Guadeloupe – Life on Lady

Guadeloupe to Antigua, at last!

I last wrote on April 1^st (posted the 5^th) and we were still in Guadeloupe.

We were in Guadeloupe another eight days and in that same anchorage for five of them. Honestly, we were a bit bored. We snorkeled another time and dove two more times. I mentioned last time that we had met a couple of American cruisers when we went ashore one day. They are on a sailing catamaran called Pulpo (Italian for octopus). That was the saving grace for our sanity. We told them to stop by if they wanted to see our solar electric system, since they were interested in it. A couple of days later, they did so. The tour of our system turned into a few hours of socializing with cheese, crackers, salami and apple as dinner once we realized it was too late for a real dinner and we were all hungry. 😂 A couple days after that, we invited them over for pizza and had another enjoyable, rambling conversation for several hours.

We and Pulpo ended up both moving north to Deshaies on April 7^th. They picked up a mooring ball. We tried to anchor, but dragged, and the anchoring section was pretty tight anyway, so we went north one more mile to Grand Anse and anchored in lovely sand. Just the change of scenery was mood-lifting, and we spent the rest of the day reading in our hammocks and enjoying the new view.

The following day, we did some travel planning over breakfast and decided that conditions looked sufficient for moving on to Antigua two days later, on Thursday, August 10^th. In the meantime, we had two days to explore. So we packed a dry bag with stuff we’d need ashore, donned our swimwear, masks, fins and snorkels, and swam ashore. The swell, though not bad at anchor, was too dangerous for landing dinghy ashore, she would have been swamped; so we swam instead.

Once ashore, we put our snorkeling gear in the mesh bag we’d packed, retrieved our glasses, hats and shoes, and headed for a little shack that rents kayaks for paddling around the mangrove. We rented a two-person kayak from a very friendly man who told us the mangrove has only existed for forty years and resulted from dredging for sand to build elsewhere on the island. He gave us the mangrove map and explained the various “stopping points” labeled on it. Then we set off. It was lovely! It was mostly an open mangrove lake, but there was one area where we could wend our way up the mangrove “river” several hundred feet, dodging mangrove roots and ducking under branches. It was soothing and mystical-feeling, and absolutely beautiful. There was another spot where we could pull the kayak onto a dry patch and then hike a short path into a 200-year old stand of very tall palm trees. Imagine the storms they’ve seen and survived! They were quite impressive. There was very little growing under them, since they block most of the sun. The ground was littered with fallen palm fronds, very big palm fronds. Occasionally there was a frond still attached to the piece that wrapped it to the palm’s trunk. This felt sort of like vinyl, which surprised us both. After about 20 minutes of gazing in awe, we went back to the kayak and continued around the mangrove lake to a shady spot under a sea grape tree where we sat for a while listening to the birds all around us. One little bird perched on a low branch just in front of us and serenaded us for a while. How sweet! Eventually our tummies started rumbling, so we returned the kayak and sought out lunch.

We ate at one of the many small restaurants lining the parking area of this popular beach destination. This beach area is more like White Lake State Park in NH, minus the camping. It’s not at all like the New England beaches. Yes, it’s a long sand beach, but between the sort of paved parking and the beach is a good-sized area of sand and palm trees, offering people a place to set up for the day in the shade. The restaurants, a couple of food trucks, and one little souvenir shop outline the parking area. The restaurants are more like glorified shacks, covered but open at the front and often the sides. Lunch was yummy.

The following day, Wednesday, we needed to get our clearance papers stamped at customs in Deshaies. Although we could have dinghied from Grand Anse, we wanted the ease of dropping mooring lines rather than hauling anchor when we got underway at 6:00am the next morning, plus we wanted to see Pulpo again. So we texted them to ask if there were any mooring balls open, to which they responded yes. As soon as we finished breakfast, we hauled anchor and ended up grabbing a recently vacated mooring right next to Pulpo. Yay! We each did our own thing that day. They went for a monster bike ride around the area. Dave and I stopped at Customs for that clearance stamp, grabbed croissants at the local bakery, then walked back toward Grand Anse via the main road through town and then along a shaded road/path. We walked a bit into the forest to an old battlement, now sporting one lonely old cannon, then we exited the trees onto the far south end of Grand Anse and walked over the sand back to the main swimming area, then out to the main road and back into town. Pulpo invited us over for dinner and we spent another lovely evening eating and chatting. They would also be heading to Antigua the next day, but didn’t need to leave as early as us, since they can sail faster than we can motor.

