Revisiting Old Haunts

Revisiting Old Haunts

Monday 11th - Tuesday 12th March 2024

We had a blast at the beach barbecue organized by PAYS (Portsmouth Area Yacht Services) on Sunday evening. Lots of rum punch, grilled chicken and tuna, along with music and dancing. We stayed out well beyond “boaters midnight” and Monday morning came around all too soon. Nonetheless, we were up at 6 am and away by quarter to seven and had a pleasant 3 hour sail up to Les Saints, Guadeloupe. The winds were fairly light and we seemed to "crab" our way northwards with a 20 degree difference between our heading and course over the ground. We were a bit concerned our rate-compass might be broken but we subsequently checked PredictWind and you can expect a 1 knot or more of westerly current on that passage so I think that plus leeway from the wind accounts for the drift. The only other negative is that we failed (again) to catch any fish, despite trolling two lines for almost the entire journey. 

We have explored lots of new places during this trip, but it’s also nice to re-visit places that we have enjoyed previously, either on this trip or in 2018. We were happy to be able to pick up a mooring off Ilet a Cabrit, where we had stayed on our first visit here back in January. It seems less crowded here now. It is a beautiful place to stay and the dinghy ride to the main town seems less intimidating than it was before, perhaps because the winds are lighter. We completed the immigration process at Les Saintes Yachting Services, which simply involves filling in an online for and paying 5 Euros. We did a little food shopping and then headed back to Cotinga for a quiet evening … and Kung Pao Chicken.

This morning we took the dinghy into shore, tied up to a dilapidated dock, using a stern anchor to keep the Dainty Dog off the crumbling concrete, and hiked the trails over the top of the island. The weather was perfect and the views were gorgeous. We returned to Cotinga for lunch, did some laundry in a bucket out in the cockpit and then went snorkeling right off the boat. We had only been back on board 15 minutes when Darrel and Wendy came by to say hello, and we drank “painkillers” in the cockpit. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day!

Mike

Dusk in the Ilet a Cabrit anchorage. Note the tiny sliver of moon. We go round and round on our mooring, tying our mooring lines into a big knot.

Day trippers tie up their boat and go ashore for drinks and a picnic at Ilet a Cabrit

We tied up to a decrepit old dock and used a stern anchor to keep the dinghy off concrete

Looking north west from Pointe Bombard on Ilet a cabrit. The land in the top right of the picture is the south west corner of mainland Guadeloupe and the water in between is the passage we sailed under rough conditions back in January

A moth ... in profile

A similar moth .... as seen from above

A kestrel (one of a pair) that Gloria spotted whilst we were out walking. This image is heavily cropped and is a tribute to the quality of my camera and lens

Back-lit flower

Hermit crab

This is a shell I picked up in Martinique. This afternoon I found the time to photograph it inside the boat using focus shift / stacking techniques.