went ashore after breakfast to rent a scooter and ride around the island. Only there were no scooters to be had. Dang! Two phone calls later, I’d managed to reserve us a scooter for 8 AM the following morning. It is not easy navigating these sorts of things in another language, one I don’t know well, so I was cranky by the time it was done. We got pastry. That helped. Then it was time for a new plan. We decided to walk a mile to a farm we’d read about that has bees and makes their own honey, honey mead, honey punch (alcoholic), and honey soaps. En route we passed a gorgeous garden at a crossroads, in what appeared to be a mini park with a couple of benches outside the garden. Whoever is in charge of that garden is an artist! The blend of colors and textures of plants was amazing! 

As we neared the bee farm, it occurred to me that we probably couldn’t do the tour because it would be in French. I was correct. The farmer spoke a bit of English, however, enough for us to learn that they have 200 hives across the island, and that they were out of honey until 10 days hence. Bummer! We were able to taste the mead and punch, though, and bought a bottle of the punch and three bars of their soap. Then we returned to town and to Lady for a lazy afternoon.

Then it was scooter day! We picked up our scooter and were on our way by 8:30 AM, in large part because the young man who got us our scooter spoke a fair amount of English. We started out heading north for a scenic stop at Gueule Grand Gouffre, a natural arch in front of a 50-foot diameter chasm carved by the sea. Wooden barriers prevent one from getting too close, probably a good thing, but it was lovely. The bumpy “road” to it, not so lovely. 

We then continued around and down the east side of the island, stopping for a snack in Capesterre in the southeast. We were going to walk the beach a bit, but it was covered in sargassum, so we passed on that. Next, we backtracked and headed inland a bit to a rum distillery, Distillerie Bellevue. It’s been in production for a couple of hundred years at least, though it’s all modern now. Some of the old ruins are still on the grounds. They allow visitors into the distillery far enough that one can see all the equipment, and they have placards (in French) about the distilling process. We could even go up some steps to peek into the fermentation tanks. Then we had a free tasting and left with a bottle of their old rum. French Caribbean rum is distilled from sugar cane, not molasses, so it has a different taste, which we still enjoy. 

It had been a lovely ride to the distillery, and we took another scenic set of roads toward Grand Bourg, a town in the southwest, stopping first at the ruins of a rum distillery called Habitation Murat. We’re getting pretty good at getting the gist of the information on the French placards at these places. This distillery ran from 1660 to 1899! 

We had lunch in Grand Bourg, then dubbed our way back to St. Louis and returned our scooter by 3:30 pm. The scooter and the 1.2L of gas we used cost us $37 euros and change, and it was a fun way to see this lovely, largely rural island. 

After five days at Marie Galante, it was time to move on. More about Guadeloupe next time. Until then, stay safe and take care of each other.