Our alarm went off at 5:00am on the 10^th. We had a quick breakfast, then dropped the mooring lines as planned at 6:00am and were off to Antigua. It was a tolerable passage, but not enjoyable. It was rolly and salty (that means we got splashed with sea water). As anticipated, Pulpo caught up with us, then passed us, arriving at Jolly Harbor about an hour ahead of us. The only two enjoyable events on the crossing included the sighting of what we think may have been a sperm whale off in the distance. We could see it tail slapping the water. The other brief event was Dave hooking a marlin, which, unfortunately, he did not land. He got to see it tail walk just before it shook off the lure. Bummer! For the first half of the trip we used the generators, until the sun was high enough that we could switch to just solar and battery. It was fairly cloudy, but the sun peeked out just often enough, and we were making good speed at an average of 6 knots, that we arrived in the anchorage at Jolly Harbor with 35% left on each battery bank. Dave dinghied into Customs to clear us in and met Pulpo there. They had brought their big boat into one of the Customs docks. They followed him back and anchored near us. They came over that evening for tacos and games.

It is so good to finally have a new place to explore! There are many anchorages all around this island, and we’ll have 5-6 weeks to explore them. Pulpo will be here for another week or so, before they have to start heading back south for hurricane season. Our friend Ian will be joining us at the end of this month.

The next time I write, it will be about our time here in Antigua. For now, enjoy the short video of our tour through the mangroves.

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

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.

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.

Dave’s boo boo. Lisa’a first time applying would closure strips.

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.

South coast of Grand Terre, Guadeloupe

I write this on 3/28 and we’re still in Guadeloupe. That weather window I mentioned a couple of posts ago wasn’t much of a window, so we decided to stay put and to explore more here. My last lengthy post covered through March 5^th, and 3½ weeks is a lot to catch you up on, so I’m not going to do it all at once. You’re welcome. 😉

Last time I wrote at length, we’d just seen my cousins off on March 5^th, bidding them farewell in the mall parking lot while we tried to renew our data plan. No dice. The Orange plan I’d originally purchased never let me do anything via the app or by dialing the requisite numbers on the phone and the agent in the store at the mall couldn’t help me either. The Digicel store was closed. Good thing our T-mobile plan works here; that bought us more time. The trip wasn’t a complete bust, however. We discovered that there is a supermarket in the mall. We scoped it out and realized we could do some reprovisioning here another day. For now, we just walked back to Lady to rest. The following day we did laundry, made water, worked on reassembling the boat to pre-guest status, and I took stock of our provisions. It was a productive, yet still restful day.

Freshly rested, Friday was our day to reprovision and finally get data. We didn’t need a lot of provisions, so we decided to make two separate trips to two different markets to get what we needed. After breakfast we walked to Leader Price, a smaller supermarket only 20 minutes away by foot. There was also a fresh produce market along the same route. We took our wheeled cart, stopped at both locations and returned to Lady to unpack and eat lunch before setting out again in the afternoon, this time for the mall that had both a supermarket and a Digicel store. We opted to finally take the bus rather than walk the 45 minutes to the mall. Buses are more difficult to figure out when everything is in a different language and the driver doesn’t speak any English. Thanks to my limited knowledge of French and Google Translate, I was able to tell him where we wanted to go. Unfortunately, he must have forgotten about us, because next thing we know, we’re in Point à Pitre, having passed the mall. Ultimately, we got to the mall. Dave worked on completing our shopping while I got us a SIM card and data plan, then we caught the bus back to the town of Le Grosier where Indigo Lady was still anchored in the bay. It was open market day in the park where dinghy was docked, so we scoped that out for a bit. The market is awesome, with lots of produce for sale, as well as fragrant bulk spices and spice mixes, plus food stalls galore and local made crafts (as well as some kitsch). Finally, we returned to Lady for yet more unpacking and dinner.

