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I’ve been ashore and everything bar one pizza parlour is shut – including customs. However, this one posts a time they;re open which is revolutionary compared to the last two places. I’ll be at their door at 7am in the morning.
This afternoon we’re going to plan our treks. I see at least two full days of hiking around here, including Souffriere which is rated by one of our guidebooks as best in the Caribean. We’ll also take a full day out just to wander the local area and Basse-Terre. By the end of the week we should be heading for The Saintes.
As per plan (shock, horror) we had another splash in the water this morning at Cousteau Marine Park before heading south to Basse Terre where we will be based for the next few days as we explore inland.
We’re currently anchored outside of Marina Riviera Sens. We should be able to finally clear into the country here. More later after we’ve settled in.
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PS. Good internet connection so all prior photos now loaded.
Well – that’s what I’m calling it. It doesn’t have a name on any map I have but it’s there so I’m giving it a name.
Helen and I went ashore around 3pm to take a look about. The bay has a small beach with dark sand – a reminder that Souffriere, the active volcano, is not far off. The beach is bordered by 20 or so establishments with half of them being dive/snorkeling operations taking folks off to the most excellent diving near by. The rest are restaurants, snack busses and souvenir shops – bordering on the tacky. The whole place seems geared to the diving/snorkeling and feeding / selling to those finishing their trip.
We walked about a mile south to a supermarket and picked up some extra provisions. Now back on the boat we’ll settle down for the evening, see what sort of sunset we get (they’re all different) and probably watch some more Red Dwarf (last nights entertainment).
The west side of the island is turning out to be quite cloudy so the solar panels are helping much less than normal. I’m really glad I improved the charging rate as it’s keeping the average genset run time well down – averaging much less than an hour even on these cloudy days. Demand will be higher and hence fuel consumption but this does bring both fuel and maintenance costs down.
This morning we left Deshaies. Before leaving we went ashore one last time to take some pictures of the cemetery and bay as well as to pick up some provisions.
Our first stop was Pigeon Island. Getting there was a bit slow as the winds were very variable owing to the mountainous terrain we were passing. We arrived just as the professional dive boats were leaving and were able to pick up a good mooring. Helen snorkeled while I put on the tank and dove. It was an incredible site. There was a drop off into the deep ocean. I dove as deep as 50ft which is as far as I want to go down when diving alone. I was able to peer off into the abyss which is always an interesting sight/feeling. We both saw eels, pufferfish and plenty of other fish. The last 40 mins of my dive were spent scraping barnacles off the bottom of Dignity’s hulls. Tiresome but necessary. Interestingly the scrapings attracted a lot of fish which surrounded me as I worked.
After our dive we shifted our location just over to the mainland where we’ve anchored for the evening. Tomorrow we may dive again and then head off to Basse Terre.
The location below is where we moored off Pigeon Island. I’ll post again with our anchorage.
We didn’t do too much today. The biggest excitement was a bit of snorkeling / diving on the nearby reef. Loads of fish and colourful coral.
The winds have been pretty weird today. Until now we’ve been in a bit of a wind funnel as per the guidebook. Today the winds in the bay have dropped right down and varied from every direction. The boats in the anchorage don’t know where to point. Because no one has exactly the same length of anchor chain/rode out, each shift brings some boats close together and some apart. It’s a little unnerving.
The big puzzle was finding a small bolt on the foredeck. No idea where it came from. I studied everything up the mast with the binoculars and can find no obvious source. Perhaps it came from one of the equipment bags I shifted to get the dive gear out.
Tomorrow we’re off down the coast – a massive 8nm to Pigeon Island. Here is the Couteau Marine Park where the diving and snorkeling should be excellent.