Bourg and Terre-de-Haut

Guadeloupe features a number of offshore islands: Les Saintes, Marie-Galante, Desiderade. Les Saintes is a cluster of small islands, two of which are inhabited. We were at the larger of these, Terre-de-Haut, anchored in the Baie des Saintes off its booming metropolis Le Bourg.

After rocking and rolling (well, not true, catamarans don't really roll) around all night, we headed ashore for a little leg stretching. We decided to head up the hill to Fort Napoleon. This turned out to be a very pleasant walk of about 20 minutes. The only real danger is the flotilla of tourists who rent scooters and zip incompetently about. The island is so tiny, one wonders at their endangering life and limb (theirs and those of others) rather than indulging in the extremely pleasant rambles available which let you see birds and plants and lizards and all manner of tropical whatsits.

Fort Napoleon is atop a hill overlooking Bourg. It is either well restored or on the way there. There is a nice walk around the ramparts, with splendid views and an extensive collection of cactus.

The central area of the fort proper contains a large barracks (I believe) which is home a rather good museum. One room features a great deal of detail about the April 12, 1782, Battle of Les Saintes when British Admiral Sir George Rodney, with a fleet of 18 (?) sail took on and defeated a French fleet of 34 (?) on its way to conquer Jamaica. (Not sure of the numbers, but there was a heavy imbalance favouring the French. The English fleet split the French line in two...not normal tactics at all, in fact, for the first time in fleet action...and were able to sink or capture most of the enemy fleet.) The museum displays had lots of little model boats lined up to illustrate this rather catastrophic defeat. Les Saintes was returned to France by treaty later on.

I'm not sure where I picked up this tidbit...might have been at Fort Napoleon: with the sugar trade being so fantastically lucrative, back in the day, one treaty proposition from the period was for England to trade all of Canada to the French in exchange for Guadeloupe!

We had sandwiches for lunch in Bourg, then spent the afternoon aboard Django, reading, lolling, snoozing. We dined ashore and here I was introduced to the appalling beverage of which, for some reason, Guadeloupe is so proud: ti-punch. Lime juice (not enough), sugar or sugar syrup (too much) and the vile liquid the French call rhum agricole (before-, during- and afterburn). No ice. But the meal was very nice.

In terms of ice, we found Bourg to be an ice-free zone. Mind you, we started out asking for "glace" and were sent back and forth through the entire village a couple of times before realizing we were being sent to ice cream shops. We then resorted to "glacons". No joy.

On Wednesday, we walked over to Pompierre Beach in the company of a number of cruise ship people. It is a really lovely walk, through farmland, to a beautiful beach enclosed in a lagoon. On our way back, we stopped at a little restaurant for delicious accras (salt cod and okra fritters) and a very good tuna sandwich.

Then it was back to Django for another quiet afternoon of swimming, sunbathing, reading, snoozing. Peas and rice for dinner.