Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe is shaped like a butterfly.  This map shows it at top with Dominica in the bottom right corner, Marie Galante above, slightly to the right, and The Saintes to the left of Marie Galante.

Guadeloupe’s western half has a lot of rugged mountains and is called Basse Terre, and its flatter eastern half is called Grand Terre. And at the southern end of the very narrow middle of the butterfly is its capital, Pointe a Pitre (P a P), in an immense bay with a 1000 boat marina and anchorages. Running north from that bay is a narrow channel through mangrove swamps called the River Salee.

Sailing north via P a P and up through the river has two advantages. First we have never been there and second, the northern exit from the River Salee puts you quite a bit east, thus making for an easier passage from Guadeloupe to our next island north, Antigua.

But there was one big disadvantage to using this route, which is why we chose the alternative. The River Salee has two bridges that connect the two halves of the nation. Closing those bridges disrupts traffic and commerce so they do this only once a day, and not in rush hour. In fact, for northbound traffic the bridge is raised at 5:00 am; you have to leave your mooring well before that. It remains dark here these short winter days until 6 am.  Navigating in unfamiliar waters in the dark can be unsafe. There is also a strong tidal current in the River making it more important to know what you are doing. And on and about the date of our proposed passage there was a very small moon, meaning stronger tides and that moonlight could not be relied on (as if it ever can be relied on with the ability of a passing cloud to obscure it). There are buoys in the river but it was not clear to us whether these are lighted and hence visible at night. Finally, unlike the electronic charts which are available to us for the waters back in the States, which have the ability to blow up the scale to the extent that the chart shows you which side of the channel you are on, the same company’s electronic charts for these waters are much smaller scale, precluding such precision. Taking all of these factors into consideration, we decided to pass Guadeloupe on its western side, the same side we had passed coming south last winter.

Our trip from The Saints to the lighthouse at the SW corner of the butterfly, was about eight miles and fast, about an hour, with 20 knots of wind on a beam reach using reefed main and small jib. Then we had another 15 miles to the day’s anchorage during which the wind diminished so that after shaking out the reef, we motor sailed and, still later, motored. The anchorage was in the Bay behind Pigeon Island, also known as Islets a Goyaves, which is sheltered from the northerlies by Point Malendure. The reason to stop here is to visit the Cousteau National Underwater Park.  This is the two small islands and surrounding waters (the gray, larger middle island in the distance is not an island but a cloud)

 The islands are less than a mile off the brown sand beach, shown here with lots of people, it being Christmas.

This You Tube video was taken from the pier shown on the right of our photo out toward where we were anchored.The park prohibits fishing and anchoring. The latter would destroy its coral reefs. It does have moorings which are used by the many vendors who sell rides to the park on scuba diving and glass bottomed boats.  We took a walk on the beach. Vendors sold food and souvenirs. Lene bought a Wawa seed (maybe it’s a magic bean?) which looks a bit like a horse chestnut only smoother.

Then we dinked over and snorkeled with the fish.  Not the most numerous, but the largest fish we have seen, some as much as 18 inches long, and in so many ineffably beautiful iridescent colors. Maybe we should have bought an underwater camera after all, but the You Tube videos  we thought to include do not do it justice. The big fish, like the little ones, spend their time bumping their noses against rocks trying to bite off vegetation. The little ones sometimes chase each other, but it seems like a game. Also the corals here seemed to be covered with tea cosies, green padded smooth layers of green stuff atop the pipe or brain corals, with their shapes recognizable under their blankets.  Ilene climbed back into the dink using Roger’s non-patented method: a rope tied to two places on one side and led over the other side, forming a loop in the water. With a foot in the loop, you give yourself a boost up using your more powerful thigh muscles, and then holding the line, pull yourself the rest of the way in.

On the way back we stopped to chat for a few minutes with Bob and Sharon on their Hylas 46, Shazza (which Sharon told me is an Australian nickname for Sharon). They are from Rhode Island and come down here every year.

After a peaceful night, it was only eight miles to Deshaies. With light wind we motor sailed again. Arriving at 1 p.m., Lene remarked how empty the bay was compared to stay there last year; but by 6 pm the place had filled up.  We got groceries and passing up the opportunity for a fine dining experience at the posh Hemmingway (because we were simply too lazy to dress up) had a good dinner at La Kaz (the house, I’m told).  The bay is quite protected from all winds except westerlies, but suffers from katabatic winds. These are formed when the air over the land cools faster than the air over the water, which causes the cool air to whoosh down the western mountainsides and combining with easterlies, funneling through the valley in which the town and bay are located, out to sea.  Last winter they were at 35 knots, this time much less.

And we did get to see P a P after all. We took the public bus, leaving at 9:30 and not returning until 5, with three hours of that time for the round trip bus ride, which cost nine euros per person. P a P is only 45 Km from Deshaies by the main road (one lane in each direction) around the northern coast of Basse Terre, but the bus detours to every nearby town along the way to pick up and drop off passengers. (Sort of like taking Route 1 instead of I-95 from New York to Providence.) Going, we had a modern air conditioned coach; the return trip was an older bus with open windows. Each driver listened to the music of his choice, loudly, and honked at everyone he knew and upon approaching every driveway.

In town, we walked the narrow streets with their New Orleans, or West Indian, Creole look,

and visited the two small museums; Roger visited and Lene waited and read. The first was dedicated to Victor Schoelcher.

Here he is in bronze.

He was to take over his father’s porcelain business but starting in 1828, learning more and more about slavery, and traveling the world to study its manifestations (and to collect souvenirs that are in the museum), he became an ardent abolitionist, liquidated the business and worked full time, though a position in the French Government, to abolish slavery in France and its colonies 1848, without a civil war. The museum tells his life story, summarized above, and is about slavery itself. A modern painting with the triangle trade route on the pregnant slave figure head’s belly:

The second museum was dedicated to a native son of P a P, St. John Perse, the pen name of  Alex Leger, a diplomat, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1960 for his poems. We had not heard of him before. It also had an exhibit of native dresses for women. Roger had not known that there were that many ways to tie a square of cotton atop a woman’s head each to express a political or emotional view.

We visited the local produce market, had lunch at a sidewalk café nearby, and purchased three meters of madras cotton material which we now use as a slip cover for one of the settees in ILENE’s salon.  Bits of this fabric peek out from under the map in the top photo.