Guadeloupe Part 1

     We have spent the last few days cruising the coast of Guadeloupe, which is a French Overseas Dependency (think Guam or sort of Hawaii for Americans).  The island is very French, which is a good way to learn a language, but a bit tougher for daily life!  All is well, though, baguettes are within arm's reach at all times.

 Starting before dawn, we had favorable conditions for a fast sail of 45 miles from Antigua.  We arrived in Le Riviere Salee, which is a narrow mangrove river which splits Guadeloupe into two halves.  We spent the night anchored just north of a bridge which was scheduled to open at 0430 and allow us to reach our destination of Pointe-a-Pitre.  Alas, we found out the bridge would not be opening for us, because it is apparently not opening "this year." So we changed plans. 

    Due to the bridge closure, we needed to cover about 75 miles "the long way" around Basse-Terre, the western half of Guadeloupe.  This was not a bad thing at all, just a few extra days we didn't plan on.  It also enabled us to make two really cool stops, the town of Deshaies, and the Pigeon Island Marine Reserve. 

    The first stop was in Deshaies, where we completed customs in a cafe, and met a cool sailor named Rich.  He is cruising the eastern Caribbean in a Pacific Seacraft 34' sailboat named KELLY RAE.  Yes, that is the exact same model boat as us!  He rowed over to say hello, since "it's nice to see other beautiful boats in the anchorage."  He has sailed over 30,000 miles in his boat over the years, and it was nice to see he still loved it as much as we love NAVIGATOR.  We met up later for a hike/river scramble up the Deshaies River.

    

    The river was cool and clean, and the little waterfalls along the way were really neat to check out, especially since it is dry-season in the eastern Caribbean, and there is not too much flowing water on the islands we have been visiting so far. At the end of the hike, the river narrows to a mini-slot canyon with a 30 foot waterfall at the head and a pool for swimming.

   The second stop was Pigeon Island Marine Reserve, which is also the area of Cousteau Underwater Park.  That's Cousteau as in Jacques Cousteau, everyone's favorite marine biologist and the reason all life-science majors start out as marine biology majors in college.  

   Pigeon Island was definitely in our top 5 or 10 snorkels/dives of all time - the coral was extremely diverse, the water was super clear, and the reef was very healthy.  We were able to get in the water early, before the dive-charter boats arrived, so we pretty much had it to ourselves, and we swam about 1.5 miles around each island, watching the underwater world go by. 

Today, we arrived in Pointe-a-Pitre, where there is a relatively inexpensive (for Euro standards) marina which we are using as our mid-patrol maintenance period...nothing major, just a few jobs that have stacked up.  We also look forward to our friend, Erin, arriving in a few days, when we can catch up on Coast Guard news and laugh about snowballs.