There were still more errands to run on Saturday. We took the bus to the marina complex, just outside of Point à Pitre. This time I used the bus’s app to figure out which bus to get on, though I still checked with the driver when we boarded, and this time I let him know that I wouldn’t know when to request a stop. That worked. We arrived at the marina quickly, went in for our $10 worth of parts to fix our microwave/convection oven and came out with $250 worth of stuff. Happens every time we go into a marine supplies store. 😂 It was all stuff we’d planned on buying eventually anyway, and this was a very well-stocked store. Our microwave works again, and we have two shiny new dock lines and a few other things.

After a week anchored at Îlet du Grosier, we finally hauled anchor on 3/10 and set out for St. Francois, 16 nm east along the south coast of Grand Terre. We did not get that far. It was a bumpy ride and we were in no rush, so instead we stopped at Petit Havre after just 3 nm. This is a pretty little open anchorage protected only by the reef, which breaks the swell so that it’s bearable. Snorkeling was out of the question, however, because the surge on the reef was too big. We enjoyed watching a group of about 8 kiteboarders playing around in the shallows. Mostly we did laundry and a few other chores. Dave was just starting to prep dinner when he noticed the freezer thermostat was reading too high. An hour later, he had the faulty valves in the freezer cooling water circulating pump repaired and went back to fixing dinner. Jazz in the hammocks seemed appropriate for that evening. It was. ☺️

From Petit Havre, we jumped another 3 nm east to St. Anne. It was still a bit bumpy traveling eastward, and we figured we may as well visit all the south coast anchorages. This is another open anchorage protected only by the reef. Shortly after anchoring, we dropped dinghy and headed to the fishing harbor just north of us and tied her up there so we could explore. We walked about town and cruised through a few shops, including the Artisan Village right near the fishing harbor. St. Anne is popular with local tourists and has a busy, touristy downtown and beach. As one might expect, the closer to the beach one is, the more expensive the food is. So we walked inland a couple of streets and grabbed inexpensive, yet still enjoyable, baguette sandwiches at a spot frequented by locals rather than tourists. We got some homemade ice cream near the beach afterward and then returned to Lady. The highlight of this anchorage was the sailing school. Not long after our return to Lady, I heard Dave call from the tramp that the sailing school was out and about the anchorage. We spent the next 90 minutes watching and cheering on the 10-14 year olds zipping around the anchorage, navigating each other, the anchored boats, and the floating markers they were supposed to be racing around. Most of the boats had a single sail and single child aboard, but there were also three slightly larger boats with two sails and a crew of four kids. They excitedly waved as they passed us. The lead boat proudly flashed us the “we’re #1” sign as they passed. It was an enjoyable way to spend part of an afternoon.

The following day we finally made it to St. Francois, 8 nm east of St. Anne. This is another open anchorage, but it was even better protected by a more extensive reef than the prior two anchorages. It was also expansive and shallow. We anchored in about 6.5 feet of water and it was almost flat calm. After lunch aboard, we dinghied to the marina where we left dinghy on a very nice dinghy dock, then we proceeded to walk about town. It’s a big marina full of mostly local boats, though they have some dock space for transient boats. The water, however, was nasty and smelled. No thank you; I’ll stay at anchor. There were many shops and restaurants around three sides of the marina, and it all kind of spilled into the main town and down toward the fishing harbor as well. We also discovered a supermarket near the marina. Score!

