Coconut rum
Flavored rums for sale in the central market, Basse-Terre.
Guadeloupe is an island with a split personality-geographically speaking. If you look at a chart it resembles a butterfly with two distinct wings. The western most island is mountainous and forested, while the easternmost part is much flatter and more agricultural. They are separated by a narrow and shallow river/canal, not navigable except by dinghy due to a low bridge. We only spent a short time in Guadeloupe visiting from the western shore, so fully intend to return and live up to Helacious’ motto and “explore more”.
Approaching the SW coastline of Guadeloupe.
We anchored in a roadstead anchorage as the weather was calm. It was literally alongside the main coastal road, but gave little protection should the wind pipe up. Nevertheless this was close to Basse-Terre, the island’s second largest town and its capital, so was a perfect place given the conditions.
Anchorage at Rivière Sens, near Basse-Terre
The next day along with the crew of SV BeBe we went to explore Basse-Terre and to find a lunch spot to celebrate Valentines day. We tied the dinghy up in the marina and walked along the river walk into town. Basse-Terre felt forgotten, the once elegant buildings covered with vines and peeling paint.
The central market was large and full of vegetable stalls, handcrafted goods, spices and the flavored rums, Oh my!
Helen with a most charming (and very tall) vegetable seller.
In contrast to the back streets, the center of town was buzzing with activity and we had not seen so many stores open for business since leaving Europe. We found our restaurant, JP-JF, the maker of all those flavored rums, and enjoyed a fine creole curry lunch, complete with a Valentines day rose for the ladies. On the counter were a selection of the flavored rums for us to sample. We discovered the coconut rum to be most delicious and came away with a bottle.
The next day we found a trail that lead up a river valley from our anchorage. It was quite tricky as the path was a mass of rocks and roots.The foliage was large and quite different to what we had seen before. At the summit we discovered the Guadeloupe Observatory for Volcanic Studies. We went in even though it was not actually open to the public (well the door was open) and we were given a brief description of the work they do there monitoring tremors in the earths crust throughout the Caribbean basin.
Along the path we encountered many leaf cutter ants, so difficult to photograph, so fascinating to watch. It is interesting how they decimate a single leaf down to the veins, yet not touch neighboring leaves.
The next day we moved on to the small town of Bouillante, meaning “boiling”. There is nothing to particularly commend this town other than the geothermal power plant, providing electricity for the area using superheated water from just below the earth's crust, which then discharges the coolant water into the bay. This effectively provides a spa experience and was a popular spot for sundowners for locals as well as cruisers.
Spa experience in Boulliante.
The next bay north was on my ‘must do’ list for Guadeloupe, The Jaques Cousteau National Maritime Park. There is an island, Pigeon Island, in the bay that has wonderful snorkeling. We had to wait a few days for the weather to be calm enough, but when it was we took the dinghy over, tied to a park mooring and checked it out.
School of Blue Tang off Pigeon Island.
Bubbles from scuba divers below.
We were joined at Pigeon Island by both SV BeBe and SV Miles2Go and enjoyed evenings of sundowners and lessons in splicing. Such good friendships are made, the lifestyle has already filtered for like minded people, the rest is so easy. We will be seeing y’all again.
Our last stop in Guadeloupe was Deshaies, a picturesque fishing village toward the northern tip of the west coast. It is a deep bay and quite crowded as it is the only checking in/out place for miles. We snagged a mooring thanks to Miles2Go who were ahead of us and we settled in for a few days. Our neighbor in the bay was the Golden Globe Race boat of Arnaud Gaist who had retired from the race in the south Atlantic due to fouling with barnacles and weakened mast.
The following day we climbed the hill behind the village to visit the wonderful botanical garden, Jardin Botanique de Deshaies. In addition to the lovely native plantings, there was an aviary of lorikeets, flamingoes and lovely water features.
Botanical garden in Deshaies.
Mahogany seed pods.
At the end of February we popped in to the boutique store in Deshaies and logged on to the computer to check out of the French islands. We had to get to Antigua where we planned on leaving Helacious for a month while we went home to have a wedding. We had thoroughly enjoyed our cruising this season, many places we plan to return to and explore more.