Iles des Saintes & Guadeloupe 9th to 17th February

Iles De Saintes and Guadeloupe – 10^th to 17^th February

 

We were back in France. We anchored in Sugar Loaf  Bay (Pain de Sucre in french) which only had a hotel. This proved to be a very useful hotel as having had a drink ashore and obtained the wifi code we were able to gain decent internet on the boat. Russell set about uploading photos onto Facebook and I tried my best to get ones onto this blogg. It is easy to get words on but photos take forever and have to be done individually.

 

In the next bay round was the capital Bourg des Saintes and we had to visit here to check into customs. This took a while to find as it had moved from the “Marie” (which seemed to be the town hall) into an internet café hidden upstairs above some very chic boutiques. It also appeared that it was carnival time and the kids, parents and teachers were doing a procession through the streets dressed as clowns. We had a little explore and found a small Carrefour which would enable us to provision well for our next shop in a few days time. Most people get around on scooters and although this looked like fun and reasonably cheap to hire (Euro 25 per day) Russell was concerned that I would fall off. Also I couldn’t bear the fights from the children as neither wanted to go on the back with mummy because she was bound to drive too slow. We could also not see what we were going to visit as the island is very small.

 

We enjoyed 3 nights at anchor. We went across to the island of Ilet a Cabrit in the dinghy and clamboured all over it. It was littered with derelict forts. These were now inhabited by goats which we were asked to give water too. The children also enjoyed feeding them their apple cores.

 

 

 

 

The snorkelling in the bay was spectacular. Lots of fish and beautiful corals filled the rocks. The boys especially liked the engine from a wrecked catamaran.

Oliver dived down and picked up a conch so we were going to eat it and keep the shell but then I read you were not allowed to on iles de saintes so we put it back. We did take some photos though.

 

 

 

The Cabrit Island in Iles des saintes (there seems to be alot of places with the same name...)

 

 

 

We went into the main town to stock up on some foods and the boys really liked the land crabs.

 

 

 

 

We had been with Intrepid Bear for nearly a month and now it was time to part and go separate ways. They need to travel north quicker than us as James has a job to return to in mid April. We hope to catch up in the BVI’s before they fly home leaving the boat to be shipped back. Shipping back seems to be a popular option, but not one we could afford to do. The idea of just stepping on a plane and not having to think about provisioning for a big trip is very appealing, not to mention the odd 3500 miles we will be sailing in 3 chunks. The plus side is that when you are at sea you cannot spend any money!

You always spend more than you expect to and being here is no exception. The cost of mooring is minimal in the Caribbean as you are anchored for most of the time. You still need to factor in a few marina stops to aid with inevitable repairs and also pick up water if you do not have a watermaker. It is also helpful for big provisioning stops as where there is a big marina there is often a decent supermarket. Due to the increase in boats there has also been the need to introduce national parks where you cannot anchor and are forced to pick up a bouy. The cost of these seems to range, but the average is around £10. The guide books tell you where these are so if you want to avoid them you can, but I think to do so you will miss out on some lovely places.

You can tell that many people have been cruising for years and they have probably amassed sufficient knowledge to know where the best places are and also where you can provision at a reasonable cost. I have certainly become more confident in negotiating with boat boys selling fruit, although these have become scarce since Dominica. This has become a good and bad thing as they had their uses providing a little fruit each day rather than having to go in search and also the supermarkets seem to use polystyrene trays to package fruit that you then have to get rid of. On the upside you are not hassled as soon as you drop the hook. The cost of food and drinks do vary and we have found that stocking up when you can at a good price is the way to go. There is only so much you can take on at a time though, so you have to be careful to only buy what you have space for. We are starting to see the same brands now which reduces the lottery game of will the kids like this tomato ketchup. They obviously still want Heinz which is 4 times the price of Hy-top. It is also scary when EC$ are worth 4 times the £. So when you buy 4 pieces of nice steak at EC$40 it is costing you £10 which is probably not dissimilar to the UK. Chicken breasts seem to offer good value at between EC$16 to EC$30 for 4 large breasts – so £4 to £7.50. We have found it cheaper to BBQ chicken and have in sandwiches than buy ham. Just as you get used to the EC prices you switch back to a French island and you are in euro land. The kids get all excited that Pringles are 3.5 euros a tube rather than the EC$10. They are now learning valuable lessons in exchange rates and the 4 times table. Every time we go to the supermarket and buy 5 days worth of food it costs around £100, but this will include soft drinks and beer.

 

Apologies that I have digressed…

 

We left Iles de Saintes for main land Guadeloupe. We had decided to go through the river Salee which cuts Guadeloupe in half. You have to navigate it early in the morning (5am) when the 2 bridges are lifted. We thought this sounded interesting and motor sailed the 20 miles to Gossier an anchorage close to the main town of Point de Pitre. The wind was brisk and pretty much on the nose so we motor sailed with the main up. It did free a little so we managed a little sailing. The waves were quite big and it was quite lumpy. I hoped that the river experience was going to be worth it.

 

We got to Gosier around 4pm and anchored in the lee of an island. The shoreline looked quite nice and was filled with people on a Monday. It turned out to be carnival time and a national holiday on Monday and Tuesday. We had time for a jump in the sea before dinner and enjoyed a hot shower as we had generated hot water from motoring. Cold showers are now not such a shock as the sea temperature is 30 degrees it seems that the water tanks get warmed to this. A hot shower is still appreciated and there are fights over who goes first as this will be cold whist the hot water runs through. No wasting the cold as water as it has to be purchased and costs around £5 to fill our … tanks every 10 days.

