Le Jardin Boutanique de Deshaies

A visit to the botanical garden in Deshaies requires it’s own post because of all the great photo opportunities it provided. So here goes with pictures that speak clearer than any words I could muster:

And a view of the harbor where Billy Ruff’n is in Deshaies:

Bienvenue a Guadeloupe!

After completing few boat projects in Antigua, and meeting some nice slip neighbors from outside Boston (owners of Ted Hood’s former “Robin”, a Little Harbor 46), we finally set off from Jolly Harbor on 1/24. As the Gods of bureaucracy & process would have it however, we only made it 8 miles to Falmouth Harbor. It took a few hours to fill our fuel and water tanks so it was 10:30 before we got to checking out. After waiting for the Customs officer for 20 minutes, he told us we needed to start with the Port Authority. After meeting with the Port Authority officer, she told us we needed to go back to Customs. After completing the paperwork with Customs, we had to check out with Immigrations, etc. etc., thus we didn’t have time to make the 35 mile trip to Guadeloupe before dark.

Adopting the island mantra of ‘No worries’, we enjoyed a pleasant afternoon and evening anchored in Falmouth Harbor, a few boats away from Maiden (the infamous all female crewed boat that raced in the Whitebread around the world race). Later that night, we basked in view of a virtual city of mast lights from dozens of super yachts.

On 1/25, we set off around 8:15 am for an uneventful 6 hour motor sail to Deshaies, Guadeloupe, a quaint fishing town on the north western side of the island. To our surprise, we found ourselves anchored one boat away from our friends from the Salty Dawg rally, Bob and Brenda on Pandora. After an hour or so of unpacking the dinghy, pumping it up, and finding the dinghy equipment, we finally launched her and went in town to check in. Finding an appropriate place to land the dinghy was interesting in that the town dock had been proactively dismantled to prevent it from breaking apart in the surge so we had to find our way up a canal I happened to read about in my cruising guides.

The check-in process was very different from Antigua’s formalities in that the ‘Customs’ office is a computer in a souvenir shop. The nice French shopkeeper helped us through the all French on screen instructions and we were done in about 20 minutes. We explored town a bit and then stopped for a drink at L’Amer, a breezy cafe on the water, with a view of Billy Ruff’n, and the accompanying surf crashing and rumbling on the rocks beneath. We stayed long enough for a beautiful sunset and then bought a small baguette and some spiny lobster to cook up on board for dinner. It was a very good day!

The next day, we took the dinghy in town early to get fresh croissant from Le Boulanger when it opened. Right after we got there, a line of at least a dozen churchgoers and others formed to buy their baguettes for the day. Not much else was going on this Sunday in Deshaies so we went back to the boat to get the paddle board deployed. That evening, we met up for drinks and dinner at Le Madras with Bob & Brenda and some new Salty Dawg friends, Kevin and Mary on Pisces.

We’re back!

After a nice, but extended holiday break in Philadelphia, we are now back in Antigua with a mostly restored back for Andrew and all kinds of unfinished boat projects. We decided to rent an Airbnb in the Jolly Castle Hotel for a few nights so we didn’t have to climb up and down a ladder every time we wanted to get on or off the boat, since it was still out of the water. But, despite comfortable and inexpensive lodging, we’ve been quickly immersed in the world of ‘nothing is easy on a boat’.

Our first morning back, we enjoyed a homemade Antiguan breakfast (scrambled eggs, beans, mackerel and dumplings... that tasted like fresh baked doughnuts without the sugar) at Joseph’s right below our apartment in Jolly Castle. The apartment is comfortable, clean and supported by a very friendly and responsive staff. Arlene, who owns the place, arranged for a taxi to pick us up at the airport and met us at the hotel when we arrived. It is very convenient to the beach, restaurants, grocery store as well as the boatyard and the kitchen makes a nice place for Andrew to make Painkillers to reward us for our challenges.

When we got to the boat, we found the electricity was unplugged so all of the refrigerated and frozen foods we were trying to keep, were spoiled. Cleaning out the refrigerator and freezer were two of our boat projects on the first day back. In addition, Andrew removed 250 feet of chain from the anchor locker in order to inspect both and we had to flake it back into place. We had left a few folks from the boatyard with instructions for a handful of projects, half of which were done, so we spent the rest of the day supervising what was left to do.

We splashed the boat on Monday (1/20) and after a few days for provisioning and waiting for a weather window, we plan to head ~35 miles south of Antigua to Guadeloupe.