Guadeloupe

The tiny village of Deshaises

"Pirate Jon"

One of the parakeets at the Botanical Garden in Deshaises

A rainbow greeted us as we anchored in the tiny bay

Carol's "prize winning" photo taken at the Botanical Garden in Deshaises

Our sail to Guadeloupe was smooth and fun. All around us we could see squalls, water spouts, and storms taking place, but we never sailed through one. The east coast of Montserrat held our attention for many miles as we got farther away. We could now see the east side of the volcano and the dust flying from the winds hitting the ash that had flowed to the sea. We neared the two mile exclusion zone and were thankful the winds were blowing the dust away from us.

We reached the tiny, protected bay of Deshaises (pronounced day-ay) in the afternoon, found our spot to anchor and relaxed while we waited for our anchor to settle into the sand bottom. We were delighted to see rainbows all around and to feel the calm water, in spite of the fact that the wind was blowing hard. That evening a young woman in a dinghy approached our boat. We greeted her and in her best English she asked if we would like to have bread delivered to our boat in the morning! Wow, what a treat. We were definitely at a French island. Of course, we ordered a baguette and two chocolate croissants. At 7:00 AM the next morning here comes our bread, this time delivered by her husband. The couple lives on their sailboat in Deshaises and does this as a small business for the visiting yachts.

Later that morning we put the motor on our dinghy and headed to the small village to check in with customs. We motored up a small river to find the dinghy dock and locked our boat among the other dinghies and fishing boats. We walked to the internet café to clear in with customs only to find out that they were not longer handling customs. Evidently, the Guadeloupe government does not want to charge yachts to clear into their country; however, the café owners need to charge a very small amount to cover their paper and ink costs. The government does not allow that so they are in a constant disagreement. So…..that day we could not check in at the internet café. We decided to leave our quarantine flag up and visit again the next day to see if the story changed. The story did not change, but the café owner informed us that the douanes (customs) officer would be in his office at the top of the hill, so we quickly walked up there and cleared in. Now we were legal, so we hoisted the Guadeloupe flag which is the French flag.

The tiny village includes a few small markets, some restaurants, and some souvenir shops; however, they open late and then close between noon and 3:00. They also close on holidays, some afternoons and whenever they feel like it. So, we never had the chance to really visit many stores! We heard that the highlight of the area was the botanical garden, so we knew we had to go. The walk to the botanical garden was only about 1 ½ miles but it was straight uphill, so by the time we got there we were dripping wet! It was so worth it, though. The walk through the garden took us by ponds full of carp, through a parakeet aviary where you could feed the parakeets nectar as they perched all over you, by waterfalls, parrots and flamingos, and all along the way we passed every imaginable tropical plant loaded with flowers. Before leaving we had lunch next to an area where you could overlook the sea and bay where we were anchored.

We were enjoying Deshaises so much we stayed for about a week. We introduced ourselves to some people we had seen in previous anchorages and quickly became friends. We met on their boats for sundowners and even had a boat book exchange before we split up for a few days as they headed south. We wanted to sail out at the same time but discovered water in our food lockers and decided we better make the necessary repair before it got worse. Jon had to caulk and rebed the chain plates on the deck where the caulking was coming out, and it was best to do that before more rain and waves caused more leaking. With that repair complete, we headed south to Basseterre at the end of the island.

Basseterre was a very strange anchorage, but it was only for one night since the next day we would be sailing to Les Saintes. At Basseterre there was only one other boat until another came in at night. There was a tiny black sand beach where many locals were swimming, but other than that; the area was like a ghost town. A previous hurricane had damaged the marina so there were still wrecked and sunk boats all around. Intermingled were new boats, but no one was on them. Weird. We were glad we weren’t staying long. The next morning as we were leaving, we noticed that the beach was again full of people swimming and some even taking swim lessons. The one other boat was still anchored there and the one that came in the night was gone. No bread delivery here…..time to go!

