This was a beautiful end to our lovely day on Marie Galante. You can see the Saintes in the background.

As we headed north, we drove along roads lined with sugarcane.  There were also many cows with small horns grazing as well as an occasional pot-bellied pig.  The island is relatively flat and known as the pancake island.  However, we also found very hilly regions with rain forest-like areas. 

We saw incredible cliffs with turquoise surf pounding against it, making white-crested waves as they crashed violently against the rock outcropping.  We were able to hike right alongside the top of one of these, which was actually quite dangerous.  We took care not to get too close to the edge, as we wouldn’t survive a fall into the water. 

We also visited a sink hole with an archway pushed through some rocks, making a hole.  That, too, was a beautiful site. 

As we continued to drive along the coastline, we saw beautiful beaches and a small island just off of Vieux Fort Beach.  It looked very tranquil and beautiful.

Several yachts were anchored off of Mystique Beach, which made that area look quite romantic.  We had heard that there are many turtles in that area and that the anchorage is relatively calm. 

At the end of our scooter adventure, we marveled at how breathtaking beautiful this rural island is, with its dramatic views, picturesque beaches, and historical sites.  Unfortunately the towns are not very beautiful, in my opinion, but the rest of the island truly makes up for that.  The locals were incredibly friendly towards us and things like garbage disposal, an ATM, the supermarket, and laundry are fairly convenient to the floating dinghy dock.  The slow pace of the island made for a very relaxing and calming stay.  We were sorry to leave this hidden gem of an island.

Next, we headed towards Capesterre, a seaside village.  The town itself was fairly empty of people.  Several of the buildings had street art painted on their sides.  We found two restaurants right on the beach and sat down for lunch.  We were there a half an hour before they started serving food, so we sipped our bottled water in one of the beautiful restaurants.  Some of the tables were directly on the beach with sand as a floor.  Soothing music was playing as we watched the kite and wing boarders gliding across the water in front of us.  The restaurants were located just South of town, in a palm-tree lined cove.  It was incredibly gorgeous here, the food was good, and we thoroughly enjoyed relaxing before continuing on our way to explore the northern part of the island.

We made sure to go to the working distillery, Bellevue, before 1p when they closed.  We have found that many shops and stores close at 1p.  Some of these stores open up again at 3p or 4p, and some do not. 

The Bellevue Distillery had an old windmill on the property with the cloth fans attached so that we could see what it looked like when it was working.  It was very picturesque.  We also climbed a metal walkway to see the big vats that they used to make the rum.  The entire site was quite interesting. 

On our way out, they had someone serving samples of the rum that they made onsite.  They had plain rum as well as mixers already containing rum.  I really liked the mixers and bought two different flavors – planters punch as well as pineapple.  Steve bought a honey rum. 

The first larger town that we came to was called Grand Bourg (which is also the largest town on the island).  We walked around the streets and found the ferry dock as well as the marketplace selling spices, souvenirs, and snacks.  After peeking in a church that was in the center of the town, we headed on our way.

Yesterday was one of those really special days that we will always remember from our sailing adventures.  We went into town (St. Louis) around 8a to rent a scooter.  We learned that the scooter rental agencies mostly worked on days when the ferries were running to and from Marie Galante.  We were lucky and rented on one of those days.  After some back and forth in my broken French and the merchant’s limited English, I was able to convince him to rent us a scooter even though Steve’s driver’s license didn’t have a motorcycle certification on it. 

We started driving counter-clockwise around the island, based on our new friends’ recommendation.  Marie Galante’s roads are not crowded with cars and have few potholes, so it was quite easy to sightsee via a scooter.  The road signage is also fantastic.  We were able to meander around any road that we wanted and found signs pointing into the direction of different attractions and cities. 

We visited two historic sugarcane plantations, (L’Habitation Roussel-Trianon and L’Habitation Murat) each with the ruins of a windmill.  Their grounds were absolutely gorgeous and meticulously maintained.  While the signs were only in French, we were able to translate enough to get the gist of how the site ran when processing sugarcane. 

The sail from the Saintes to Marie Galante started out easily and peacefully.  We left at 9a and arrived by 1p.  Even though we were heading into the wind, requiring us to motor the whole way, the sea state was only a couple of feet high.  When we started out, the sky was clear and we could see Guadeloupe to our port (left) side and the Saintes were clearly visible behind us.  Approximately three quarters of the way through our trek, we hit some small rain squalls and the visibility became very limited.  We have been in worse squalls and, despite the limited visibility, we were still able to spot fish pots in the general vicinity of where we were sailing.  I was surprised to see them in such deep water, hours away from shore.  We had to keep a close watch at the helm the entire trip to make sure that we steered around them.  We were very lucky when we pulled into St. Louis, as the line we took avoided most of them (though we could see them on either side of our boat).

