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.

Last night was noisy.  The wind was blowing quite strongly and our boat spun around the mooring ball.  It also pulled on our ropes that are attached to the mooring ball, creating a lot of noise.  The wind was so strong that it was blowing our American flag that flies off of the back of our boat and that triggered our motion-sensor lights in the outdoor saloon to go off.  I don’t think that has ever happened before. 

This morning, however, we woke to sunshine and calm water.  Steve and I went snorkeling right off of the back of our boat and it was spectacular.  We saw so many different kinds of fish and coral.  At one point we were swimming amoungst thousands of small white fish and I thought to myself that it was similar to swimming in a fish tank full of sardines like I have seen at an aquarium.  Then I thought that they might actually be sardines.  It was amazing to have the fish all around us.  We also saw some different, feathery coral that I don’t think I’ve seen before.  The elk horn coral and fans were quite healthy here as well.  And, the best part was that the water was warmer than in Antigua and easy to get into. 

One last thing to note about snorkeling today is that someone arranged conch shells beneath our boat spelling out “extinction.”  I wonder if that was a name of a boat or if it has some other sinister meaning.  I’m going to choose to believe that it represents the name of a boat.  It was very well done and the conch shells were aligned so perfectly that it was easy to read in 20 feet of water.

Fishing is a popular livelihood on Guadeloupe.   There are a lot of “fish pots” in the water.  These are markers indicating that nets or other traps are beneath the water.  So, when sailing, we need to look for these markers and avoid them.  Otherwise, the nets will wrap around our propellers.  There are so many fish pots off of the coast of Guadeloupe that it takes two of us on watch to find them.  These markers are small and get hidden in the sea swells until we are very close to them. 

We left at 6:30a from our anchorage in Basse Terre so that we were able to see the fish pots.  We wanted to get to the Saintes Islands early so that we could pick up a mooring ball.  Mooring balls are balls attached to cement that lies on the ocean’s floor.  We then tie our boat up to the mooring ball instead of anchoring.  It is really important to get a mooring ball in this anchorage because the water is deep and the wind swings the boat all around.  The swinging motion is precarious on an anchor because it could dislodge the anchor.  Last year when we were in this anchorage, there were more boats looking for a mooring ball than were available. 

The crossing between Guadeloupe and the Saintes was not that bad.  There were storms around and the winds were between 16 and 23 knots so we decided not to put up our sails.  We were again on the lookout for fish pots and had to weave back and forth to avoid them. 

When we arrived, we saw a Windstar Cruise Ship anchored, which surprised me.  I didn’t think that cruise ships pulled into such small ports.  They use tenders to move passengers back and forth to shore. 

Steve and I found a mooring ball off of Isle Cabrit.  This is one of three main anchorages located off an island across from Terre d’Haute, the main island.  The water here is relatively calm and protected.  However, to get to shore, we need to take the dingy across the channel, which can be rough at times.  The anchorage is fairly pretty with trees and a combination of black sand beach and rocks lining the shore.  There are approximately a dozen boats here, most of which are on mooring balls. 

It rained a lot last night and the pattern has continued throughout today.  We are waiting for the rain to pass before going to town to clear into the country of Guadeloupe.  We arrived too late in Basse Terre to go to the customs and immigration office.  We went into the office here in Iles des Saintes this morning but there was a sign on the door that said that they are only open between 2p and 4p Monday through Saturday. 

Steve had planned our sailing route.  We were going to sail to Basse Terre, which is a large city at the southern part of Guadeloupe.  This meant that we were going to leave as soon as we could see objects in the water, which was about 6am.  If we arrived in time, we would clear into customs in this town. 

We made good time between the islands of Antigua and Guadeloupe.  This crossing can be rough with high sea swells and strong winds.  However, this crossing was quite good. We saw approximately 5 foot swells and the wind was fairly constant between 16 and 18 knots.  We probably averaged between 6 and 7 knots per hour for the entire trip.  However, once on the Leeward side of Guadeloupe, the wind died and we put on our engines to keep our time up so that we could arrive before the sun went down.  Our sail plan worked well, which was great. 

Anchoring in Basse Terre was challenging.  The anchorage was in deep water – approximately 50 feet.  So, we had to put out all of the chain that we had to hold the boat.  We had to re-anchor one time and then we found good holding.  There were several other boats in the anchorage.  The anchorage was off of an industrial part of the island.  Given this, and the deep anchorage, we decided to continue on to the Saintes the next morning.

Tomorrow we plan to sail from Antigua to Guadeloupe.  So, today we are provisioning the boat and preparing for the journey.  Preparations include planning the route, departure time and the average speed needed to arrive at our destination before the sun goes down at 6p.  It also requires looking at the weather several days in advance for a “weather window” which means low sea swells and winds of 15 to 20 knots.  We did some last-minute grocery shopping at the store across from the marina.  And, we cleared out of customs and immigration in the hut located at the entrance to the Jolly Harbour Marina. 

Unfortunately, on New Year’s Day Kirsten had to leave.  Her trip was cut short by four days because of airplane delays, which was so unfortunate.  We loved having her onboard.  So, we went in the Jolly Harbour Marina in search of a restaurant for lunch.  We found one open and the food tasted great.  Then we put Kirsten in a taxi and she left.  She made it to her gate as the plane was boarding – perfect timing.  We returned to the boat and enjoyed a lazy afternoon of napping.