The following morning we headed ashore about 8:30AM for breakfast and WiFi at a restaurant bordering the marina that we’d scoped out the day before. Yes, we have our own data, but we needed to update operating systems and apps, and backup our phones and iPads, and that uses too much data. So we spent a couple of hours (public WiFi is slow) doing the tech thing and enjoying a leisurely breakfast. After that, we walked down to Marché le Rotunde (the round market). The building is, well, round, and inside there are crafters set up at tables, and all around the exterior, but still under an extended roof, were stall upon stall of people selling local produce, honey, syrups, jams, juices, and very fragrant spices and spice mixes. Oh the wonderful aromas! Dave succumbed and bought a couple of small samples of spice mixes. I bought a yard of the locally made Madras fabric, which is brightly colored red, blue and yellow plaid that is traditionally used for costumes for Festival. Maybe I’ll make an apron out of it. Our next stop was a quick lunch of paninis at a street vendor, then we continued on to the Musée des Beaux Artes. It’s a small art gallery run by a small non-profit and only costs $5 euros to enter. It has a large number of artworks by artists with some sort of connection to Guadeloupe. It was well laid out, and most of the signs were in both French and English. Yay. We then popped into the supermarket to pick up a few things for dinner before returning to Lady for the evening.

Sculpture and paintings at Musée des Beaux Artes

As delightful an anchorage and as nice a town as St. Francois was, the conditions were perfect for cruising south to Marie Galante, so that’s what we did the morning of 3/14. I’ll tell you about that next time.

Until then, stay safe and take care of each other.

Octopus sighting!

I’d rather be in my hammock reading than blogging. So today I’m going to give you some eye candy.

In early March, we saw a football-sized common octopus at Îlet à Cabrit, Les Saintes, Guadeloupe. I managed to catch a video of him swimming, crawling and then hiding.

Enjoy the show!

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

Be our guest

Four of my cousins from Maine arrived late evening on 2/20. They had flown into Guadeloupe on the 19^th and took the ferry the following afternoon from Point à Pitre to Roseau, Dominica. Dave took a taxi to drop off that Garmin display we had to return and to pick up the cousins at the ferry dock to get them back to Portsmouth and Prince Rupert Bay. They were onboard by 7:00pm and we turned right around for dinner ashore at the Purple Turtle restaurant. The service was SLOW, but the food was well worth the wait.

The following day was pretty low key. We took everyone ashore to get local currency and to pick up some fresh produce. We were planning to stay aboard the rest of the day until our friends on Sunny Girl showed up in the afternoon and asked who wanted to hike the Cabrits. Dave and I had already done it, but the cousins joined Kevin and Marsha. When they all returned, we had Kevin & Marsha stay for drinks and apps.

One tour Dave and I did not mind at all repeating was the Indian River tour, only this time, per the recommendation of Faustin Alexis, one of the PAYS guys, we did a 7:00AM tour. It turned into an 8:00AM tour because it rained at 7AM. Alexis picked us up as soon as the rain stopped and he gave us a lovely tour. We were early enough still that there were no cruise ship groups touring the river yet. Since the bush bar at the end of the tour route was closed in the morning, Alexis instead gave us a walking tour through the forest. It was worth getting up early to do the morning tour! We got back to Lady just before lunch and were deciding what to have when lunch came to us. A man and two women came up in a small boat selling chicken roti for $15 EC each (that’s $5.50 US). Easy, cheap and yummy! We spent a lazy afternoon aboard after that.

We had a 9:00AM tour with Alexis on Sunday 2/23. He took us first to the Syndicate Nature Trails and we walked one while he pointed out the flora and described its uses. His knowledge is vast. We then backtracked through Portsmouth to Calibishie where we had lunch before proceeding on to the Chocolate Factory. After that, Alexis took us back to Portsmouth via the northernmost road that passes through the old volcano crater and past the cold sulfur springs, complete with sulfur smell. Along the way, Alexis described his island to us. Born and raised here, he’s seen a lot of changes during his lifetime, most of the recent ones not necessarily good changes, especially since their economy has been depressed since the 1980s, and it worsened after Maria hit in 2017 and the 3000+ student medical school left the island for Barbados. We were back on Lady by 5:30pm after a fabulous, but long and tiring day. Lunch had been late and large, so we had a snack-y dinner and were all in bed by 9:00PM.

