We sailed from Portsmouth, Dominica, to Terre d’en Haut on the Îles des Saintes on February 6th. This is where we parted ways with Lisanna and Paul, our crewmates since December 1st, who are flying onto Cuba before heading back to real life.
This left James and I to our own devices to potter about the islands. The Saintes are a part of Guadeloupe and are made up of small islands with some pretty beaches, a few bits of reef and some interesting cliff walks. The islands are quite rocky and steep to with small sheltered bays in which to anchor. They make a logical stop off en route to the mainland as they are about 21 miles from Dominica and 22 from Guadeloupe. At first glance there seems to be not a lot here aside from those things clearly aimed at tourists (souvenir stores, overpriced clothes shops, restaurants etc). But we were happily able to find a good little chandlery / hardware store, a great butcher, we poked our noses in at the local church and went on some fantastic walks. My favourite of the latter took us out to a beach covered with a forest of palm trees where we met two adorable kittens that nearly became our new boatmates. While walking back from the beach we passed a fenced-off field where goats and chickens were being fed their dinner and, amongst them, vying for some scraps were lots of wild iguanas. More and more of the big lizards kept joining the crowd, clambering down from the trees. We counted over 30 of them! A couple of days later we pushed on to Pointe à Pitre, Guadeloupe’s capital.
Note to all readers, this means our spare double cabin is now vacant and fully ready for visitors! All are welcome to stay, just get in touch and we can detour to meet you wherever possible 🙂