Ah Guadeloupe – You’ve done it again!

Previously in Matt & Karen’s Soggy Adventure... (bugger it, read them yourself). So we checked in at Le Pelican and everything in Deshaies was as we remembered it (except Harold no longer was delivering bread, which is why we came back – fresh baguettes and croissants in the morning without leaving the boat – how civilised!) Anyway, there was not much we needed to see since we had been here before, so it was a relax station, with a dive thrown in.



So that was how it was. When we got back to the boat, Mike and Cheryl from Happy Times, whom we had met checking in, dropped by and asked us over for sundowners.... so the relaxing started. We arrived and met Mikayla, their daughter, and were introduced to Bob (a high school headmaster), who he ditched his sick wife Janice for the night and Johanna and Martin from Swedish Sailing Vessel Snowbird (you really need Cheryl’s Swedish accent to understand why it is Swedish Sailing Vessel Snowbird, not just Snowbird). We had a fun night, particularly when Bob described a real life High School Musical. I am sure that is why he left his job!

So after we got home and got some rest we decided we wanted to dive Jacques Cousteau’s marine park so we went and tried to book in at Blue Pearl www.bluepearl.gp run by Relio and Stephanie, but they were doing what they do – diving. But through the miracle of the internet we made contact and organized the dive. We couldn’t do Jacques’ place but on Saturday we dived the reef just off Anse Paul Thomas. The price was reasonable and all inclusive and Stephanie spoke English! When we arrived there were 2 other couples diving with us, but they went with Relio doing a Baptism of Diving and we got Stephanie to ourselves. The dive was fantastic ranged from 2-18m, although Karen didn’t have enough weights, so she hogged Stephanie and I had to try and keep up to see what she was being shown.  We swam with a hawksbill turtle, saw fish fighting, unique sea shells, heaps of vase coral of so many shades and colours. It was great. I managed to last 45 minutes before I blew my tank. We then hauled ourselves onto the boat, ate ananas (pinapple) and bananas (bananas) and drank planteurs punch (rum punch) before heading back to the shop and having more planteurs and finding out what we had seen. It was a great day. Highly recommend doing a dive with them!

After the dive we relaxed and then motored to Le Saintes at the southern end of Guadaloupe. We tried to check in here on our way north... you would have known that if you had read the blog... but it was too crowded. This time we headed straight for Pain du Sucre (sugar loaf) under motor. All was good until 10 minutes from the anchorage when the oil pressure alarm from the starboard engine came on... what the..!!!!

We motor in on the port engine and literally dropped the hook like a charterer! 30m and probably all in a heap. I had a feeling I knew what it was and when I opened the engine compartment, I was right. My oil filter wrench had scrapped the paint on the oil filter and it rusted, pin-holed and sprayed all our engine oil around the engine room! It was the quickest oil change I have ever done – no need to pump the sump – it was empty! I changed the oil filter, filled the engine with oil (or up to the full mark anyway for all the girls out there) and tested my work – all good! So I did the Heinrick Manoeuvre (Boofa – you know what I am talking about) on the anchor and found it resting on its side on the sand below. Time to re-anchor! We test the motor and reset the hook and relaxed for the night.

Next morning, we decided to move into Grand Bourg so up came the pick and we headed on in and decided to drop the anchor near the fishing harbour where Merengue told us to. As we were setting the anchor we look over and all the other boats in the harbour were on moorings. So the hook came up again and we moved over to mooring number 47, nice and shiney new and free until 1 July (apparently). They are everywhere in the harbour which is notorious for deep anchorages and poor holding to the north, so we were happy to be on the mooring! I have heard they will be €25 a night soon.

Anyway, after deciding to never do a fort again in the Caribbean, we set off the next morning to Fort Napoleon on an overcast but humid day. It was a reasonably easy walk and the views over the harbour were great.



I hate to say it, but the fort was in excellent condition and was well worth the walk.



It was then back to the boat with baguette in hand and back at the boat we met Terry and Julie on Melvin and talked about having drinks the following night and maybe staying for the fish festival on the weekend. Now I am sad to say, we have met a couple of pretenders along our travels (Boats flying the Aussie flag, but the owners having funny South African accents – obviously they have seen the light even tho’ one who will remain nameless still barracks for the Boks), the situation on Melvin is worse... Terry is an Aussie and Melvin is flagged with a red southern cross and no Fed star (Kiwi). I will work on him on the way south and see if I can straighten him out!

