Marie-Galante

Marie-Galante

Feb1st and 2^nd, 2024

The passage yesterday to Marie-Galante (an island southeast of Guadeloupe) was fairly uneventful.  The wind was light and variable and the sky was largely overcast (somewhat unusual).  Four hours of motoring put us in the bay off the town of St. Louis.  However, en route, we did see a large turtle, probably a leatherback.  We also saw a whale off in the distance, we even saw it breech several times! Our thinking is that it was a humpbacked whale but we were too far away to be certain. Just as we approached Marie-Galante, we saw a tuna jump out of the water a couple of times.

Once we were anchored we walked around the town to find the “boutique” where one could check-in.  This was a simple process of working with the store owner to fill in a form, and pay 5 euro … et voila! The tour of the town revealed an automated laundry.  By that I mean that there was no attendant, the washer or dryer could be selected at a panel on the wall, payment could be by card, bills or coins.  This “find” determined the plan for today!  It was laundry day. 

We calculate that it has been more than a month since we took advantage of the laundry service at Jolly Harbor on Antigua.   While we have washed some clothes in buckets on board, we’ve limited ourselves to smaller items such as T-shirts, shorts and undies.  The sheets and towels are difficult to manage and present bigger challenges in drying.  Having bundled up all the washing, it was quite a large volume!  Fortunately, there was a 20 kg capacity washer at the laundry.  While the wash was tumbling, we visited the outdoor market and acquired some bacon, tomatoes and fruit.  

Trouble began when we tried to divide our large load between the two dryers.  Only one was functional!  Our nearly 20 kg load was no doubt too large for the dryer.  Adding to the angst was the chap who was doing a small load that would finish before our 30 minutes were up.  Naturally, our stuff wasn’t dry after thirty minutes, so I added an extra 15 minutes. This did not seem to amuse the other user of the laundry facility!  As he spoke French and I don’t have two words of French to rub together, he finally shrugged and folded up his wet laundry and went on his way.  Maybe it’s just as well that I don’t speak French. (It should be noted that Mike had disappeared at this point to complete our shopping at the butcher and grocery store…timing is everything!)

N 15 57.304 W 61 19.472

Gloria

The hazy conditions and light winds lead to an amazing sunset

You don't expect that seas to be this flat in the Caribbean, the result of a strong front moving off the coast of Florida, down through the Bahamas all the way to the Dominican Republic. (shot from Cotinga at anchor off St-Louis, Marie-Galante

The foil surf-boarder turned up at just the right time

Marie-Galante seems to attract a wide range of boats, many of them local boats from Guadeloupe

After the sun has gone down on our first night

I went in to town this evening to take photos of the buildings (more on that next time). When I came back to the dock the haze had cleared and you could see mainland Guadeloupe to the north-west and Les Saintes to the south-west. Cotinga is the second boat from the left. I seem to have caught her with the stern down as she rides the swell from the west.

The anchorage at St. Louis with Les Saintes in the distance

The sun goes down over Les Saintes

Our chart-plotter at the Nav Station, showing our track since dropping anchor 30 hours ago. We have 80 feet of chain down and Cotinga is 46 feet from the bow (where the anchor chain is dropped) to the stern (where the GPS receiver is located). The question is what radius to set the anchor alarm, given the movement that can be expected as winds and tides change, without any dragging?