Marie Galante "15:57.3N 61:19.3W"
VulcanSpirit
Richard & Alison Brunstrom
Sun 30 Jan 2011 18:15
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We have just spent a few days on Marie Galante, a
small island which is part of Guadeloupe and thus France and the EU (named by
Columbus in 1493, after one of his ships). You could therefore come
and live here, if you were so inclined.The island is pancake shaped, and
composed laregly of an uplifted coral reef rather than being of volcanic origin.
It therefore has beautiful white sand beaches; and because the island
is small & twenty miles upwind of the main north-south route it gets
very few tourists so the beaches are empty. And because it is flat it gets less
rain. The economy is still largely based on sugar cane. It is a real delight -
by far the nicest island we've seen so far.
The first photo shows one of the 106 windmills used
to crush the cane to extract the juice. Only two now have sails, and only
the one pictured still has its original machinery. There are still two working
distilleries on the island, making vast quantities of French 'rhum' and a
wide range of flavoured rum based liquers. Most of the work is done by machines
nowadays, but the cane fields are very boggy so some is still cut by hand and
extracted on carts pulled by two bullocks which unlike a modern
tractor don't get bogged down!
The second photo is of a typical local beach.
The fringing reef encloses a shallow turquoise lagoon of crystal clear
water over pure white sand. Gorgeous. The beautiful coconut palms in the
foreground need to be treated with respect however - they can be killers. They
are 'wild' and crammed with nuts which can and do drop to the ground any time of
year and without warning. Signs in French (only) advise you to take care -
but exactly how one is suppposed to walk through a coconut grove
avoiding coconuts dropping silently from above is beyond
me.
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