Linda and Steve Guadeloupe Mar 9-17,2006

Sailboat | Voyages | Log

Linda and Steve Join us for a Week in Guadeloupe Linda and Steve meet us in Guadeloupe We spend our first night at the dock and Depart for Marie Galante the next morning And we were worried about Steve This is Linda two hours after leaving the marina Her stomach was not as strong as she thought At the market - Marie-Galante The fresh produce was delicious It was a tight fit, but they made it Flying fish lands on deck Not exactly a meal Sunburn turns to tattoo So much for sun block Karen after stepping backwards off dock A fitting end to a rainy miserable day Biker and his babe Great fun, even if a little dangerous Fish Market - Wahoo for dinner Karen baked it to perfection Tied to shore at Ilet a Cabrit Superb snorkeling Looking good at the Saints Gems of the Caribbean Farewell dinner Pointe-a-Pitre, March 16 A terrific dinner to finish a wonderful week Itinerary Highlights March 9 – Arrive Pointe-a-Pitre at 1100 March10 – Sail to Marie-Galante March 11 – Rent car and spend day on Marie-Galante March 12 – Sail to Gosier March 13 – Sail to the Saints March 14 – Rent scooters and spend day on Saints March 15 – Anchor at Ilet a Cabrit on Saints and snorkel March 16 – Snorkel AM and Sail to Pointe-a-Pitre PM Mal de Mer Steve is prone to sea sickness (mal de mer). He looks at the sea and his stomach starts to churn, not a good thing for a sailor. Linda prides herself with a stomach of iron. Mal de mer begins with yawning, perhaps some belches. Beats of sweat begin to form on the brow, then it is to the leeward side, were the stomach is emptied out. Steve loves to sail, and feels it is a foul curse that he should be so afflicted. For this trip he took extra precautions by getting “the patch.” Scopolamine is considered the best, and Steve was taking no chances so it was with some trepidation that he boarded Full Circle in Guadeloupe. As Linda and Steve were unpacking on Thursday afternoon, Steve was preparing to stick on his first patch. You know the feeling when you lose your wallet or a credit card. Your heart sinks; you panic; you sweat, you become distraught at the thought of what is to come. Well, that is the feeling pervading the boat when they couldn’t find the patches. Steve was beside himself. After going through the suitcases, backpacks, and fanny packs, they had to resign themselves to the fact that the patches were in fact gone. After removing them from his toiletries bag in Marigot, St. Martin to verify that he indeed had them, he evidently left them on the bed while packing for the flight to Guadeloupe, this, after going to the effort and expense of visiting to the doctor to obtain a prescription. The patches, his salvation, were in St. Martin; he was in now in Guadeloupe, about to enter the ocean in a sailboat with no defenses against his nemesis, mal de mer. If we had given him a cat-of-nine-tails, he would have gladly flogged himself as punishment for being so careless. What to do now. We had Dramamine on board, but we felt we needed something stronger so off we went to the local pharmacy in search of the strongest medication we could buy without a prescription. After bumbling my way in unintelligible French, we were given a box of pills for mal de transport. The female pharmacist was not helpful. When we requested help reading the directions, she blurted back the instruction so fast an indignant Parisian wouldn’t understand them. We passed over some Euros and headed for the Chandlery, a hardware store for boats, where we knew of a guy who could speak English. He was more than happy to translate for us, while relating his own recommendations for sea sickness. He was a big fan of wrist bands that put pressure on nerves in the wrist, which in turn, supposedly, suppresses the symptoms of sea sickness. Steve was stuck with pills for “mal de transport.” The dosage called for six pills spaced out evenly the day before. That was not going to happen; it was now already 6 PM. He took two pill immediately and two more before going to bed. The next morning, we were all excited to get underway. We avoided any talk of sea sickness. Since a large component of sea sickness is mentally inflicted, we wanted to avoid any mention of it. Think positive; think of the fun we were going to have. As we departed the harbor, the wind was up, 22 knots from the northeast at 065 degrees, a perfect direction for Marie Galante, a large flat island about 20 miles southeast of Point-de-Pirtre. We put two reefs in the main and the jib, and we are off to a boisterous sail with three to six foot swells. All was fine at first, then after about two hours, the symptoms began, and the next thing we see is Linda’s rear end as she hangs over the lee rail trying to purge her system of the awful feeling. Yes, it was Linda who got sick and not Steve. She really didn’t vomit and recovered