After clearing in and filling the tanks, I join them and their friend Conny, who has his own boat and is also traveling in company with them, at Green Island, a beautiful anchorage and a good kiting site.
Green Island Anchorage
From Antigua, the three boats sail together for an overnight passage to Guadeloupe, leaving about five PM. It is a beat to get around the east side of the island, and we have to tack a few times. Conny and I arrive at Saint Francois in mid-morning. The twins' boat doesn't go to wind as well, and they end up taking two nights to get there - but they don't use their motor!
The four of us rent a car for two days and tour both halves of the country - Grande-Terre, the low lying island which is rich with sugar cane, and Basse-Terre, the mountainous half which has a lot of waterfalls and a volcano to climb. (Yes, I know that the names are backwards.) The volcano was quite interesting, and even though we were inside the clouds, we could see the steam belching from the crater, and if you got too close, it burned your eyes and lungs.
Daniel and Conny
Daniel and Martin
Pointe des Châteaux
It was fun hiking up to this cross after we had used it as a landmark at sea.
The Four Musketeers
A waterfall on Basse-Terre
The volcano is in lush cloud forest.
Very rugged terrain, also
Conny has a friend on the island, Marjorie, and on the weekend she and her friend Christine took us to a surfing beach one day, and a snorkeling site the next.
Daniel, Conny, Marjorie, Martin, and me
Marjorie, Conny, Daniel, Martin, and Christine
After Guadeloupe, we spent a day touring Marie-Galante, a beautiful bucolic island of rolling hills, unlike anything else I have seen in the eastern Caribbean. When I return, it will be even more enjoyable if I know more than twenty words of French!
There are many, many moulins on the island. This one was restored a couple decades ago.
Martin defying death above a blowhole
Yes, of course we took some mangos!