Montserrat

The capitol city of Plymouth covered in volcanic ash and boulders

Aldebaran anchored in Little Bay, Montserrat

The Montserrat volcano still smoldering

The morning we left to sail to Montserrat was very calm. So calm that the mooring ball we were tied to at Pinney’s Beach in Nevis kept banging against our boat all night since the wind wasn’t blowing hard enough to keep us away from it. We had a sleepless night so we were up and ready to leave early! We were excited to get the chance to go to Montserrat since they have an active volcano that had been erupting for the last two years and the latest spew was in December. Boats near Montserrat during that time were covered in ash and volcanic cinders, so it is definitely not a good idea to be there when she blows! Prior to leaving we were checking their website to be sure it was safe to go and the one anchorage on the island was not included in the exclusion zone, so we decided to give it a try.

That morning we were the only boat sailing towards Montserrat. We met a group of guys on a catamaran the day before who said they were going also, but catamarans are fast, so they were still sleeping in when we left. When we were about half way there we see them off in the horizon behind us. They caught up with us quickly and as they passed, they couldn’t resist shooting off a white flare to signal their victory. Our response was a blast from our air horn……..damn those things are loud!

When we were approaching the one tiny bay where we had to anchor we noticed that the only other boat there was the catamaran that passed us. We anchored near the ferry dock and hung out for a few minutes before checking in at customs. It is not unusual for the water to be too rough to anchor here, so we were glad that the rolling in the bay wasn’t too bad that day. We gathered up our boat papers and passports and headed to customs to check in. Normally customs is located in the main town but in Montserrat there are no more towns, so customs and immigration were located in a metal building and a trailer at the port. The city of Plymouth, the capital, was completely wiped out by the volcano in 1995. No towns have been built since, only communities remain. Plymouth is like a ghost town now. All the buildings are buried to their roofs in volcanic ash and boulders. Before the volcano erupted there were about 11,000 people living on the island, but now only about 4,000 remain. Living conditions became harsh and the volcanic dust made it difficult to breathe. Many lost their homes and businesses, so they left the island.

After clearing in at customs and immigration we decided to get a taxi driver to take us on a quick tour so we could see the island and the volcano. It was late in the day and we weren’t sure we could find a taxi, but we found one dropping off a group who said he could take us on a short tour. As we drove around we were surprised at the beauty of this island on the north end away from the path of the volcanic flow. It is so lush with a main two lane road winding around through the small communities. We drove through the lush countryside and then up a steep hill to the volcano observatory. From there we were able to see the volcano clearly and it was definitely still smoking. We could also see the town of Plymouth and homes along a former golf course that were covered. Two days earlier they had another mud flow from the heavy rains, so the destruction continues. The devastation was so sad to see. The people who remain hope that Montserrat will become a tourist destination and that people will move back again. There are even plans to build a new capital city at the port area one day. Some construction is taking place (funded by England), but they have a long way to go.

When we arrived back at the bay where we were anchored we were surprised to see it was full of boats and all of us were rolling back and forth. No more calm anchorage, we knew it was going to be a long night. As we took our dinghy back to our boat we grabbed a pumice stone from the water. They were floating all around our boat. One was even about 10 inches in diameter!! As expected it was a long sleepless night. Two boats even left in the middle of the night! We hung in there and at daybreak headed to Guadeloupe….our first French island.

Nevis

Shelter and coffee companions.

Houses painted in bright Caribbean colors on the coast next to Pinney's Beach.

Jon warming up with coffee after walking around town in pouring rain.

Nevis is a beautiful island with old plantations, and has one of the prettiest beaches in this part of the Caribbean - Pinney's Beach. We hoped to explore more of the island, but it rained and rained! At one point we put on our bathing suits and scrubbed the deck of our boat. At the same time we collected 4 buckets of rainwater. Enough to do our laundry!

We decided that we needed to at least walk around the main town even if it was raining too much to see much of the island. We came across a grocery store that had a cool little bakery in the corner run by an English woman. We bought bread there, ate some lunch and then continued on our walk.

We were soaked completely through when we found a little cafe in a flooded courtyard. We were thankful that they were open and would make us some coffee. We drank several cups and hung around with a wet rooster and some hens until the rain stopped.