We were boat bound all day on the 24^th because it rained off and on all day. The weather wasn’t much better on the 25^th, but we had to go ashore, despite the rain, to do some final errands and clear out of the country so we could head to Guadeloupe. We were drenched! The rain mostly stopped by the time we returned to Lady and we dropped the mooring and set off for Les Saintes. The first part of the crossing was a bit bumpy until we cleared the northern tip of Dominica and Dave could alter our course to put the seas behind us. We made good time to Les Saintes, averaging 6.5 kts, and we were even lucky enough to get the last mooring ball in the anchorage at Bourg de Saintes at the island of Terre de Haut.

It was not raining in Les Saintes, and their mountains were not under clouds! (It rained to some degree every day we were in Dominica, for three weeks.) We spent our first full day walking about town, getting a mid-morning pastry treat and lunch later. In the afternoon, we snorkeled a wrecked ferry in the anchorage, close enough that we could swim to it right from Lady. The following day we returned ashore to hike up to Fort Napoleon. It was a hot uphill walk, but well worth it. The grounds are a lovely, well-maintained garden and the fort houses and excellent museum. The placards are all in French, but I got the gist of most of it. The walk back to town was faster and less sweaty, since gravity was in our favor, and we found delicious sandwiches before returning to Lady.

The last three days of our time in Les Saintes were spent on a mooring at the Îlet à Cabrit, 1nm west of Terre de Haut. This is a quiet, uninhabited island, though several day trippers showed up by small boat on the weekend. We explored the ruins of Fort Lorraine and of a hotel that never amounted to much, but mostly we snorkeled. The west end of the island has particularly good snorkeling, despite the sad state of reefs in general. There was an extensive grass bed, plus rubble and coral, many sponges and quite a variety of fish. Richard & Sharon even saw an octopus! The rest of us were jealous. Still, Dave and I saw several fish we’d never seen before, including a coney, a chain moray eel, a sharptail eel and a goldspotted eel.

We spent the final two days with our cousins up in the anchorage at Îlet de Gosier on the south coast of Grand Terre (the right butterfly wing of Guadeloupe), about 3 miles east of Point à Pitre. The anchorage is off a little island named for the nearby mainland town of Le Gosier, just a short dinghy ride from the anchorage. Îlet du Gosier is a park that vacationers, mostly French, and locals frequent. A small ferry runs continuously, during daylight hours, between the island and the town dock in Le Gosier. We did dinghy to the little island to explore it and the numerous little beaches around it. Late afternoon we went ashore to walk about town and to have dinner.

The following day we walked over an hour to the marina near Point à Pitre to decide if we would go there the next morning to drop off the cousins to go to the airport. It turned out to be too risky, not knowing if a mooring ball would be open or where we might anchor. When we walked out of the marina office, however, Bob talked to a cab driver who was dropping off a fare, and she spoke English! So he arranged for her to pick us all up at 1:30 PM at the aquarium (our next stop) and to also pick them up in Le Gosier near the dock the next morning. Win! So we backtracked to the aquarium and enjoyed about 90 minutes there. It’s small, but well curated, emphasizing local fish and their environs. The aquarium has the only sea turtle rescue in the eastern Caribbean. We grabbed drinks at the bar/restaurant outside the aquarium while we waited for the cab driver. Once we were back in Le Gosier, we sought out a late lunch. It was so late, in fact, that we opted to pick up baguettes, cheese and hard meats for an appetizer-like dinner later on Lady.

The morning of March 5^th dawned bright and sunny. We had breakfast together, then the cousins started packing up to return home and otherwise soak in the warm atmosphere before they had to meet the taxi at noon. We joined them in the taxi and ultimately bid them adieu in the parking lot of a mall, where they graciously had us dropped off so we could sort out more data, since the data on our local SIM had been used up.

And this is where I shall leave you for now. I will tell you that I am writing this on March 22^nd and Dave & I are still in Guadeloupe, eyeing a potential weather window late next week to move on to Antigua. Next time I will tell you more about our time in Guadeloupe. Until then, stay safe and take care of each other!

