We had a good sail down from Antigua to Deshaies, Guadeloupe. Calmish seas, and good winds.
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| Really stressful sailing 😀 |
First order of business is checking in, and we did a quick town walk.
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| Narrow one way street in Deshaies |
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| Boat harbor |
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| Fancy pedestrian bridge over the Deshaies river |
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| Stopped at bakery and got a baguette |
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| Main road in Deshaies |
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| Sculpture by an impressive building that housed a library |
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| Church in town rings bells regulary |
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| Inside the church. |
Next day was the trip to the Botanical Gardens, which we already posted the photos on in previous blog. After our day at the botanical gardens, we had not planned to move the next day, and went for a brief snorkel in the morning, which was unimpressive, but nice to get in the water. We were relaxing on the boat after lunch, when a patrol boat came by and said we had to move, as part of our anchor was on seagrass, and we could only be on sand. The anchor was in sand, but the chain had moved over some seagrass, as in the anchorage we spun 180 degrees several times.
We decided that if we had to raise anchor, we might as well move the 10 miles to the next anchorage at Pigeon Point, so we motored on down.
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| Deshaies Harbor anchorage |
We were not sad to leave the anchorage, as it had gotten quite rolly, unfortunately the next stop at Pigeon Point, was no better, but it did have a larger grocery, and we really wanted to snorkel the Jacques Cousteau Reserve.
Next morning we dinghied over to the reserve and had a nice snorkel. Water was 85 degrees, so no wetsuit needed. We snorkeled the entire island, just short of a mile in distance. There were lots of fish, but the coral was disappointing. We are finding that a lot in the Caribbean, due to bleaching, storm damage and ???. Just not impressive coral. This time we did have lots of sargassum in the water, so that made it interesting.
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| Lots of fish under floating sargassum mat |
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| Sponges and fire coral was most of the bottom color |
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| Like swimming in an aquarium at times |
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| The sargassum was firm, and scratchy when swimming through it. |
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| One of the only healthy elkhorn corals we saw |
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| Most of the bottom rock, fire coral, sponges but not much else. Would have to dive down and get close to seek out small life that is probably present. |
Since we were snorkeling, most the bottom was 5' to 20' below us, but in a shallow spot we could get an idea of some of the smaller occupants.
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| Let me know what kind of fish this is if you know |
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| Need to get a good book on fishies |
Saturday we sailed down to Terre-de-Haut in Les Saintes. Wind on the nose, so tacking was the order of the day. Had zero to 25 knots, so ended up with a reef most the day, and two reefs for part of the trip. Good sail. Today we will hike up a 2900 ft hill and see the view with our friends on Melelana and Wanderlust.
