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.