16:09.86N 61:46.68W

We had a productive few days in Pointe a Pitre and met some lovely helpful people, it was our first visit and we really enjoyed our stay, the provisioning is good with a big supermarket not too far from the anchorage and such nice people - for example we wanted to go to a specific shop and got a mini bus (there are government buses, private mini buses and taxis) before getting on the minibus we showed the driver the address of the shop we wanted to go to - which was out of her way but once she had dropped the other customers off she took us to the address  - once there she said she couldn’t see the shop so would go and ask someone, she came back and said it had moved then took us to the new address which was another 10 - 15 minutes away and dropped us outside the door, she didn’t ask for anything extra for her effort - of course we gave her some extra for her help and kindness. 

Pointe a Pitre has a commercial zone bigger than any I have seen in the UK - it's located near the Port and you can probably get anything you want if you know where to go. We bought a Honda Generator - we have been suffering from lack of battery power, it's not been very sunny and most of the anchorages have had little wind so our fridge was suffering and we haven’t been able to run the water maker as much as we would like to, we have needed to run the main engine a couple of times which isn’t good for it either so hence the need for some sort of generator and as an inboard one would cost a fortune this was a cheaper but not cheap option and as Guadeloupe is a French island they sell 220v equipment unlike the other islands who are all 110v! Of course now we have loads of wind and the sun has actually been shining a lot more so haven’t needed to use it just yet! Mission accomplished and we had a good sail around to the anchorage near Pigeon Island on the west coast. On route we could see Guadeloupe's 350ft Carbet waterfalls- its not a great picture but we were a long way away on a moving boat and the top was hidden by clouds!

When we got to Pigeon Island we were happy to see that Rik and Sanne were there and we had a very pleasant evening on board Incentive with them. We also snorkelled at Pigeon Island which is in the Cousteau National Park and Marine Reserve we saw lots of very big parrot fish but the high light for me was this cute Hawksbill turtle who was quite small but not at all put out by being photographed and filmed by me - it let me get about 4 ft away from it without being worried by my presence! 

On our last day Tourterelle with Ian and Ann on board anchored in front of us - they are doing the same rally as us in December so it was great to have them onboard for sundowners - we have now met 2 boats in our group for the rally.