Following in Cousteau's Flippers!
Stream
Darrell Jackson and Sarah Barnes
Tue 8 Apr 2014 19:18
The BBC used Guadeloupe to film 'Death in Paradise' the murder mystery series, so many of you will have an idea of how scenic it is. The Caribs named it Karukera, which means lands of beautiful waters. Despite it's romantic Carib name the original inhabitants of the island were Carib cannibals, which is ironic as Columbus named the Island Guadeloupe in memory of a monastery he had visited in Spain. Zhou Wen's Chinese treasure fleet suffered at the hands of the cannibals when they visited in 1421. They had stopped to provision and take on water from the torrents flowing down from Souffriere, the volcano, and were attacked over night, suffering so badly they thought the islanders were devils. It is even named Satanazes (Satan's Island) on the early 15th century Italian Pizzigano chart. Luckily, the French do not follow cannibalism as far as we are aware!
After we left Deshaies on Saturday, we sailed 10 nm down to Pigeon Island Anchorage. This is where the Cousteau Underwater Park is for those of you who are old enough to have watched him on TV. Jacques Cousteau won awards for his filming around Pigeon Island and the bay opposite on the coast of Guadeloupe. He considered this area one of the best dive sites in the world and who are we to disagree. The Reserve Cousteau was set up in his honour and is a thousand hectare submarine park. The reason that this site is so beautiful is due to the hot volcanic springs around the islands, which have created a warm environment that the wide variety of sea life thrive in. The snorkelling was superb. We swam over forests of hard and soft corals and large groups of tube fish, barrel sea sponges in violets, yellows, flaming red and greens. There were turtles and fish of all shapes, sizes and colours, many we haven't seen before. Gorgonias gently sway in the sea, some nearly touching the surface. The water was beautifully clear. So we had a perfect afternoon snorkel and were both blown away by what we saw.
Sunday morning and Sarah was up early again! Just as we were about to have breakfast we saw a group of four dolphins swimming between the anchored yachts. After watching them for a while, we realised they were four of the ones from Deshaies, they had the same scrapes and chunks missing from their fins. They swam around happily feeding and were joined by snorkelers. They younger dolphins started jumping and playing. This distraction meant we left rather later than planned to sail to the Iles des Saintes of the south coast of Guadeloupe.
This turned out to be a rather frustrating sail going from no wind to 20+ knots of wind from varying directions, including the west, in a matter of a few minutes. Every time Darrell decided that there was no wind and we should motor sail the wind would pick up. We had not reefed the sails with the fluctuating winds, so when it finally settled to a F4/5 for the short passage across to The Saintes life became rather interesting! A rather testing time for Darrell on the helm, while Sarah was positively cheery. Both of us were rather relieved when we picked up a mooring buoy at Terre de Haut and could have a cup of tea to recover. As we picked up the mooring buoy we noticed a solitary dolphin swimming around us. We seem to attract them and after about an hour of watching it Darrell went in to film it with his underwater camera. The harbour master came around to collect the mooring fees and take our order for morning croissants! We then dinghied ashore and had a pleasant wander around Bourg des Saintes the main town, which being Sunday was mainly shut. It is a picturesque, clean seaside town. The buildings are colourful and well maintained, with red roofs. The older ones have balconies and gingerbread fretwork and are covered in flowers.
Breakfast duly arrived at 07.15, a little earlier than we would have preferred, but you can't complain when fresh warm croissants from an insulated container arrive with a still warm baguette. This set us up well for the 20 odd nm to Dominica after a short trip ashore to clear out.
Another interesting event as the Town Hall no longer carried out this duty as our cruising guide had advised, so once the agent had been found I had to join the queue for the one computer. As the Australian who had been using it was just finishing entering the passport details of his 7 crew members the power went off and everything was lost. The computer would then not connect with the customs site and a 'pleasant' hour was spent chatting to fellow sailors as one after another we got to use the now functioning computer to complete an identical form that we all completed on arrival with the exception that we were now departing rather than arriving. Still the charge this time was only 1€. What will customs in Dominica be like and will we get our passports stamped? (We didn't in Guadeloupe, as being a department of France is part of the European Union.)