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21.02 15:58.90N 61:27.77W
Never has it felt nicer to get into a marina
where the water and electricity are included in the price (princely sum of £7
per night). I've eaten more toast since Sunday than I have in the last 5
years. Time for another shower then, as we have all this free
water!!
We spent last Saturday at anchor just outside
Pain a Sucre on Terre d'en Haut of the Isle de Saints (curious thing: we
anchored near an under-water pipeline, and the noise transmits through the hull
to sound like 'white noise' - a perpetual un-tuned radio going on in the
background! quite strange...). The anchor swivel has not been
swivelling of late, and on Sunday morning it came up crooked at 90 degrees to
the chain, and as it landed in it's bracket, the anchor wanged over
with such a force that it totally bent said swivel and nearly dropped
off! That finished our anchoring for the day, and we headed for the
nearest marina which happened to be just South of Basse-Terre city, on the
Basse-Terre half of Guadeloupe. We arrived at 12.30pm, and Guadeloupe,
being another French Island, shuts at mid-day on a Sunday. So we
parked ourselves on the Fuel pontoon of the very full looking marina. The
guy who sells the fuel said that that was fine, as he was about to go home
for the day, and the office would be open again in the morning. Later on
that day though, the local fishermen started to come back in, and it transpires
that they use the fuel pontoon to off load their catches. In my
experience French fishermen are among the grumpiest, rudest, most arrogant
people I have ever met, so you can imagine they weren't best pleased to see us
there. By this point we couldn't have moved even if we'd wanted to, as
what little tide there was in the Caribbean had gone out and we had 3" (yes,
inches) of water under the keel, and were about to start jettisoning possessions
to relieve the load! But somehow, the French fishing world didn't
grind to a halt, and we just about didn't ground out, and in the morning the
nice man in the office found us a place.
  I'm not sure I would have wanted an
argument Isles de Saints. This is where we were supposed
to be when our anchor broke
with the French fishermen - this was the
size
of the fish they just caught!
So. While waiting for our bits from the
chandler, we did our usual of hiring a car and trekking off to explore.
Guadeloupe lies in 2 halves, like a lopsided butterfly. We are
on the western half, which has all the interesting bits on it, and
none of the meggga French tourist resorts. So after 8 hours of
waterfalls, trees, rivers, lakes, and rum distilleries, we found ourselves in
Dashaise (don't ask me how they worked this one out, but it's pronounced
'De-eh'), the gourmet capital of the country. Just as we were watching the
sun set over the harbour to the tune of a gin and a vodka, a chap called
Robert appeared on the pontoon. We met him in Ribadeo (North Spain), all
those many months ago, (there's a picture of him on our blog 22nd of
August) and now he was sailing with his friends over here. So we all
went to dinner at a little local place, where they forgot my wine, my starter
arrived half way through my main course, and my Dorado was clearly a Red
Snapper. The waitress, far from apologising, seemed to think that all
of this was hilariously funny (?) But apart from that Lulu's was a fine place to
eat!!
 "Hello my name is Iggy, and I'm a little green
lizard, and I live on a
bridge
Nous sommes ici
over a stream in Carbet. I'm trying to look
like I blend in. Do I blend in?"
French tourists queuing up to jump into a
waterfall in the
rain. Need
lots of this after the waterfalls.
We even managed to do a spot of shopping in the
Market in Pointe-a- Sunset over Dashaise. we're coming
here next.
Pitre, Guadeloupe's capital.
So now we have a few days of maintenance to catch
up with (we nearly couldn't get one of the winches apart it was so seized), and
then we are off again.
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