Our first island that feels like a foreign country. Although almost all the islands we have visited are foreign countries Guadeloupe feels like it; a French department, the official language is French and English speakers are rare. We are fortunate to be here with our French Canadian friends on Spirare who are able to do some translating for us. When we are not with them we are glad to have bought French for Cruisers to help stumble through the language. The entire time I’m trying to pick up words, phrases and thinking it’s time for a language school. Speaking Spanish on a French island just doesn’t get me very far, although sometimes it does help.
Dashaies is a comfortable town to be in, except for all the rain we had there. We read through our cruising guide and decided to take a recommended “walk” up the river. The recommended walk consisted of hoping rock-to-rock up the river and occasionally bushwhacking along the banks. At least there was a road at the other end, although we had to leave the river and find it over the top of a hill, at least we had an easy walk back to the boat. Although we got along just fine, I think the “walk” was a little understated in our guide.
Guadeloupe leaves us with time decisions. There is supposed to be a beautiful waterfall on the southern end and nice national park. The Saints are supposed to be very nice. We are looking a bit at our time schedule. There are also language schools here I wouldn’t mind visiting, but I know we don’t have time for that. We decide to spend a few days at Les Saints and skip the rest. With this decision we also decide (very definitely for now at least) that next season we will return back up the island chain (at least to the VI’s) and have time to take in everything we are missing on the way down. With this in mind we head to the Les Saints stopping briefly overnight to break up the trip.
Les Saints are a small group of islands just south of Guadeloupe. They have different anchorage choices that are all very close together, clear water, decent snorkeling, a very pleasant friendly town (that is even open in the afternoon), and some sites to hike up to. We chose to hike to the highest point, the old watchtower. A rational planning person would start this hike early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day; we started at noon. There is a paved road the entire way, although it has been closed to all motorized traffic, it’s fairly steep and up all the way. On the way up we pass the local trash dump that falls steeply down the edge of the mountain and is constantly lightly burning and smoldering. Approaching it we see a cat dart out of a pile very close to fire, a hen and her chicks precariously pick their way through the smoldering garbage narrowly missing the flames, and another poor chicken that looks half roasted already with it’s tail feathers completely singed off. At the top we find the old watchtower with metal ladders we can climb to the top where the views are worth the hike up.
For our last night here we go out to dinner to sample some French cuisine. Our friends do not join us, so we are on our own. Right off the dingy dock we head to Linsolente, get out French for Cruisers and start stumbling through the menu. We manage to order and mostly know what we ordered. The food was great; since we ended up with two seafood dishes and no land meats we considered our night out a success.