After we anchored to the north of St. Louis’ dock, I commented that this seems like a sleepy island.  From our anchorage we hear an occasional cow mooing and at dawn a rooster tells us it is time to wake up.  Every once in a while we see a car drive on the road along the beach, heading towards town.  The anchorage itself is quite large with approximately one hundred boats scattered along the shore line, spaced well apart.  The sea bottom is grassy and the water is fairly clear.  A dinghy dock is approximately a quarter of a mile from our boat, which makes it easy for us to pop into town to visit a bakery. 

Yesterday, Sunday morning, we took the dinghy into town to explore a little.  As we were walking off of the floating dock, a couple heard me talking to Steve and were thrilled to have found English-speaking people on this small French island.  We started talking and eventually I invited them over for “sun downers”.  Francisco and Jennifer were coming to up on the end of their month-long charter and had spent several days exploring Marie Galante.  It was fun to talk to them, as we struggle to meet people in the French islands as well. 

We decided to walk to the U Express, the largest supermarket in St. Louis, so that I could buy some ingredients to make Sangria.  We were successful in finding what was needed, and the Sangria turned out really well.  (It is always a challenge because I am improvising with the recipe based on the ingredients I can find in the stores.)

The town of St. Louis didn’t appear that scenic to me.  It is simply an old, French village without much pomp and circumstance associated with it.  Some restaurants line the main road and overlook the beach, others are along a side street (there are only one or two of these in town).  It doesn’t really cater to tourists in that I didn’t see souvenir shops.  However, we found two bakeries across from each other right in the center of town.  They seemed to mostly specialize in different kinds of breads.   We bought a baguette from the supermarket, which tasted fantastic, so we didn’t buy anything from these bakeries on this trip into town.

This morning we went for a hike on Isle Cabrit.  When we landed our dingy on the beach, we were the only ones exploring the island.  Fort Josephine is located on this small island.  While the fort and its out-buildings were in ruins,  we were able to enjoy beautiful views. 

Wild goats roam the islands and we saw several kids looking for their mamma goats.  They were adorable!  After the fort was abandoned, we believe that a company tried to make a hotel on the island because we saw some sort of pump in one of the buildings.  It was a terrific hike for this sunny morning.  However, there are trees on the islands with warnings on them.  They produce small apples and the warnings indicate that the trees are poisonous.  After we returned to our boat, we quickly donned our swimsuits and jumped in the water to be sure that any sap that we rubbed up against was off of us.  The water felt so refreshing and was the perfect end to our hike.

Every once and a while Steve and I are lucky enough to stay in a beautiful, peaceful, and relaxing anchorage such as Isle Cabrit.  After the rush of getting the boat into the water and having guests on board over the holiday, I finally feel as though we are settling into a relaxed routine.  We are able to simply enjoy the beauty of this anchorage that has so much to offer – fabulous snorkeling, hiking, warm water, and few boats.  We laze the day away watching Pelicans fish with the sound of the water lapping along the shoreline.  Every once in a while, we hear a goat bleating from the island. Our view is of a wooded island with a black sand beach and rocks along the shoreline.  And, of course, the sun is shining overhead.  I could stay in this anchorage for another week, easily.

The past two days we have spent time in town doing laundry.  There is one place on the island where we can get our laundry cleaned – at the check-in for customs and immigration.  They are open from 2p to 4p Monday through Saturday and only have three washing machines.  So, we pack up our laundry and head to town to try to gain access to the machines.  (It is first-come, first-served.)  Luckily, they have free wifi so we are able to use the internet while we wait for the laundry.  We can’t get all of the laundry dried in this two hour period so we have brought wet laundry back to the boat to hang dry in the wind.  Since we have an overhang over the outdoor salon, it works fairly well, except when there is a blowing rain shower. 

The main town at Terre de Haut is lined with small boutiques selling clothing, knick-knacks, pastries, ice cream, and other sundries.  There are scooter and golf cart rental places and plenty of restaurants.  And, of course, there are a couple of food markets where we can stock up on items that we need.

We have found that we should provision certain food items based on which country we are in.  The French Islands have terrific green beans, cheese, and wine.  The English Islands have good teas, salsa, and tortilla chips.  

We are thinking about sailing to Marie Galante tomorrow, another small island owned by Guadeloupe.  We haven’t been there before and are looking forward to exploring a new location.  In the meantime, we will enjoy the tranquility of Isle Cabrit.