Wednesday January 7, 2012 LES SAINTES, TERRE-DE-HAUT anchorage, French West Indies
Today was so enjoyable and a real surprise to us - we knew very little about the 8 small islands to the South of Guadeloupe - they are part of the French West Indies but so different than the island of Guadeloupe. We departed from the Petit Cul-de-sac Marin Guadeloupe, Grande-Terre around 6am and headed pretty much due South with the large half of Guadeloupe on our right (West) for the next two hours. The wind was blowing very strongly but we had a following sea so the rolling wasn't too bad aboard.
The Isles des Saintes is comprised of 2 main islands Terre-de-haut and Terre-de-Bas and 6 rocks Ilet-a-Cabrit, La Coche, Les Augustins, Grand Ilet, Le Redonde and Le Pate. Terre de Haut is the most interesting and the only island with overnight accommodations for visitors.
Shortly after 8am we pulled into the bay of Iles de Saintes, most often called Les Saintes - it was so pretty with all these bays and islands around us and pretty little houses dotted around, all with red roofs. On top of the hill we could see Fort Napoleon which we were to visit later in the day. We were waiting to load on the first zodiac going ashore - well, the first tender after the planned shore excursions booked with the Tere Moana had gone ashore. The Tere Moana tour cost was $99 USD for the 3 hour island tour including 1 hour at the beach. As soon as we jumped off at the dock you could sense the charm of this little town with all the stores and restaurants everywhere - lots of colours and areas to sit and enjoy.
Swiss friends of Wally and Ellen were taking the ferry over from Guadeloupe to meet them and due to arrive around 10am. So we watched as a ferry pulled in shortly behind us and there they were! Wally and Ellen had met them 4 years ago on a Celebrity cruise through the Panama Canal and now they are in the Caribbean for the Winter! They had all reconnected essentially as Wally and Ellen headed to the airport to fly down and in a matter of days had made a plan to spend the day together in Isle des Saints - they all had a grand day!
So we headed into the central area and saw scooters for rent for 25 euros for the day - what a great idea - this looked like the perfect way to spend the day touring the island on the scooter. We went to sign up for the day, there were lots of folks getting off the ferries looking to rent a scooter - it seems that taking the ferry to Isles de Saints for the day is a popular excursion to take. Well it turned out to be 25 euros for 50 cc and 40 euros for a 125CC which is what we needed for two passengers. No problem........ except that we hadn't brought driving licenses with us since we had not planned to rent a scooter!
Terry took the zodiac back to the Tere Moana - turnaround should have taken minutes but there was already a full load of passengers waiting on board to come to shore! No problem - they sent a second tender so Terry was back in little more than 30 minutes. We rented the scooter from E U R L Archipel Location Scooters (a very helpful lady from the office helped us and showed us the map and where to go) and with our helmets on we were away! There is no traffic allowed along the front street of town (how smart they are) and lots of very narrow one way streets as well, but we headed for Fort Napoleon at the top of the hill - and boy those narrow little concrete roads were very steep, and the locals fly by very fast, and the tourists walk along completely blocking the street and oblivious to the scooter traffic - not easy driving! Fort Napoleon opens from 9 - 12:30 PM.
We arrived around 1145pm and managed to make very good use of our 45 minutes at Fort Napoleon. It is in excellent condition with deep dry moat all around, and barracks and former prison cells, along with cannons and cannon balls. The panoramic views are spectacular, really breath taking, and we even saw two iguanas in one of the trees - beautiful! The grounds are very well kept with a wide variety of very large cacti. The fort itself has some excellent displays inside including dioramas of various battles that were fought here mostly between the British and the French - some showed the plan of attack from all the war ships with tiny models in blue, white and red depicting the various Nationalities, as well as under whose command. There were two massive model ships (maybe 6 feet high by 8 feet long) just beautiful to see. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and highly recommend it to everyone who gets the opportunity to visit Les Saintes. They took US dollars here (thank goodness) $5 USD each to enter.
When the Fort closed and we were ousted, we headed off to the the large beach on the Eastern side Plage de Pompierre - this was windy and quite rough - but several rows of palm trees lined the beach so very pretty. It also had a large complement of chickens and goats (and one cat) as inhabitants who were most interested in what the visitors might have brought for lunch! There were a couple of restaurants and snack bars at the beach and close by for refreshments and lots of parked scooters! Next stop was back across the hill and past the the town heading to the beach Plage de Crawen - only half a dozen folks here enjoying the ocean which was calmer than at Pompierre. Last beach stop was at Pain de Sucre (Breadfruit) and this beach gets its' name from the rock at the point which resembles a breadfruit. This was a long walk down a pretty rocky trail - halfway down another restaurant and refreshment stop! But well worth the walk - there was no wind here and lots of large boulders along the shore so as a result the water was very clear and calm. I'll bet there were 50 or more folks on this tiny beach and several sail boats anchored in the peaceful bay. There were even folks cooking a fish, no doubt freshly caught, wrapped in palm leaves over a coal brazier.
It was very hot and the winds were gusty, quite often we would round a corner and we'd catch a gust that would take us by surprise. Our last beach stop was Plage du Figuier - all the roads were up and down - on this one we came across a small herd of goats with two tiny young goat twins feeding from Mom! We had pretty much covered all the roads and beaches, so we drove back into town Le Bourg and dropped off the scooter. The office was closed from 12-230pm so we had to wait a few minutes until the maintenance man appeared and checked the scooter over, then told us all was in good order, so we left our helmets and walked around Le Bourg for the next hour or so checking out all the small stores.
We were very surprised when the next tender came into the dock and it had 3 large suitcases on it - I asked the one lady who exited what was happening. It turns out that she was having so much trouble with sea sickness that they had decided to fly from Guadeloupe to Aruba and meet us there! Oh dear. We were back on board shortly after 4pm and enjoyed a BBC which Vishal made for us - Bailey's Banana Colada - excellent! Then it was afternoon tea - small tuna buns and lovely variety of cookies made fresh every day by the kitchen! In the bay there was a kite and wind surfing club and we watched for a long time as these folks surfed close to the Tere Moana around the bay with a zodiac to help them if they had any difficulties - all beautiful coloured sails flitting speedily around the bay with the high winds! All 6 of us relaxed on La Veranda back deck and enjoyed watching the last zodiacs arrive from shore, then get put away inside the Tere Moana, and the the engines were started and away we went.
On one island was a wind factory with 7 large wind mills - the same high tech versions that we see everywhere in Alberta and California. We didn't really get a sunset but enjoyed hanging out on the back deck watching the islands fade into the distance. The Tere Moana does not have a "sail away" signature tune (at least not yet) so we brought out the IPOD and speaker and had our own tune from the Windstar (Vangelis 1492) and Amazing Grace by Cecilia a wonderful version with whales singing as background - just haunting.
All too soon it was a fast change for dinner and we were thrilled to have Fernando from Peru as our server - he is so excellent and so far one of the very few who has learned our names. Avocado and crab salad (delicious), Caesar salad, osso bucco, and chocolate mousse cake with the pairing of a great white pinot grigio and red merlot. We were served and finished in one hour - we enjoy getting through dinner at a fast pace - then it was a relax and aperitif in Le Salon enjoying ? on the piano - ? even played a couple of tunes from Les Miserables at our request - he is very competent.
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