Guadeloupean gossip

Quest
Jack and Hannah Ormerod and Lucia, Delphine & Fin
Sat 6 Feb 2016 23:42
Hi everybody,

So, just as we settle down into the clear calm waters of St Francois, a big old black cloud comes our way and blows straight into us. The forecast says it'll be windy now for a week. Our anchor chain is creaking its complaints but this doesn't stop the French here from windsurfing, kitesurfing, kayaking, parachuting and even flying some sort of helicopter Chitty Chitty Bang Bang-style contraption around the lagoon. Is there nothing the French don't do, except for relaxing?

The calm reef is now roaring at the edge of the lagoon while our friends, Betti and Christian swam over at sunset and officially declared that the water is warmer than the air. So there is really no point in being out of the water now, we might as well dive right in. Betti says that large drifts of sargassum seaweed from the Atlantic make the perfect back massage!

We discovered yesterday too that this butterfly-shaped island is, in fact two islands separated in the middle by a narrow mangrove channel. This island where we are, Grande Terre is flat and made of coral reef limestone while the other butterfly wing island to our west, Basse Terre is volcanic and mountainous. This makes Guadeloupe geologically interesting for our flat, coral island are typical of islands in the Caribbean that face the Atlantic such as Anguilla, Antigua and St Martin while Basse Terre is typical of islands that face the Caribbean such as Saba, Nevis and Monserrat. Here you have both. And baguettes. But no Guadeloupe flag, it seems, at least not one we can see anywhere. I know they're part of France but if Brittany has their own flag.. I'm not going all Welsh Nationalist or anything but this is kind of strange, no?

So the Captain has turned his attention from Transatlantic sailing to working and filling dive bottles. Lulu has been his dive buddy so far. They've been diving off the boat, swimming over to the shallow part of the lagoon, practising skills and swimming back. Boy, are those two smiling! Meanwhile, Delphine, Fin and I have been swimming over to them. Delphine is my very brave deep channel swimmer with extraordinarily strong pincer fingers :)

Love from Quest and her crew xx