Six AM and the alarm sounded. We had decided to head back round
Guadeloupe, past Deshaies, and along the western coast to Basse Terre (the
second largest city) on the island of the same name. Luckily, as we headed west, the winds were behind us and the
waves were on our port stern. The waves
were large but taking them at this angle made for a nice ride. As we approached the north-west corner, we
got those island effects and the winds picked up to over 40 knots. We were sailing and actually saw speeds on
the GPS of 7-8 knots. Now why couldn’t
our trip yesterday be like this? It was
a nice trip until we got about ½ way down the western coast and the wind died
completely. Sail time was over and we
had to motor.
Our plan was to stop in Basse Terre and go on
an island tour. We had visited
Guadeloupe on a cruise ship one time and went on an awesome waterfalls hike in
the rainforest. We were hoping to do
something similar. We arrived at our
Basse Terre waypoint at about 2pm and re-read the guidebook to see the best
anchorage location. We really didn’t
like what we were reading. This seems
to be a French-only speaking town also.
How would we even arrange an island tour if we can’t speak their
language? Damn, I should have paid more
attention in school! Hmmm … if we go
just a little further, we will be in The Saints. It was only about 6 miles off the southern tip of Guadeloupe (about
15 miles in all from where we currently were).
We made a joint decision to blow past the remainder of Guadeloupe in a
hope to find the quaint little islands of The Saints to be more English
friendly.
As we sailed past the southern tip of the
island, the weather affects did not change much. We entered the 6 mile, open water passage between Guadeloupe and
The Saints. It was a very pleasant
ride. During the crossing, the chart
showed a nice, circular pattern as the seas climbed from over 2000 feet deep to
within 40 feet of the surface (very quickly) and then back down again. This was obviously volcanic in nature (like
most of these islands) but never quite made it to the surface to become
land! Poor little mountain!
Forgot to mention … on the western coast of
Guadeloupe, we caught a two-foot, five pound Spanish Mackeral … YUMMM … dinner!
We settled on the only town in The Saints
(Borge Des Saintes). We will attempt
again to find a good WiFi connection.
There are new moorings installed near town. We took Mooring #17. This
in itself was a strange experience.
Most mooring balls have a line/float hanging off that you can grab as
you approach. You attach your line to
this line and are secured rather quickly.
These moorings however had no lines.
There was just a large metal circle at the top of the ball. This made securing to it a lot more
difficult. Larry had to lie over the
side of the boat with his line and struggled to make the connection while I
held the ball as close to the boat as I could with a boat hook. Not very user friendly! But we succeeded on our first attempt and
looked like the pros we are J
Town looks very cute. We are anxious to go ashore but too
exhausted to bother. We will head
ashore tomorrow and explore.
While we were getting settled, a boat pulled
up beside us to collect the fees for the use of the mooring. It cost 11 EU per night. We paid $25 US for two nights … good
exchange rate!
Larry made us fresh Mackeral and I made an
olive oil/truffle salt pasta … most excellent meal!
As the sun set, we sat out in the breeze, on
our deck chairs and enjoyed a nice bottle of wine (thanks to Karabi’s generous
farewell gift). Karabi, we found a
beautiful location to enjoy your wine.
THANKS!!!
Now this felt like paradise found!!!
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