Les Saintes, a treasure.
Sunset from Portsmouth harbor, Dominica.
A couple of day sails north and we left the Windward islands behind us and entered the Leewards. We stopped overnight in Portsmouth Bay, Dominica and put up our Q flag, but as we did not land we sailed on the next day without checking in. Les Saintes are a cluster of small islands situated between Dominica to the south and Guadeloupe to the north. We arrived in the sheltered bay off Terre de Haut, Iles des Saintes and tied up to one of the highly sought after and hard to come by mooring balls, saved for us by good friends Lori and Dan on SV BeBe. Anchoring is not permitted in the bay, it is busy with ferry traffic, very deep and full of mooring balls. There are few spots and little room for a boat to swing at anchor. It also seems that since covid times there has been some disconnect with local officials and there is no-one in charge of collecting fees for the moorings, consequently we were able to stay here for 10 days, gratis.
The view from Helacious of Bourg des Saintes, the only town in Les Saintes.
Iles des Saintes is part of Guadeloupe and a department of France. We could check in here and then check out later in Guadeloupe. Customs and immigration in the French islands is a lesson to all. A self serve computer terminal, in this case above a cafe, and a minimal 5Eu fee completes the process. A walk around town was very pleasant, the houses all well maintained. Business was obviously good with a steady stream of ferries bringing day guests from “mainland” Guadeloupe. With the crew of BeBe we visited Fort Napoleon overlooking the bay.
The view from Fort Napoleon.
The fort housed an eclectic museum with displays of colonial domestic life, flora and fauna of the islands, marine history and some rather alarming pictures of the native population and their diet.
I did enjoy this illustration with the ditty written below. I wish I had captured it all.
Baie de Pompierre
With Lori and Dan we walked over to Baie de Pompierre, hoping for a nice beach day. Unfortunately it was extremely windy and piles of sargassum weed choked the shore line. Instead we walked up along the ridge overlooking Baie du Marigot for some fine views. We were then rewarded for our efforts by a fine creole lunch.
The following day was still high winds precluding swimming or snorkeling, so we walked to the other side of the island and checked out the rhum punches there.
A treat. Menu Surprise was most delicious.
Life afloat is not all beaches, rhum punches and fine dining. There is work to be done. We had finally had enough of the Cape Horn self steering wind vane boondoggle that graced the swim platform on the back of our boat. It was in the way for using the platform easily and whenever we raised or lowered the dinghy it got caught on the steering oar and threatened to poke a hole in the dinghy. We had tried many times, with infinite adjustments to make it work, finally coming to the sad conclusion that Helacious is a big girl. Simply too heavy to be steered by this system in a reliable manner. It had to go.
Tree growing on a wall, Ilet à Cabrit.
One last trip in Iles des Saintes with the crew of SV BeBe and SV Miles2Go was to Ilet à Cabrit. The wind had died by now and we took the dinghies and snorkel gear over to the small island adjacent to Terre de Haut. Here the remains of Fort Josephine commanded fine views across to the main island.
We left the following day in the company of SV BeBe and sailed north to Guadeloupe.