quickly, so it was not serious. After several days on the water, Steve’s confidence mounted, his anxiety diminished, and he never did get sick. Anything for a Laugh The clouds hung low; the sky was that indistinguishable flat grey where cloud shapes disappear into nothingness, where no boundaries are evident. The greyness flattens the spirits and dulls the senses. We sail back from Marie Galante to Gosier with resignation. Where is that Caribbean sun. Linda was particularly disappointed that Ra, the Egyptian sun god, chose not to shine. Steve was happy to be behind the wheel, guiding Full Circle to her next resting place, sun or no sun. We anchored in the rain about 3 PM, and determined to make the most of our time, we put the five horse on Two Pie, put on our rain covers, and headed for the dinghy dock. To make it easier to get on and off the dingy, we have a line tied on both the bow and stern. We can then pull the side of the dinghy up to the dock or to the back of Full Circle for easier boarding. We motored into the dinghy dock at Gosier. Karen got out first. With the bow and stern lines in her hands, she proceeded to pull the dinghy in close so Linda and Steve could get out. I was tending to the motor. To get the dinghy closer to the dock she kept backup up with the bow and stern lines. The next time I looked up she was gone, disappeared. Why wasn’t she holding the lines? Steve jumped out of Two Pie onto the dock. Karen had backed herself right off the other side of the dock. She was now in the water flailing. The rain was not enough; she had to walk fully dressed right into the water. Laurel and Hardy couldn’t have choreographed it any better. A teenager fishing on the dock acted as if nothing was happening. He merely pulled up his line and moved it to the other side of the peer. Steve and another man pulled Karen, totally water logged, out of the sea. I looked in disbelief at my soggy wife; she’ll do anything for a laugh. Thankfully, she was laughing, fully aware of the humor in the event. I took her back to the boat where she put on dry clothes. We returned to dock and salvaged a rainy wet day by walking into town for a beer and crepe dinner. Sergeant Majors Ilet a Cabrit is a snorkeler’s dream. The water is as clear as drinking water. The sea is one giant aquarium. The fish float, as if suspended in air, above a sea floor which is a rich texture of rock, sea grass, coral, and mysterious shapes, undulating in the underwater current. The sand divers, 12 to 18 inches long, brown in color, lay on the bottom. Unlike the sergeant majors, which travel in a squadron like their name implies, the sand divers are loners. Camouflaged to look like the sandy areas they hide in, they flutter their fins to burrow deeper into the sand to become virtually invisible. When we sprinkle bread crumbs, the sergeant majors swarm around us. They have brilliant yellow and black strips. They are like giant underwater bumble bees swarming around us, but they don’t sting. They are merely curious and eat the bread from our hands. It is a bit like feeding pigeons in a park but without the mess. Beyond the sergeant majors are dozens of species, and like the sergeant majors, they are racist; they stick to their own kind. They travel in schools with well defined boundaries, moving in unison as if pulled by some magnetic force. How is it possible that they maintain the same distance between each other and all turn in the same direction at exactly the same time? Add music and they would make a marvelous marching band. We are surrounded by a kaleidoscope of color. The greens, blues, and yellows of the angel fish steal the show, but blue parrot fish, the yellow and black rock beauties, and the black and white spotted drum have nothing to be ashamed of. They are royalty in their own right. The two foot long trumpet fish are only an inch or two in diameter. They look more like a short snake than a fish. In an attempt to hide, they align themselves vertically like plants. To deceive their prey, they have a tail that looks more like a head. At first glance you can’t tell the head from the tail. Similar to the trumpet fish is the blue spotted cornet fish. It is longer than the trumpet fist and much more beautiful. Its pale brown body is covered with turquoise translucent spots. The strangest of all is a fish for which we don’t have a name. It has a square head like a bull head. It is 12 to 18 inches long, and it hovers on the bottom. For fins it has wings that open like a peacock, displaying multiple shades of blue that dazzle the eyes. When opened, the wings are nearly a foot in diameter. At first, we could not believe what we were seeing, but the sea bed is truly another universe where the twilight zone becomes reality. Despite some rainy days, we had a marvelous time exploring Guadeloupe and its neighboring islands of Marie Galante and The Saints. Previous | Next