A brief live update

We are in Guadeloupe and have been since 2/25. The rendezvous in Dominica was a blast! Four family members joined us in Dominica the day after that ended and we’ve all been going non-stop since, in both Dominica and Guadeloupe. They just departed this afternoon and now I need time to recuperate from the fast pace of the past three weeks. Next post I will catch you up on the Salty Dawg Rendezvous in Dominica. After that, I’ll post about the two weeks spent with my cousins onboard. Notice I’m not committing to a timeframe. I’ll get to posting again eventually.

Oh, and Dave & I swam with a wild dolphin. Yes, you’re going to have to wait to hear more about that, too. I threw in two pictures to appease you for now. 😁

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

Six days in Guadeloupe

As you know, if you’ve been following us this season, we left St. Kitt’s & Nevis and eventually made it to Guadeloupe on January 30^th. (The details, if you missed them, are in my posts on February 1^st and 5^th). We landed in Deshaies (pronounced Day-ay) on the northwest corner of Basse Terre. Guadeloupe comprises two main islands that form a sort of butterfly shape, with Basse Terre to the west separated from Grand Terre to the east by a narrow mangrove channel, plus, to the south, there is Marie Galante, and west of that a group of smaller islands called Les Saintes.

Fans of the British mystery, Death in Paradise, will know that it is filmed in various parts of Guadeloupe. The Honoré Police Department is in Deshaies, and yes, we stopped to see it, from the outside. We weren’t willing to pay $20 US each to stand in the tiny room for ten minutes and look at the police desks and cell. We heard someone say there’s a tour that takes you to several of the filming sites, for about $100 US per person. No thank you.

Death in Paradise aside, we enjoyed the two days and three nights we spent on a mooring in the harbor of Deshaies. For my birthday on the 31^st, we toured the Jardin Botanique de Deshaies (the Deshaies Botanical Gardens). It was totally worth the $17.50 € ($18.54 US) per person! They were gorgeous, and they went on and on! There were built in water features, including a couple of ponds, a river and a waterfall with a restaurant perched on top. There was also a walk-in lorikeet aviary and another area with various Macaws, most of whom were napping in their little huts when we arrived. We decided lunch would be our main meal of the day for my birthday, so we treated ourselves to a delicious lunch, including dessert, at the restaurant I mentioned atop the waterfall. The views from the deck were spectacular! We had taken the free shuttle up hill to the garden, but after that big lunch decided we should walk the 1+ miles back to the dinghy dock. We opted for a mini charcuterie for dinner, as well as music in our hammocks before bed. It was a wonderful way to spend my birthday!

The next day, February 1^st, after croissants ashore for breakfast and getting some gasoline for dinghy, we prepared a picnic lunch (sandwiches on baguette, of course) and went for a hike. Actually, it was more of a rock scramble. We “hiked” up the bed of the Deshaies River, something one can only do when the water level is low, as it was this day. It was beautiful, winding its way through the tropical forest. Occasionally we had to bushwhack a bit ashore to get around parts of the river without good scrambling rocks. Dave cooled himself off in one of the pools in the river along the way. We were aiming for where the river intersected the road that would lead us back to town. About 2 hours into the hike, knowing we had to be pretty close to that road, but not quite sure how close, it started to rain. That made the rocks slippery. Ack! We waited until the downpour stopped, then continued our scramble more slowly for another 15 minutes or so until we came to a spillway across the river with a house on the south bank. Dave scrambled up the north bank toward where he thought it looked like there was a road and confirmed that there was, so I followed. The cruising guide said it was about a 15 minute walk back to town. It was more like 45 minutes and quite steep going down, but we got back uneventfully. It was just lunch time when we got back to town, so we sat on a bench in a little park and ate our yummy sandwiches. Then we visited the local rum store, bought a bottle, then I got ice cream before we returned to Lady. We were a bit sore, but it had been a lovely day.