 

The next day we went ashore to see what Gossier had to offer. Trip one was abandoned when we got to a pontoon that seemed to have a locked gate. The heavens then opened and within seconds we were soaked to the skin and retreating. We managed to get back to the boat, no mean feat as the rain was so hard the visibility was nil. It was pretty wet all afternoon and we got the lego out and the boys happily built spaceships.

 

 

 

We managed to get ashore at around 4pm and to be honest it wasn't worth the effort. What looked chic from the boat was shabby ashore. We had to climb round the gate to get off the pontoon. It seems that above ground graves, maybe shrines are the norm and the mainroad was accompanied by what looked like beachhuts. The crosses, flowers and names of the dead (I suspect that a whole family will be buried here) suggested they were beach huts for the dead rather than living. It didn’t seem appropriate to take a picture and made the whole place feel a bit spooky. We saw another one of these cemeteries up on the hill of Basse Terre. After a brief walk along the beach we returned back to the boat.

 

The next day we headed to Point de pitre marina. We had hoped to go through the river salee but one of the lifting Bridges is closed for a year . It only closed a few weeks ago which is typical! We decided to travel the 5 miles along the river in the dinghy just to see what we had missed.

 

 

 

Can you spot which bridge needs repairing?

 

However it did mean we took full advantage of an excellent marina at 28 euro a night which included electric and water which makes a change. We were also able to get an electronics firm to test the batteries and found one to be dud; the others are like new so we saved a fortune replacing one rather than all three. This had made Russell very happy. We also stocked up on wine at around £3 per bottle. All other food and drink was as usual quite expensive and the boys were disappointed when I would not buy crisps at 4 euro a packet. They did get treated to a magnum ice cream though and fed up of making lunch we had a KFC.

 

The boat next to us had a visitor to the dinghy. A huge Iguana sunning itself between the downpours.

 

 

 

The weather in Guadeloupe has been quite cloudy and chilly on occasions. We have had some spectacular downpours. The marina had washing machines and driers at 3 euro each so I treated the clothes to a proper wash and dry along with the covers from the beanbags that we're getting rather grubby and salt encrusted. It was quite booring walking up and down all day as everyone has the same idea do you have to do one load at a time. It also guaranteed that it did not rain that day! I was able to scrub the mat and also the floor and have a bit of a clear out again.

 

 

We had hoped to fill up with duty free fuel this morning but a massive catamaran called Mousetrap beat us and 5 other waiting yachts to the fuel berth . He was taking 1000 gallons which we were told would take an hour. As we had 47 miles to go we decided mot to bother waiting. The bridge being closed has added 40 miles to our journey to Antigua as we now have to go all the way around. This is a bit annoying as we will have 2 days worth of 47 mile trips one after the other.

 

Ethan enjoyed the game of who can find the tender with the biggest engines. We think this superyacht won.

 

 

 

Our first trip took us to Deshais (pronounced Dayay). We expected to have good sail with the wind behind us as we headed back down to the south tip of Guadeloupe. It seemed that the wind was less than it sounded at anchor and we decided to revert to engine assistance as we had 47 miles to travel. We stuck out the fishing line not expecting to catch anything as our fish drought had continued since a big fish took our lure and line on passage from St Vincent to st Lucia a month before. After a couple of hours I noticed a big splash behind the boat and then the line tugged. Russell said there was no fish when he pulled on the line. I suggested we real in as I had seen a big fish go for it and suspected it took the lot. I was right. We had lost another lure! But at least we knew there were fish in the sea. We rigged a new lure and it wasnlt long before we had caught a little tunny. He was a bit small to feed us all, but would make a nice addition to our steak hache and chips – a sort of surf and turf. The boys really liked the taste which was similar to tuna. We had also caught a Barracuda on the way but he went back as the risk of ciguatera is high in reef fish that are caught north of Martinique.

 

Just as we started catching fish the wind filled and we had a fantastic sail for the rest of the trip. Even up the leeward side of the island the breeze stayed with us and we reached along in 20 knots with gusts closer to 30. Ethan helmed for a good couple of hours and Oli called the gusts on the water that were being funneled through the steep valleys.We got to Deshais at about 4pm. The anchorage was quite busy but we found a spot. The wind whistled through the bay but eased off to nothing at night. We had just enjoyed hot showers when a family with 2 boys from Holland (on a blue beneeau 40.7 called Flying Circus) came alongside in their dinghy to introduce themselves. They came aborad fro a drink and the boys enjoyed having some different children to talk to. It seems many foreign families speak English which is great for us. They too were heading to Antigua the next day but to English harbour as opposed to us heading for Jolly Harbour. They are also doing an Atlantic Circuit but were looking to head to Cuba and therefore their route would likely take them a different way to us. This was a shame as the boys would have liked to meet up again. We have generally been surprised by the number of families with children that we have come across during our travels.  

 

The lighthouse at Basse Terre.

 

 

Looking North

 

 

We had a slow start to our 47 mile sail to Antigua, but the wind picked up and we started to sail. Shortly after we caught a fish, another damn barracuda so he went back. We just got all the sails set again when the rod tugged and we had another fish. This time it was a bigger tunny which fed us all for dinner. The rod was out for the rest of the passage but we caught nothing more. If you are ho0ping to live off catching fish then you may well be both disappointed and hungry!

 

We arrived at Jolly Harbour just after 3pm having had a brilliant sail. We were all amazed at the beautiful colours of the water and the abundance of sea turtles that accompanied us into the shallow water. Russell and I had stayed at a hotel here in May 2010 and it was as good as we remembered. It really felt like we were on holiday.