Sometimes you need a holiday from the adventure. Our Swedish friend Catharina from sailingvessel Blue said to us: ‘Ut på tur aldrig sur’ or ‘Out for a hike, never grumpy’, so we followed her advice and took a relaxing holiday from the sailing adventure in Guadeloupe with fun, leisure hikes, swimming, snorkeling and nice food.
The archipelago of Guadeloupe is perfect for relaxed sailing with the main island Guadeloupe only a couple of hours away from the beautiful small islands of Les Saintes, so we spent a couple of weeks slowly island hopping and meeting several boat friends.
The archipelago of Les Saintes consists of two main islands: Terre de Haut and Terre de Bas and various smaller uninhabited islands. At Terre de Haut tourists can choose between various transportation options such as bikes, mopeds or golf carts. With Catharina and Peter from SV Blue we toured Terre de Haut in a golf cart enjoying snorkeling, the beaches and the stunning views.
Most boats pick up a buoy in front of the village and so we did for some days. Later on we moved to a more remote anchorage by the tiny island Ilet à Cabrit (Goat’s island) where we hiked up the top to Fort Joséphine and found more crabs than goats.
This was as well a wonderful snorkeling and fishing spot; every afternoon the fishermen threw their net practically behind Sunriser. We offered to buy some of their catch but very kindly they gave us a bucket full of fish as ‘cadeau’ twice! So we had plenty of material for BBQ.
sometimes fish just lands on deck by itself…you can still see the stains.
The main island of Guadeloupe has the shape of a butterfly with the eastern ‘wing’ more populated and developed than the western, where most of the nature parks can be found. We sailed Sunriser to the west coast and anchored at the Cousteau marine park by Malendure. From there it is a short dinghy ride to Pigeon island with some of the best snorkeling we have yet seen.
The capital of Guadeloupe is Pointe à Pitre, located between the two butterfly wings and is a rather unattractive town, but a good spot from which to explore the island. A shockingly good and modern slavery museum raises by the seafront in the middle of a poor and undeveloped area, maybe a promising start of better living conditions for the neighborhood?
We were further pleasantly surprised by the zoo, which is set in the middle of the jungle respecting the natural habitat of the animals. The visitors walk through a narrow path carved between the trees and tree top pasarelles coming very close to the animals without disturbing them.
We took advantage of the busy town life to do shopping by the Carrefour, aka cruiser’s paradise, but two days were enough to make us miss the peace of a quiet anchorage, so we followed Blue to Ilet du Gosier. After all the volcanic islands with dark sand this was our first ‘paradise’ island of white beaches and turquoise waters.
But that is enough holiday for now! Adventure calls us again while we speed sailing back south in more sporty conditions, against the prevailing winds. On the way we will pass some known territories and stop longer by the islands we skipped on our way north. We also hope to meet again with some friends left behind and others also on their way out of hurricane zone.
You make everybody envy you!