Ille de Saints and Guadeloupe

We left Dominica and sailed the 4 hour or so crossing to the Saints which is a little group of islands which are part of Guadeloupe, all belonging to France. We sailed across the area the battle of the Saints took place in 1782 (the British beat the French) to the lovely little quaint holiday place, only problem is it is full of French tourists and obviously priced accordingly. We had a day walking to Fort Napoleon (which was just closing when we got there at 12.30), then left for Guadeloupe the next day.







View from Fort Napoleon at The Saints

The Saints main street of its only town

Rapau at anchor in the Saints (centre of picture)

The area were the Battle of the Saints took Place

Bass Terre (Guadelouple)

We caught a fish during the 3 hour sail to Bass Terre, but sadly it got away just as we got it to the boat (and it was at least 6ft long, honest!) We went into the marina as we were desperate to fill up with water.

Wrecked vessels still lie in the marina from the Hurricane

The marina is still suffering from the effects of Hurricane Lenny in 1999. The port entrance light has still not been replaced and the entrance is tricky if you get it wrong as the boulders of the sea wall which collapsed during the Hurricane are still beneath the surface reducing the depth. However, after negotiating the hazards and seeing the evidence of several wrecked boats still lying were they were wrecked, we were offered a good deal wich included water so we enjoyed the luxury of staying the night in the marina (showers and electricity, yahoooo!)

Bass Terre's sophisticated front (unsual for the Caribbean)

Dashaies (Guadeloupe)

Next day it was off to the little village at the north end of Guadeloupe, Deshaies. Another expensive French village but with a beautiful river walk, or rather a river boulder scramble along the River Dashaies. It took us two and a half hours to scramble along the boulders to the top of the river, but it was lovely and peaceful, and cool and shady under the overhanging trees.
Then we took the road back which was only half an hour walk.

Rapau in Dashaies

Dashaies sea front

Boulder Scramble

The top of the River Deshaies

We rewarded ourselves with a sundowner at a little bar where Keith continued his obsession with peeling the labels off the bottles of beer to stick onto the front of his daily long!

Keith peeling off the beer label

Awoke the next day for our 8 hr passage to Antigua. It was unusually rainy and seemed set in but we went for it anyway and had a fairly miserable sail up to Antigua in the rain most of the way (it was warm though............yet we are thoroughly spoilt!

A short video of our hike to the Boiling Lake in Dominica in March.