On departing Iles des Saintes we had another very ‘exhilarating’ sail north to the mainland with the forecast 22 knots of wind rapidly increasing to 43 knots in the squalls – that’s a severe gale! Thankfully it was only for a few hours and, as we made our way up the western side of Guadeloupe, the winds eased until we reached the beautiful anchorage at Malendure Beach just opposite Pigeon Island. Somehow Jonathan managed to barbecue sausages and veggies for dinner that night, in between the squalls, without anything rolling into the sea.
We went ashore to explore to find that the little town has a huge number of dive shops with day trips out to Pigeon Island, the Jacques Cousteau Reserve. There were also some lovely French restaurants and we splurged on a delicious lunch that included café gourmand with rum for the men and champagne for the ladies. This little gecko came to join us for desert and showed no fear as he cleaned up the crumbs of chocolate cake.
The next morning, with much calmer waters we took our dinghy over to Pigeon Island and joined numerous other snorkelers. There were beautiful fish in abundance and Jonathan was able to capture some of them with his video camera.
Oops… something seems to have gone wrong with You tube. If I can get the problem fixed my snorkeling video will appear here …or perhaps not even the site administrators can bear another of Jono’s videos
After a relaxing few days at anchor with lots of turtles swimming close to the boat, we made our way further north. We dropped anchor in Deshaies – also known as Honoré, Sainte Marie in the TV series Death in Paradise. We were keen to go ashore to investigate…. and we soon found the police station and, more importantly Catheine’s Bar overlooking the bay.
We were lucky to be wandering around on a Sunday as we saw very few other tourists. However, for the next few days the town was swamped with coach loads of tourists all doing the ‘Death in Paradise’ trail. Happily Deshaies has other attractions and we visited the beautiful Botanical Gardens a short hike out of town (up a very steep hill). The gardens were first opened in 2001 after about three years of planning and planting and it’s remarkable that they are now so well established. They are beautifully laid out with a path meandering over the hillside taking you past wonderful plants from around the world. Unexpectedly, some of the highlights were the birds – fabulous flamingos, huge parakeets and delightful, flamboyantly coloured lorikeets that perch on your hand as you feed them.
Again, whist anchored in the bay we have seen numerous really large turtles and on several occasions spotted dolphins swimming around the boats. The only drawback has been the weather. It’s been very unsettled with dark clouds and squalls of strong winds and heavy rain. It seems particularly windy here with katabatic wind accelerating into the bay at night making all the boats swing around alarmingly! It’s time to move on so we’ll be heading north to Antigua tomorrow. Fingers crossed it’s not too windy!