On Saturday we made our way in to the marina.  Mooring is stern to the pontoon with a line from the bow out to a buoy.  One of the marina staff came out in a dinghy to take the line to the buoy.  This engine rotates the opposite way to the previous one and has different gear ratios so the boats behaviour in reverse is completely different to before, with which we had become very familiar.  Space between buoys was a bit tight and avoiding the lines down to the seabed with the propeller was a bit trickier and our hearts were in our mouths during the approach.  Fortunately all went well after an initial tweak.

The marina is very sheltered and surrounded by apartments, shops and restaurants.  Some of the sewerage must go into the marina because the water stinks!.  You definitely wouldn’t want to fall in.

The hire car turned up at 10.30, which, being only half an hour late meant it was earlier than expected.  Guadeloupe is really two islands in the shape of a butterfly joined by mangroves with a narrow river running though the middle.  It is French and, like Martinique, part of the EU.  The capital is on the western ‘wing’ but the largest town, Pointe a Pitre, is in the centre of the two islands.  The larger mountainous west island is called Basse Terre (low land) and the smaller, low one Grande Terre (large land).  It seems the forefathers had a sense of humour.

We set off for Pointe a Pitre because we were told it would be ‘shut’ by about 1.30 pm.  Sadly it is a very scruffy place with a lot of abandoned buildings and closed businesses who have no doubt suffered from the introduction of several large out of town shopping malls.  The open market was still in place which provided some interest.  Many of the market stall holders were very worried about being photographed so out of respect for them we came away with very few pictures.

Here are a couple:-

This lady seemed quite taken with Lin and wanted what seemed a lot of money for a tea towel until we realised she was giving 4 for the price.  Then she insisted on giving a fifth so we assume she felt she had done well:-

We stopped for a drink in a side street and listened to this group of drummers.  A small donation was required for the photograph.  Presumably will be used as rum tokens:-

We couldn’t find anywhere in the hot, dusty town for lunch so we left for the shopping mall and had a salad before hitting Carrefour, Decathlon etc and returned to the boat in late afternoon.

On Sunday we drove along the south coast of the east island and checked out several anchorages described in our pilot book.  The first bay was a shock as it seemed to be frequented by ‘ladies of the night’ which was a surprise at 10 am on a Sunday morning.  Certainly their ‘Sunday best’ were a little unorthodox.  Moving swiftly on we drove to Gosier for a drink and a view of the anchorage behind the nearby island:-

That view was nice but Gosier itself was a little shabby.  The same could be said of St Anne further along the coast and it’s anchorage was very small and didn’t look tenable to us.  As we reached the eastern tip and the village of St Francois things improved and we found a nice spot for lunch under the trees with our feet in the sand:-

The anchorage here was sheltered but crowded.  We took a turn inland and the landscape was reminiscent of France with cultivated fields and well tended roads.

Following a recommendation we drove around the north west part of the eastern island on Monday.  We kept thinking the ‘next place’ would be nice but none were.   Each town and village had an abandoned, down and out feel about it.  We returned to Pointe a Pitre and drove over to the mountainous west island but the feel was much the same.  It is always good to discover what places are like but all in all we were unimpressed with Guadeloupe which didn’t seem to have the charm of it’s sister and rival, Martinique.

A tropical wave was forecast for Thursday and Friday.  These normally carry a lot of rain and squalls but are not dangerous like tropical storms.  We opted to stay in the marina so that we could hunker down below if the rain was torrential and sit in the comfort of some air conditioning (as the marina electricity was ‘free’!).  Time for lots of admin and a few boat jobs via the chandleries.

As it turned out the rain was nowhere near as bad as forecast but it’s still better to be in a marina wishing you were at sea rather than the other way around.