Next day we catch up with Happy Times and invite them for drinks, only to find Melvin has done a runner for Pointe a Pitre – they must of heard of my rum punch, so we delay drinks for the a day and I get to work on Debbie’s old donk. To fix the gears, the whole motor head needs to be removed, and after inspecting it, this does not seem hard. I remove all the visible bolts, spill engine oil over Karen’s nice white deck, but still I can’t get the motor off. Before I resort to a hammer, I do a web search on the problem which I find is very common. The solution was to hit it with a soft hammer, which I did and it worked. The engine is apart and next step is to fix the gear shift – but we don’t want to rush things so that can wait a while.

Melvin arrived back a couple of days later, and I told them that we had had drinks without them, but the fish festival was on. So Saturday it was off to Plage de Pompierre for the concourse de culinaire (or something like that). The bay, an easy walk from town, is beautiful so we found some coconut palms (which Terry checked out for dangerous appendages) for shade and sat down to listen to the music.



As they were still setting up the stalls, this situation didn’t last long, we hopped up and headed to a restaurant close by to have a cool drink, taking in the wildlife on the way.



The restaurant was packed with locals and the food looked quite nice, but we restrained and headed back to the fish festival – there had to be food there. And there was – fish no less! So we grabbed some fish skewers (and Karen went outside to the sandwich vendor for her cheese sandwich) and settled back under the coconuts and gorged ourselves – there is no such thing as a small helping in the Caribbean!



Sunday came around quickly so it was sails up and off to Dominica, with winds on the nose and seas on the side, but we made good progress with the  winds shifting to the north as we came into the lee of the island and we sailed on into Prince Rupert Bay with plenty of sun and Karen at the helm (for some of it at least)

St Kitts & Nevis – Not a lot to say...

In our task of ticking off as many islands in the eastern Caribbean before we head a little west later in the year, we motored our way south to St Kitts and Nevis in a manner that is not honing our sailing skills at all. Kitt’s is only about 22 miles or 3 ½ hours from Statia, but when you arrive at the marina and walk through the Cruise Ship terminal to customs and immigration, you could be light years away from the tranquillity and simplicity of Statia.

We anchored in Basseterre, just of the new marina in nice sand and a fairly gentle roll coming from the south west into the harbour. We were one of three boats in the harbour, so a nice easy anchoring job. We waited until we were sure the anchor was set before heading into Customs to clear in. Of course I continued the “we’re here beer” tradition passed down to us by Jackster in Venezuela before I left. This is one reason I don’t leave the boat before 2 hours after anchoring – a very good, safe and pleasing practice.

We arrived at customs at 3:00pm, just as the officer was stepping out and were told to come back in an hour and a half and that in the mean time we were free to wander around and have a drink if we so desired – so we did. When we got back we cleared customs, paid our harbour fees and were told to come back in the morning to clear immigration. So we weren’t really in the country just yet.

When we got back to the boat we found out our friends on Evergreen who were looking to catch up with us, sailed right on by with our new sheet and anchored in Whitehouse Bay without even waving. They took off the next morning for Guadaloupe so we had no time to catch them up!

Next morning we wandered around the town doing “Tommy Tourist”. The museum was very interesting and gave a good sight into St Kitts and Nevis history and slave trading in the Caribbean in general. Whilst that is perhaps a sad part of history, it is very definite that the Caribbean would not be what it is today without it. Particularly in the British Islands, the Africans are now the dominant population. As Boofa said, he now knows what it feels like to be a minority.

Basseterre is a quaint town and we wandered through the town and visited the Catholic church. On our way there we wandered through independence square, where all the school kids hang out (and make out) at lunch time. We were approached by a man you sought support for a program to take some local kids to the Special Games, which of cause we gave to, but it did bring me back to Antigua where I bought a very ordinary CD to support another disabled program...must be the current trend. Anyway...



By the way I had problems with the camera, so independence square is all you get.

After doing the sight-seeing, having lunch and buying some fresh food we decided that we should make our way down to Whitehouse Bay ourselves for some R&R. I t was an uneventful motor and we set anchor in amongst the local and transient boats. It was not picturesque, but tranquil. There is a dinghy dock and rubbish provided by the developers who plan to put a marina in somewhere nearby so it is good for a couple of days.



