When in Deshaies where else can you for dinner than the giraffe restaurant with the same mats as we have at home?  I decided to be exceedingly adventurous and had the marlin and coriander ceviche (that I had last time) and the tuna with wasabi foam (which I had the time before that).  It was outrageously delicious.  Bob went for the prawn cocktail that was “rather good” with shredded prawns, christophene and a good kick at the end, followed by lamb cutlets which were also “rather good”.  Bob does not effuse as much as I do!  We then shared a souffle rum and raisin ice cream and had great fun when the waitress lit the rhum in the spoon and we were instructed to pour it over the top.  Both fun and creamily delicious.  (Great clashes of spoons after a little confusion between deux couillons and deux cuilleres in the French language department).

It was lovely to wake up this morning to a day off from hammering our way up to St Thomas.  After a lazy breakfast we planned our day to include a visit to the rubbish dump,a trip to the pharmacist regarding a nasty infection (having carefully checked the French vocabulary without a lot of joy in Katie’s very useful 10 languages translation, it does better on sailing terms than medical but did avoid the embarrassment between sengement and singe which is a monkey), a subsequent trip to the medecin where the incredible and most jovial doctor with goatee beard and amazing twirly moustache exclaimed loudly over the result of my peeing in a plastic cup before issuing antibiotics, check in and out at the Blue Pelican (so very easy just a simple form to fill in on the AZERTY keyboqrd), calling up of the Botanical Gardens shuttle service to arrange transport thereto.  Unfortunately the last became rather complicated because the driver was having his lunch and wouldn’t be available until 1300 to 1315 hours thereabouts.  It being 12:15 this left us thinking that if we had a quick and easy lunch the timing would be perfect.  This did not account for a French Caribbean dining experience which doesn’t do quick and easy.  Once we were settled at our table (following a petit contretemps over the fact that the allocated table did not allow sufficient space for two people to sit opposite each other and when we moved to the next table we were chased back to the first because that one was for “trois personnes” and we were only deux.  That table, and all the others all around us, stayed stubbornly empty for the duration of our lunch) we ordered our one dish each.  We then received a salad, perfectly nice but not ordered, and then spent the next half hour awaiting our ordered quick and easy dishes.  At 1300 I leapt off to see if the shuttle bus had arrived.  I bobbed out again at 12 minutes past and watched the shuttle bus sail away into the distance.  We settled back down, finished our food and enquired how we could get in touch with the shuttle bus.  This involved going to the Tourist Information Office who would sort us out, which we did.  The TIO was closed until 4th May.  The Blue Pelican where we had checked in was closed for siesta hours.  We still wanted to visit those gardens so set off.  (I did try thumbing a lift but this is “unbecoming” apparently).  A route march of just under 1.5 kilometres, straight up a steep road, in the hottest part of the day, with a nasty infection was not my favourite thing and within minutes I was at a rolling boil.  We made it.  Just.  I wasn’t very happy.

However, the Botanical Gardens made it all worthwhile, once I had reduced to a simmer.  Feeding little parrots nectar out of a cup was just such an amazing experience.  The layout of the gardens was elegant and well considered, the variety of plants excellent, including a wonderfully gnarly kapok tree with dinosaur spikes, the flamingos adorable and the big parrots (including one called Bob) exceedingly raucous. It was lovely, and we even managed to get a shuttle back down the hill after waiting a French Caribbean “three minutes” which stretched to more like 10.  At least we were delivered to the door of the supermarket, our next port of call.  We stocked up on yummy things, including smoked duck, duck terrine, the mandatory baguette and a bottle (or two) of wine (when in France!) and returned to Windy for a night in.

Bob, a hard task master at times (see climbing up hills earlier) set Gerry the task of running the water maker, charging the batteries, the laptops, the Kindles and the water heater, all at once.  He rescued him, eventually, when poor old Gerry sounded exhausted (I know how he feels).