A short shopping list, beer, tomatoes, ice  and bread were our particular requirements for the day and perhaps we might find an hostelry for refreshments!

All good, outboard: no issues, dinghy dock: safe and secure…..fabulous.

We wandered along the narrow Main Street, taking care as the motor bikes and cars whizzed past, a few “touristy” shops, some lovely clothes stores and a couple of ice cream options. We did find a boulangerie for bread but neither of the quite reasonably (for the Caribbean) sized stores had beer, tomatoes or ice ….. and strangely few of the cafes, bars or restaurants were open to passing trade; very weird we thought.
Then we discovered why. The water supply issue wasn’t only in the marina in Pointe a Pietre as we had naively assumed but country wide throughout the many islands of Guadeloupe; hence the closure of most of the town here. To add insult to injury the only way to get a drink was to sit for a formal lunch that had been booked the previous day before we arrived! It has been an ongoing dispute since January this year and for a place that relies on tourists and yachties seems a rather self inflicted own goal. All rather depressing.

Back to Cassini for lunch and a rethink!

OK, let’s not stay here….. let’s check out and head to Dominica…… best laid plans and all that…..
Simon and I went ashore to clear out customs and immigration…. mais Non. That wasn’t possible here either. Broken computers, strikes, incompetence, who knows why, but the upshot is we have to detour back to the mainland (4 hour round trip) just to check out. We could risk it and turn up in Dominica without the departure paperwork from Guadeloupe but with our run of luck we’d be incarcerated!!

Finally, to cap it all it’s been a really uncomfortable night, very “ slappy” water on the hull, pretty rolly motion and none of us had much sleep. It’s 5.15 am now and we need to leave by 6 to make it to the immigration desk which would you believe it is only open until 10am this morning.

Now I realise these are very “1st world” problems and to quote “Nobody died”, and there are plenty of worse places to be but if I could request a couple of weeks without breakages, strikes, unplanned expenditure, with calm seas and winds in the “ right” direction it would be a big bonus. It’s definately time for a few more highs to compensate for the string of lows lately. Mechanical God fixer and repairer notwithstanding.
Sally