Catching up to the Swedes

When I met up with Martin and Daniel in the BVI (whom I had first met in The Grenadines), they invited me to join them in sailing south to Trinidad before hurricane season, stopping to kite along the way.  I saw a very rare weather window to get back east without pounding into head seas - ten knot winds out of the south, with only two to three foot seas, so I headed for Antigua. This allowed for a comfortable 37 hour motor sail. A very severe electrical storm moved over me in the middle of the night, but I just put all my hand held electronics in the oven and went to the aft cabin (well away from the mast) and slept until it was over. I got into English Harbor about eleven PM the next night and was able to find a place to anchor without much difficulty.

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!