While we were here we snorkelled the wreck which was pretty good – sorry no photos, you know the story – and took the weather window or no weather window to install our 5th and final solar panel! This gives us 695W of solar power and 400W of wind power (when Wally wants to work) which should have us diesel free at anchor in most situations!



As you can see it is a slightly different installation to previously, hanging off the back of the bimini (roof) and mounted on stainless steel brackets I got made by “Terry on the French Side” in St Martin. If you are looking for stainless work, he is good, quick and reasonably priced.

So anyway, the was no wind and no waves – perfect, and to appease the faint of heart among the crew, I decided to tie a rope around it as I was mounting it so it would not fall in the drink. We agreed roles and went to it. Karen would hold the rope and anchor the solar panel (even though it weighed as much as her and probably pulled her into the drink if it got away but don’t tell her that) and I would drill, glue (with our favourite body art material – 3M 5200 marine adhesive) and screw it. Well, perhaps I overemphasised the “Hold on and don’t let it fall in the water” instruction because for the next hour I struggled against Karen’s tight hold on the rope to try and get the solar panel out over the edge and into position. Once there it took 4 minutes to drill, glue and screw it down. This may be an exaggeration, but I do it only for illustration purposes as I had not camera or video. It did remind me of when Karen and I were renovating the bathroom and trying to lift 4m lengths of plasterboard (dry wall) up ladder and fix it in place near the ceiling!

After a couple of days relaxing, it was time to head to Nevis, a 5 mile motor from Whitehouse so not real exciting. We arrived on Saturday and were thinking about doing dinner in town, but when we realised that you could not lock the dinghy on we were less excited about it. Debbie had a new donk and we did not want to leave this hanging on a bowline in the dark. So we ate on board and decided we would hit Sunshines on Pinney Beach for Sunday lunch and a game of Bocce.



We met Sweet Pea, a local vendor shading herself in the outside area, who welcomed us to Sunshine’s and pointed us in the direction of the bar (like I need any help in that area) where we were greeted by Sunshine himself. He mistook me for an English chef who has his own show on the cooking channel (must be my slender physique) and showed us to a table. We went out on a limb and ordered the house drink – d’ killer bee rum punch, which must of been good as Karen had ordered a second by the time we finished lunch. I of course, being responsible, ordered the lower alcohol beer to play Bocce with. Ok Karen had blown all our money on the Shrimp Salad so I could only afford beer...

After my whipping Karen’s butt at Bocce with our new larger and much more slippery bocce balls like Merengue’s, we headed back to the boat. After the 2 killer bees, Karen took us of the beach with the new motor like a professional!



We spent the night umming and ahhing about whether we would stop in Montserrat. The website suggested that the areas that we would want to see by tour would be closed so we decided that Monday afternoon we would check out and Tuesday motor through the coral banks of Redonda and then try and sail into the wind past the Windward side of Monserrat to at least see the scenery of the volcanic plains.
Monday was a pretty simple day. We checked out with the port office, tried to find somewhere to hve a drink while we waited for Customs to open and gave up and walked to Fort Charles ruins and figured out we are done with forts in the Caribbean. We strolled back along the beach checking out before heading back to the boat for an early night, because...

At 0400 Tuesday morning we were on the deck, and dropping the mooring lines for our full day trip to Guadaloupe. We slowly made our way out of the harbour, with Karen on the foredeck spotting boats and buoys until we had rounded the long pier and dawn started to break at 0500. The buoys did not stop however until we were at Redonda! By the way – what a rock, it would hold its head high against Uluru (Ayers Rock) back home.



Karen, of course, maintained her navigational duties, studying her tools religiously throughout the trip



We tried as hard as we could but we could not get consistent wind in the right direction to sail (heaven forbid someone mention the word “tack”) but it meant that the planned 14hour sail was reduced to 12. The view of Monserrat was magnificent – clear until the very peak, with long volcanic slopes to the shore.



At 4:00 in the afternoon we were relaxing having a “we’re here” in Deshaies, Guadaloupe!

COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Alison
DATE: 6/10/2011 5:12:19 AM
I just noticed the drop sided outdoor table - very snazzy guys!