On Sunday we decided that we wanted a change of scenery before we took the upcoming weather window to Dominica. We moved down to Plage de la Malendure (Misery Beach; sounds nicer in French). We were still sore from the previous day’s hike, so we made water and did laundry, but otherwise rested. The next day, however, we popped across to Pigeon Island in our dinghy and snorkeled around in this part of Jacques Cousteau Marine Park. The reefs are struggling these days, but there was some coral and sponges and LOTS of fish, many schools of them. It was an enjoyable snorkel. After lunch back aboard Lady, we dinghied into the beach to walk about a bit. It’s a vacationers’ spot with lots of dive/snorkel shops along the beach, as well as food shacks/restaurants and souvenir shops.

The following day we moved down to Marina Sud Ancrage (South Anchorage Marina) on the southwest end of Basse Terre. We filled up with very expensive diesel, cleared out of the country, had lunch at the marina, and then dinghied about a mile back north to the main town of Basse Terre to get a SIM card and some parts Dave needed. I know, it sounds weird to get a SIM the day before leaving the country, but we’re pretty sure that when we return to Guadeloupe in late February, we’ll head to Les Saintes, and we knew we would not be able to purchase a SIM there. The plan we ended up buying is good for two months, so we’ll be all set when we return. It wasn’t easy getting the SIM and plan, since the employees at Orange (the cellular provider) speak little English and I speak little French. Between translators on our phones, our smattering of each other’s languages, and a lot of good-natured patience, I had what I needed, plus an extra 10 GB of data because there was a glitch and I had to wait quite a bit while the lovely woman assisting me called Orange to verify that the package I’d purchased was in fact activated. That was nice of them. We were back on Lady by 4:30 pm, had leftovers for dinner, and watched the Bruins win before retiring to bed.

We landed in Dominica before noon on February 5^th and that’s where we are now. We will be here at least through the 23^rd (ish). The Salty Dawg rendezvous runs from the 13^th to the 20^th, and we have family arriving here immediately after that. But I’m going to stop here and fill you in about Dominica later.

Until then, stay safe and take care of each other!

Well, that didn’t go as planned.

We are safe and happy in Guadeloupe. Our trip here did not go as planned, however.

We departed Nevis at midnight on Wednesday, 1/29, as planned. Conditions were rolly, as predicted, and we had to hold onto things to move about the boat, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. We wouldn’t normally choose these conditions, but since we decided to attend a scheduled rendezvous, it had to be. I guess I’m getting a little saltier with experience.

Being dark at midnight, we started the trip with both generators running. Starboard had been struggling to start up, but Dave did get both going that morning and we set off. Somewhere around 5:00 AM, both generators shut off. Fortunately, Dave was able to restart the port generator right away. As he worked on trying to restart the starboard generator, we let the starboard motor run on battery. When that got down to 35%, Dave turned off that battery bank, turned on the cross ship cable, and let the port generator run both motors. This was not a new situation for us. We spent an entire year with the starboard generator not working and had to use this approach. All was well.

Just around sunrise, we accidentally shut off the port generator (stupid buttons are too close!). Only this time, the generator display/control panel went blank. So Dave hooked up the computer to the generator controller in the port engine room to restart the generator that way. No dice. Okay, now my anxiety level is through the roof. One battery bank is at 35%, the other at 100% and we’re only halfway to Guadeloupe. If we don’t have at least one working generator, we are not going to make it. (Those of you who have been following me from the start of our journey, know this is my worst nightmare. If you don’t know the story, you can read it here. Dave tried for a good 15-20 minutes to restart port to no avail. The only reason this event wasn’t quite as scary for me as 2019, is because we were only 8-9 nm from the anchorage on Montserrat. We turned to head for that anchorage. That put the seas behind us, giving us a good push (6 knots speed instead of 4.5 knots), and the sun was getting higher (happens pretty quickly down here), so we knew we’d make it with battery power to spare. We did. Phew! My stress level dropped significantly.