The anchorage was becoming more and more rolly so we decided we would sail on to the next island....Montserrat. The volcano was quiet for now, so we decided to go for it!

St. Christopher (St. Kitts)

Miriam teaching us about wild herbs.

Introducing......Wilbur the beach pig. He even has a children's book written about him.

He seems to be napping a lot these days.

We finally get to touch a MONKEY!!!!

St. Christopher, otherwise known as St. Kitts was a fun island to explore. Carol had been talking about seeing a wild monkey FOREVER! It turns out that there are so many monkeys on St. Kitts that they outnumber the amount of people on the island. They are a real nuisance, stoning people's pets and tearing up the agriculture, so very little produce is now grown on this island. We decided to rent a car to drive the entire island of St. Kitts in search of monkeys!

Our first stop was to get a cold drink on the roadside. We met Miriam there and she taught us all about wild herbs grown on the island. She picked us a huge bag full so we could use them in teas and cooking.

Next we visited Caribelle Batik on an old plantation. They demonstrated how the batik was done and, of course, Carol had to buy a batik shirt! This is also where we met our first monkey! No, it was not wild....it was even wearing a diaper!! The two little boys with the monkey explained that the diaper was so it wouldn't poo all over us. After Carol quizzed them about why they were not in school (it was Easter holiday) we all became good friends. They insisted on giving us a tour around the old sugar factory, and after we gave them some change from our pockets we made them promise to use the money to feed the monkey. They explained that they understood that they had to feed the monkey because it makes money for them. We were pleased to hear that the older boy had high goals for his future. He was saving money to become a doctor.

As we drove around the northern part of the island we noticed a lot of sugar cane fields, old plantations and lots of live stock. When we approached the southern part of the island, the landscape became much drier. When we got to the southern tip we came upon a cool beach bar/restaurant. We ate lunch and then wandered around the area. This is when we met Wilbur. He was napping under some boats. It turns out that Wilbur is quite famous and even has a book written about him. He lets you pet him and he grunts quietly in his sleep.

Still looking for a wild monkey we left to drive back to where our boat was. Not long after we left the beach where we had lunch we saw monkeys running across the road!!! WILD MONKEYS!!!! We stopped the car to watch and we saw about 10 crossing the road one after the other. These monkeys are green vervet monkeys brought to the island by a French man as a pet. Now they are outnumbering the people who live there. Satisfied that we finally saw a wild monkey, we could return the car. After all that, at the next place we anchored our boat, there were monkeys running around the beach. Oh well!

St. Eustatius (Statia)

The beach and anchorage of Statia

We left St. Maarten on Easter Monday to sail to Statia. It was a calm day and a beautiful sail! When we approached the island we were surprised to see all of the oil tankers around the bay. This is because Statia has a huge fuel loading dock and apparently is a storage and supply terminal for much of the Caribbean.

When we were anchored and settled in we noticed quite a party going on at the beach. It turns out that the locals were having a huge "Jump Up" for the Easter weekend. Tents, music, food, contests....you name it and they had it going on. Statia is a tiny island with only 3400 inhabitants, and it looked as though just about everyone showed up for the party.

The next day we decided to hike to the volcano. We left from the beach, climbed the steep trail up to the main road and walked to the trailhead which was about two miles...THEN we started the climb to the volcano. We climbed from sea level to 2000 feet to the edge of the volcano. We did not climb down into the volcano, but inside was like rainforest.

Coming back down we wandered through town and down the old cobblestone slave road to the beach. The town was quaint and quiet and we were surprised to learn of it's rich history. Statia was a free port trade center for all countries during the years all of the European countries were fighting each other and England was having trouble with the American rebels. Statia became an officially approved smuggling center for all of the Caribbean.

Our Sixth Wedding Anniversary in St. Maarten

Looking cozy on the bow of our boat anchored in Simpson Bay Lagoon

Whoa.....does anyone notice that hand? Where did it come from? Where is it going?

Woo Hoo!! Is this an amusement ride we're on??

We just celebrated our 6th Anniversary on the Spring Equinox....March 21. We took these pictures ourselves (obviously!) before going to the French side of the island for breakfast and browsing through their street market.