Guadeloupe

We left Dominica with a reef in the main sail. Even though it was not that windy, we were old hands by now and we knew all about gusts. We started off using the autonomy but she was soon playing up in the ever present gusts so we hand steered.As usual the wind was to reward of the beam and ranging from a nice steady 15 knots or so to gusts of 25 plus. 

We had read that the anchorage near the capital, Based Terre, was folly but we wanted to visit the hypermarket to stock up on some French treats so we headed there. On entering the bay we found that the anchorage was fairly crowded but there were some free mooring buoys so we tried to pick one up. We did this ok but holding it snapped our trusty old boat hook. We had another but Richard, a lone Irish sailor on a buoy nearby, had spotted our plight and rowed over to help. Drinks on board on Saturday were in order and a new friend was made.

We enjoyed our time here, walking along the coast to the next town and swimming on a quiet beach near a fishing harbour complete with lots of resident pelicans and a couple of huge  iguanas.

We also managed to visit the supermarket and replenish stocks albeit accidentally paying 29 euros 50 each for two bottles of wine we had thought were 2 euros 95 each.

The taxi driver who took us back to the boat with our shopping agreed to take us the next day to the highest waterfall in the Antilles and to wait while we hiked then bring us back all for a very reasonable fee.

The waterfall was amazing but the walk to the top had to be abandoned after a lot of difficult climbing, mainly due to u suitable footwear. The book said the walk was for experienced walkers, which we are so why I chose to wear slip on plimsolls and Scruffbag sandals, which broke on the climb, is beyond me.A French couple joined us in abandoning the attempt, though we had probably completed three quarters of it.

After  Basse Terre, we wanted to go to Deshaies as a friend of ours, Jean-Lux had said he had seen the TV series, Murder in Paradise,which is set there and it seemed lovely. It was. The winds can apparently blast down the valley I to the anchorage, but we spent a week with very light winds. It was indeed lovely.

We walked along the local river and cooled off in crystal clear pools along the way with not a soul in sight. We went aboard the boat of ?Pam and Tom with their friend Yolanda and dog, McDuff, fellow OCC member who introduced us to the delights of chocolate rum and provided excellent conversation.

We walked uphill in the heat to the botanical gardens, though were sorry that they did not allow picnics. Still, this led us to walk to the old battery on the cliff, where we found solitude and picnic tables together with a good view of the bay and some old cannons.

We decided to indulge ourselves in a meal out before leaving for Antigua so we checked out a place serving Creole food and duly boomed in. When we arrived there were no other customers and a woman was sweeping any sort the floor. We noticed ants on our table so we moved. Still,we decided to stay and we had noted that most of the other restaurants in town were far from full. When we went to the toilet there were ants in the room and when we went to get served there were dead ants on the ultimate.(It was an all you could eat buffet). That said the food was excellent and there was lots of it so we were actually glad we had stayed. It was a fitting goodbye to this beautiful island.