Having had a wonderful stay in Marie Galant we were keen to explore some of the other islands south of Guadeloupe. We initially headed up to the south of the mainland and spent a few days at the marina just south of Pointe à Pitre. This is an excellent spot that is the finish line for the Route de Rhum – a race from St Malo to Guadeloupe that used to take several weeks. Now the single handed racers on enormous trimarans make the crossing in less than seven days and pictures of victorious French sailors decorate the walls. One of the trimarans was moored close-by and was truly impressive. We had an excellent few days where we had our VHF/AIS aerial repaired (again), stocked up with more delicious French food and wine and drank lots of fabulous free champagne at a wine tasting hosted by the marina.
We headed out for the passage to Îles des Saintes just south west of Guadeloupe and had a much more exciting sail than anticipated with the wind picking up, squally gusts and steep seas. We arrived at the islands flying the tiniest handkerchief of stay-sail and were relieved to enter the relative shelter of the bay of Terre d’en haut opposite Îlet Á Cabrit. Here, even though almost surrounded by land, the water was choppy with lots of gusts so we anchored around the headland and behind Pain de Sucre.
The weather has been really unsettled for the past few weeks and the rainbows galore mark the frequent showers. Somehow the wind always picks up at night here, with gusts of 30 knots so sleeping was ‘intermittent’! Still, during the days we headed ashore to walk over the hills to the main town of Bourg des Saintes.
The town is a major tourist attraction with many visitors arriving by ferry from Guadeloupe. With lots of shops, bars and restaurants it was great to admire the lovely buildings, have a cold beer and join friends from a nearby boat for Sunday lunch ashore. The anchorage at Pain de Sucre is also an excellent spot to snorkel with many dive boats arriving during the day so Jonathan had the chance to try out his new underwater camera.
We now plan to head north to explore the west coast of mainland Guadeloupe.
