Isles des Saintes

The basic change to these lovely islands is the installation of moorings in all of the anchorable spaces – out to depths of 55 feet (where one would need to put out at least 165 feet of chain to anchor). Last winter we could not find a good spot in the lee of Isle Cabrit or in the harbor by the town and anchored behind the beautiful Pan de Sucre, the lump behind ILENE.

 

From there it was a long dinghy ride to town. We were at Pan do Sucre because the town area anchorage was too crowded. This time we moored close to the town in 52 feet of water. 

Though the spaces between the moorings are not segregated by boat size, with spaces for larger boats being further apart, they charge larger boats more per night than the 11 Euros, about $15US, we were charged. 

We are third from the right and note the big Italian white boat off our stern, to the right. it bears the flag of Milan. Aboard were a grandfather two kids and two crew. Its boot stripe (ours is blue a few inches above the water) is gold! 

We were happy with the greater security of a mooring compared to our anchor because  the wind howled about us for most of the four nights we stayed here with 35 knot gusts.  Even the cats, who love to hang out topside, came below quickly, disturbed by the excess wind.

The difficulty with these new moorings is their design. They are large flat white plastic cones with rounded bottom edges but the line comes up through their center to a heavy metal ring. It has a six inch rod with a six inch diameter metal ring at the top. This is convenient for grabbing the ring, but the heavy metal piece will do major damage to a plastic boat when the winds slacken and permit the mooring to rub against the sides of her bow.  We put mooring lines through the ring and back to our cleats from both port and starboard and then passed a third line over the most forward anchor roller to the ring and back, by which we pulled the metal piece up out of the plastic through which it slides and secured it against our anchor where it could not get to our gelcoat. The result was security against damaging the relatively soft plastic of the boat, but a frequent clanging sound as the two heavy metal pieces ground against each other, day and night, as the boat bobbed and veered on its mooring.

We visited the church, all prepared for Christmas.

     Where there are hills, we like to climb them. Last season we climbed the two most famous heights in The Saintes: Le Chameau, to the south, the tallest peak, with a military observation tower at its top (at the extreme left in the next photo) and Fort Napoleon, to the northwest, now a museum and garden -- less high but closer to town (at the right). Pan de Sucre is the tiny lump just to the left of center and the Bay of Marigot, with its fishing boats tied near shore in in the foreground.

The next photo shows the switchbacks by which one ascends Le Chameau.

Both of those we climbed last winter are reached by paved roads, though vehicles and bicycles are prohibited on the switchbacks leading to Le Chameau. This time we visited the ruins of Fort Caroline, to the northeast, via yellow-blazed unpaved footpaths that approached the hill much more straightforwardly – straight up. Marie Gallant is the smudge above Ilene's head and to the left, 20 miles to the east.

Beautiful Pompierre beach, which we will visit on our next trip, lies at the foot of Fort Caroline. Huge waves beat upon the small island that blocks their force from creating a big surf in this lagoon.

And we took a different path down which led us nearer the fishing port of Marigot, where we lunched at La Pailotte: the blue plate special (though they don’t call it that), the most traditional French-Creole food one can get: Accras which are bits of cod deep fried in batter (cod fritters), boudin (short fat boiled sausages of pigs blood, a starch? and spices—who knows, really), salade, and baguette. And licorice soda!

By the way, butter seems never to be served with the baguette in these islands and Roger noticed another thing about these breads:  at the bakeries (boulangeries) they always bake them an inch longer than the bags they put them into. Why? So it looks like you are getting more than you bargained for? So you will tear off and eat the exposed piece while it is still warm? Who knows?

The dinghy dock, our parking lot for jaunts into town, is not yet crowded.

The ferry dock, by which most people arrive here, although they do have an airport on the island.

And we did what we do on French Islands:  ate in restaurants more than we do on English islands. Our other lunch out was at la Saladerie, which was nearer to our boat by dink than was the dinghy dock. It is run by a man, Edouard, who displays his art which is collages of mostly wood and fiberglass bits from wrecked boats. This was sad, thinking of wrecked boats. Lene had their smoked wahoo and lentil salad, while mine was more conventional, both artfully composed. At our one dinner at la Fringale (“the hunger”) I had a local desert that called Torment D’Amour (the pain of love) which is a very sweet cake with guava paste as its filler. Two stylishly dressed older women sat near us, spending a week in a house here, on vacation from Paris.

Maintainance projects continue: (1) replaced the joker valve in the forward head (don’t ask), (2) cleaned out the three spots that had become clogged with bits that impeded the delivery of fresh water from our tanks, (3) finally created a good working ratchet strap to secure the dinghy when it is hanging up behind the boat, by using the new stainless steel ratchet device instead of the rusty hunk that Home Depot had sold us and sewing together the strapping from the old rusted one to the new one to extend the straps so the end product is long enough to be useful and (4) with advice from friends, ordered a new hot water heater to be picked up and installed in St. Martin in a couple of weeks.

Isles des Saints is one of our favorite isles.