Marie-Galante

The Îles des Saintes, were very pretty, we've had a good couple of days anchored in the Terre de Haut bay. The town was a lot more touristy than we'd expected. During the day the streets bustle with day-visitors on golf-carts, scooters, electric bikes, and foot. We followed the crowds in the midday sun up to Fort Napoléon, to see the view. The fort museum was decent, and worth its fee just for the succulent garden.

The next day, first thing before breakfast, we climbed to the top of the hill next to us, Morne du Bois Joli. A steep climb up a concrete road got us to the fort at the top, quite quickly. We took a steep path down the other side, through the forest.

The bays around Terre de Haut have lots of good snorkelling. We went a little off the beaten track, diving on the rocks in the middle of the bay's northern entrance, by the channel markers.

We also tried Anse Marigot, which looked like it had amazing reefs, from Fort Napoléon. But they were less impressive when we dived them. There are more areas around the bay that we should explore, next time.

Next we thought we'd try another island with good snorkelling, ideally Îles de la Petite Terre, to the South East of Guadeloupe. But you have to book a mooring ball there long in advance, and we're a little big for their moorings. We'll have to visit it on a day trip, some time, and anchor off-shore.

Marie-Galante, on the other hand, is closer and has a range of good looking anchorages, so we set sail for Saint Louis, in the North West of it.

The wind was light, so we sailed with full sails, but it was coming almost directly from our destination, so it was going to take some big tacks. Towards the South end of the second tack, we lost wind entirely and decided to motor-sail in to our anchorage. We'd had a nice couple of hours sail, but we wanted to arrive well before sunset, to anchor.

As we were dropping anchor, the beautiful old tuna-fishing boat Biche that we'd seen in Terre de Haut pulled in along side us.

Navionics Track