Les Saintes and Onward

As we said in the last blog, we spent a very lazy day aboard the boat, with some swimming, reading, a couple of small boat things and then to bed. It is amazing how tiring that is, doing nothing, because we both felt very tired that night. We also slept like logs except for the restlessness that comes when you are anchored in 30 feet of water and there is a really strong wind that changes direction often. The tendency then is to wake up during particularly strong gusts to make sure the anchor is still holding, even though Griff had snorkeled it twice to make sure.

We spent a leisurely Sunday wandering around Bourg de Saintes, the capital of Les Saintes. It definitly has a French/European flair rather than Caribbean. The streets are narrow, all paved. No cars in the shopping/harbour area, but lots of scooters. Everywhere you looked you could see people walking around with a long french loaf tucked under the arm. (We eventually did too!!!)

In his Cruising Guide (our cruising Bible), Doyle mentioned the Yacht Club as a place to get information and access to the internet. We decided to check it out. It turned out to be an outdoor bar at one end of the town. Yes, there was internet access, but we could not get the wireless signal to be strong enough on our laptop. As you can see by the pictures, it is not your usual "Yacht Club". They apparently had 5 mooring balls but from what we saw, I know we would not trust our home to them.

We had decided to leave on Monday instead of Tuesday because we wanted the extra time in Dominica but although the customs was supposed to be open, it, like a lot of the shops, was locked up tighter than a drum. An interesting thing about the buildings - when they are closed, they look like they are boarded up for an impending hurricane, which I guess makes sense but when seen en masse, looks somewhat strange.

Monday morning we came in bright and early to clear customs and they were actually there ahead of time. Of course after filling out the forms, they told us the forms had to be faxed to the mainland Guadaloupe and they told us to come back in an hour. When we returned, it turned out that Guadaloupe had not turned on their fax machine so we had to go back 20 minutes later. They were very friendly and helpful, however, so it was no great hassle, especially since the trip from Les Saintes to Dominica is only 22 miles (by the way, in case you didn't do your homework, to convert nautical miles to regular miles, multiply nm by 8 and then divide by 7. A Nautical mile is longer).

So, back to the boat and off on a beautiful day of sailing. The wind, although still from the side or slightly from the port bow, was about 25 kts, which our boat likes, and the seas for the most part got no higher than 3-5 ft. We made really good time to Plymouth and here we are.

We had decided that we would treat ourselves to some organized tours this time, as recommended in Doyles book. This is a major business, very well organized by the government, of tour guides who are required to pass tests to show their knowledge of the country, including flora, fauna and so on. Theycome right out to the boat and offer a wide range of services, including helping with customs, arranging laundry pick-up and delivery, providing island tours and all kinds of other things. Since there were a number of them we had read about, on our way in we radioed to "Providence", the call sign for Martin Carriere (also recommended by Doyle) He came out and met us, tied us to our mooring ball, took us to customs, which is very out of the way, and we arranged for a river tour and an island tour.

We will take lots of pictures for our next blog.