After postponing the departure from Isles des Saintes
for another day (Ali did not fancy a lumpy crossing) we left the mooring
opposite the harbour at the Bourg des Saintes a little reluctantly this morning.
We really enjoyed the island and its town, the coming and going of the ferries,
yachts and tourists, as well as the boulangerie, delicatessen, restaurants and
cafes.
The bay was, however, subject to an incoming swell that
ran counter to the wind, so the moorings were not particularly restful. We had
anchored first, moved to a mooring on the second night, moved to another closer
inshore for the third and then to another even further in (everyone else was
doing the same, so it was a bit like musical chairs). Despite our best efforts,
though, there was always a swell which slapped the bottom of the boat on a
regular basis, just under where we sleep……
Thus it was not entirely a sad departure, even at 0600
in order to avoid the worst of the beat upwind to Guadeloupe. This is only a
passage of about 25 miles, but the prevailing trade winds which are quite strong
now, make it something of a slog. It was a motor sail for about 2 hours to help
us shape a course to Pointe a Pitre – the main town on Guadeloupe - in Force 5-6
winds and a very lumpy old sea. After that we had a fine sail, well reefed until
the dodgems started – it is a long time since we have seen such a profusion of
pot buoys, linked in pairs with trailing lines between, marked only with plastic
bottles. Trying to sail between them in rough seas gave us lots to think
about! Having been tangled up with a trailing line
once before between Jura and Islay in a 5 knot tide with all sails up, and taken
a ducking to saw the line and extract it from the rudder, we did not fancy doing
the same again here, even if the water is a bit warmer.
As
feared the crossing was very lumpy and the relief band was needed on a high
setting to try to stave off the usual queasy nauseous feelings. We are really envious of those people
who have the stomach for sailing in all conditions. It took several days to be sure on the
crossing from Gran Canaria that illness was over…..now back to square one, in a
sense, because we are day sailing and
don’t have time to become used to the motion so every trip starts
apprehensively. The pot buoy
non-video game did take our minds off it for a while!
Wrecks and Floaters
We have mentioned before the numerous wrecks that litter
nearly every anchorage that we find ourselves in here. They lie beached on the
shore, sunk on a reef, or reveal themselves only through the mast or masts that
stick up from the sea bed at odd angles. The bay we anchored in here is no
exception – at least 5 visible from our deck, one mast bizarrely just in front
of our anchor. We do wonder whether there is some sort of insurance scam going
on, since there are so many abandoned and not salvaged.
Then there are some “wrecks” that still float, looking
neglected, bashed about, rusty and dirty. We have seen versions of these in
every good anchorage where there is access to facilities (water, shops, bars),
in places where the weather is warm. In the Mediterranean and the Caribbean,
there are loads of hulks that surprise you when someone turns up in a scrappy
old dinghy and climbs aboard. They are often festooned with bits of what appears
to be rubbish – old tyres, bits of wood, deflated fenders, tarpaulins, metal
bars – and we often refer to them as “Mad Max boats”. They are commonly steel hulls, and the
rust scabs seem to be what still holds it all together. Sometimes, the air is
rent with banging and sawing at points during the day, though there never seems
to be any progress if the purpose is to improve the boat.
In most cases, the live-aboard is a man who looks like
Ben Gunn’s older and hairier brother, and washing appears to be one of the
everyday habits they have left behind.
Their trips to and from the nearest dock appear to be solely for the
purpose of bringing back cans of beer. We have noticed that a lot of them are
German, though in these parts the proportion of Frenchmen is increasing.
They can be friendly (looking for a drinking partner?)
or taciturn (no eye contact, no waving in passing). They can also be rather
bohemian, such as the man who lives on the tiny white steel boat lying close to
us here, and since there is no room down below unless he lifts the hatch lid at
the back of the coach roof, he spends most of his time in the cockpit as nature
intended (you worry about skelfs!). To be fair to him, he does put his clothes
on when he rows his dinghy ashore, for which the locals will be profoundly
grateful!
You will be very pleased to know that we do not engage
in this sort of exhibitionist behaviour at all! Indeed, when we were last at
home and Sister Anne, David and niece Emma visited, and we went to the local
pool to go swimming one afternoon. Tanned and brown only in the places that are
not covered by shorts and t-shirts, we looked like we had been put together from
different bodies by a mad Frankenstein (“Does he never take his t-shirt off?”).
We tend to agree with our friend Maggie’s comment about
pony tails –“Should be banned for women over 26”, but we firmly believe that
this prescription should be extended to cover all excessive exposure of
flesh. As Ali has just commented,
looking across the anchorage, the sight of an elderly fat man wearing only a
G-string is more than enough to put you off your breakfast.
Take Care,
Watergaw