Dave was pretty sure what the problem was. I told you in my January 15^th post that we had to change out the 12V batteries that start our generators, run our anchor windlass, hoist our dinghy, and a couple other things. The only 12V batteries we could find on St. Kitt’s were car batteries. They just didn’t have enough juice. We needed something more robust. We got lucky at Montserrat. It only took 2 phone calls for Dave to find a place ashore that had 12V truck starting batteries with the cranking capacity to start our generators. Sweet!

I did our preclearance online (can’t go ashore until you clear in with Customs & Immigration, and in this case, pay a port fee). Dave went to lower dinghy – winch wouldn’t run. Not a peep. Are you kidding me?! It took Dave about 5 minutes to find a blown fuse in the port engine room, where the dinghy winch is also wired. Turns out that same fuse also prevented the helm station generator display/control AND the computer from communicating with the port generator. That’s why we couldn’t restart it. (It had been starting okay, even with the weak 12V batteries). Fortunately, Dave had spares of that fuse onboard.

By the time we finally got ashore and cleared in, it was time for lunch, so we grabbed that first. Then we set off for the car park where we’d seen some taxis. En route, a gentleman asked us how our day was and where we were heading. When we mentioned a taxi, he said we could borrow his car. We asked how much. He shrugged and said, whatever you want to give me will be fine. Wow! He handed us his keys and we set off for the auto parts store. It was closed for lunch, but it was the end of the lunch hour, so we waited. The owner came by and saw us and let us in, apologizing for our having to wait. We found the batteries, and the nice owner helped us order them via his website (the live location is really a wholesale/online place) and pay for it with Paypal because we didn’t have any local currency with us, and he couldn’t take US money and he wasn’t set up to take credit cards because the local bank is difficult about that. He was very patient, helpful and kind. By the time we were done with that purchase, we popped one door down to the retail side of his business where the salesman was back from lunch where we purchased the post connectors Dave also needed. The salesman told us he noticed we’d borrowed Moose’s car (so that’s his name! Why didn’t we think to ask?!), and told us he is a very kind man. Yes he is.

Back we went to the dinghy dock to unload the batteries and me to stay with them while Dave returned the car to Moose. He thanked Moose profusely and paid him only slightly less than a taxi would have cost us for the trip. Once we were back on Lady it took Dave about 30 minutes to connect the two new batteries up to the two old batteries. Both generators purred to life immediately. Thanks goodness!

I want to note now that we had been considering stopping at Montserrat if it worked out, but it wasn’t a top priority for us. After our emergency stop of less than 24 hours, we’ve decided that we will definitely come back, if not later this season, then at the start of next season. The people are wonderfully friendly and the island is gorgeous! We look forward to being able to spend more time for a proper visit.

Before we’d gone ashore, I’d emailed Chris Parker, the weather routing guy we use sometimes, telling him about our trip interruption and asking for a forecast/route suggestions for Thursday, 1/30. Conditions were going to be similar, but possibly deteriorating late afternoon/early evening. He suggested we leave as early as possible to arrive by mid-afternoon at the latest. Since we’d been up since midnight and stressed/busy most of that time, we were in bed by 7:30pm. We slept well, knowing our generators would work properly and that we hadn’t entirely missed the weather window to get to Guadeloupe before conditions became inclement for at least a week.

We were underway by about 6:15 am on 1/30 and were moored at Deshaies, Guadeloupe by about 3:15 pm. It was a bit saltier than the day before, but that was mostly between the south end of Montserrat and the halfway point to Guadeloupe, otherwise it was about the same as the prior day’s trip. We opted for a mooring ball instead of anchoring, partly as a treat, because they’re easier than anchoring, and partly because we still don’t have depth data, which makes it more challenging to decide how much scope to put out when anchoring. We had a good night’s sleep.

We’ll be here in Guadeloupe for a little over a week, exploring the west coast between here in Deshaies and Basse-Terre to the south. We’ll look for a window between February 8-12 to make the 5-6 hour cruise over to Dominica from the Basse-Terre area.

So there’s our two-day Nevis to Guadeloupe saga. Maybe next time I’ll actually get to catch you up on our two weeks in Nevis and the start of our time here in Guadeloupe.

Until then, stay safe and take care of each other!