A coast to Les Saintes

After our visit we walked back to town, half hoping to find the woman we’d met the day before sitting beside the road with two huge, hand-cranked ice cream makers. One had been full of coconut sorbet, the other of soursop sorbet. Both were wonderful. Like so many others, she was observing her day of rest, so we returned sorbetless to the Django.

We had a spot of lunch, then weighed anchor to proceed south down the coast to Pigeon Island.

Jacques Cousteau famously declared the waters around this tiny island to be some of the best diving in the world. It is, in consequence, much visited by divers and snorkellers, a number of tour and sightseeing operations make a living from this notoriety, so it can be quite busy during daylight hours, though the little island itself is uninhabited...except by pigeons. The area has been designated a national park.

We picked up a mooring off the island and did what you’re supposed to do here. We snorkelled. Lovely it was. Lots of fish. But the coral is almost all gone. Coral reefs are in desperate shape with bleaching. We see it more and more. This year is reported to have been not bad since the waters didn't get too warm.

A beef curry for dinner, cooked up with green bananas, potatoes and yoghurt was very tasty.

Thus we celebrated the birthday of Django’s bold captain.

The following day, we worked on Django’s trampoline, which needed to be tightened and to have its rods lashed in (they tend to slip out of the loops holding them). We then raised anchor and headed down to Les Saintes, a cluster of beautiful little islands south (and part) of Guadeloupe.After clearing the southern tip of the island, the waves became much larger and the wind much stronger. We sailed down to Bourg les Saintes, on the island of Terre Haute, in about 25 kts with gusts to 30 kts.

The anchorage had a pretty strong surge to keep things active, but we’ve had worse. We downed our RPs and dinner, planned our explorations for the next day and, as usual, were early to bed.