No 7: Passages 2025 - Malendure and Iles des Saintes Guadeloupe

The main town of Iles des Saintes.

Where is the time going to? We are starting to ‘worry’ about our remaining time and where we still would like to sail to and spend time, as we know this will be our last time in the East Caribbean. We will start making our way west towards Curaçao in a few weeks time and then onto Columbia at the start of next year’s sailing season and possibly the Panama Canal. We have become prisoners to the weather, as our aim is to only sail when the weather window meets our easy sailing conditions.

We find that once we are settled in a comfortable anchorage without too many dramas, we often stay about two or three days longer than what we originally planned.

Pigeon Island (Jacques Cousteau
established reserve)

This happened in Malendure and later in Iles des Saintes. In Malendure, the anchor was firmly set, and most people had been sensible keeping a suitable distance from us and other boats when they anchored, and the weather was good.  Our friends, Monica and Dave on Evy were anchored nearby. We met up with them and walked along the coastal road, enjoying the many shops and restaurants along the way.  Another couple we had met in Deshaies, Wendy and Nick on Paper Moon, also spent some time close by but they were keen to sail further south.

While in Malendure, we went snorkelling around Pigeon Island (Jacques Cousteau established reserve) and all was good in our environment until Tuesday evening. My goodness, we did not know where the awful swell came from, but Tuesday night was one of the worst nights we have had on Passages. We hardly slept as we were rocking and rolling at angles of more than 30 degrees. We mentioned in the morning that it would have been easier to pull up the anchor and sail off, in the direction of the swell, for 3 hours and then sail back. At least we would have had 3 hours sleep each while the other was on watch. Anyway, on Wednesday morning we decided it is time to move on south along the west coast of Guadeloupe. We left Malendure at about 9.00am and decided to have an overnight stop at Vieux Fort, which is on the SW tip of the mainland of Guadeloupe. When we arrived there, the boats were rocking and rolling to the same degree as we had the previous night, so we decided to sail on to Iles des Saintes. Our friends on Paper Moon, Nick and Wendy, had been in contact with us and had told us that the mooring balls were only 13 EU per night. We decided to try to get a mooring ball in one of the mooring fields closest to the town. Our sail to Iles des Saintes was enjoyable. Yes, we were beating into the wind as we were heading SE and the winds were blowing from the SE, so we had to tack several times. (As can be seen on NoForeignland). When we arrived at Iles

Ilet a Cabrit

des Saintes, we motored around the main mooring fields but couldn’t find an available mooring ball. On previous occasions, we had anchored there at two different spots but this time we wanted to spoil ourselves and take a mooring ball for a change. As we entered the Iles des Saintes area, we noticed that along one of the smaller islands, Ilet a Cabrit, mooring balls were available, so after failing to find a ball in the main field, off we went to Ilet a Cabrit. Well, 9 days later, we eventually released Passages from the mooring ball. It was such a wonderful and relaxing experiencing. We were quite far from the main dinghy docks and shops, but not much further than what we would have been if we had anchored. While there, we met up with Nick and Wendy on Paper Moon for a drink in the town before they left Guadeloupe. Dave and Monica on Evy joined us later, tying up to one of the mooring balls and like us, ended up staying longer than planned. We dinghied into town a few times during our stay. Iles des Saintes is such a pretty place and is considered to be more European than Caribbean, although there is no mistaking the Caribbean flavour. There are lots of colourful buildings and the flowers are so vibrant and plentiful.

At Ilet a Cabrit (our mooring ball spot), the snorkelling was outstanding!!! There was a HUGE aquarium just off our boat with many reef fish and superb corals. Every morning, we would watch the pelicans swoop down for their breakfast. We woke up to birds chirping away and the bleating of kid goats wanting their breakfast. We enjoyed the walking trail on the island up to Fort Josphine. There was the odd swell during the day from the ferries motoring between islands, but it was nothing like we would have had if we had of been on a mooring ball closer to town. We had intended to leave Guadeloupe after being in Iles des Saintes for 5 days, but the wind died on us and was in the opposite direction of what we would have liked. It was south and even at times southwest and we were heading south. Normally the prevailing winds are easterlies, but they have been inconsistent. As mentioned earlier, we are prisoners to the wind, so the first opportunity to sail south only arrived on Friday 21 March, which we took to Dominica.

The sail was fast….. we are not sure what any of the weather prediction models were referring to when they said there would be gusts of up to 20 knots and the average wind speed would be 15/16 knots from an easterly direction. My goodness, there were gusts of 28 knots, average windspeeds of 19 knots and all from a SE direction, so once again we were close hauled and Passages managed to reach speeds of 8.7 knots when the Admiral – Me said this is not fun, we must reduce sail. BTW – we were not on full sail, so I was keen to reduce sail even more so we could slow down a bit and not be healing over between 15 – 30 degrees. We knew we had plenty of time to reach Portsmouth, Dominica as it was only 21 Nmiles from Guadeloupe.

So here we are in Portsmouth, Dominica on anchor.  Dominica is often referred to as “the land of many rivers” or “the land of many rainbows”. It has been made popular because the film ‘Pirates of the

The anchorage in Portsmouth, Dominica.

Caribbean part 2’ was filmed in and around Portsmouth – the Indian River and on a few of the beaches along the eastern side of the island. The last time we were here was in 2018, when we stopped overnight, on our way from St Pierre, Martinique to Deshaies, Guadeloupe. In 2014, we spent over a week anchored here, enjoying the many trails, hikes and waterfalls found in this lovely island paradise. (See link below of our time in Dominica 2014).

 We are not sure how long we intend staying in Dominica. All we know is that time is running short, as we intend being in Curacao by the beginning of May.

So….Until next time – take care and keep safe.

Best wishes always.

Mel and Caryn

Our blog entry from 2014 on Dominica.

Passages: Dominica

 

Some photos of the town of Iles des Saintes.

Passages on the mooring ball.

Malendure, Guadeloupe

P.S. I know this blog entry is a few days late. We have been rather busy in Dominica, as can be seen on NoForeignland.com . I will explain more in the next blog entry.😎

PLUS - I have been struggling to load a video so will try to add it onto the next blog entry.😞

No 6: Passages 2025 - Antigua and Guadeloupe

 

Mel's favourite Patisserie in Deshaies.

Isn’t the memory a wonderful thing? In most cases, we tend to remember all the good things and not too many of the bad things. Of course, there are some incidents and times when we only have awful thoughts about a certain place and time. For me, it is Fort Lauderdale, Australia Day 2014. Enough said, as I get a bit of a knot in my stomach just thinking about it.

Whenever Mel and I thought about Deshaies, we had such happy and wonderful thoughts. However, when we arrived here and started experiencing some of the anchoring issues and drastic wind speeds and directions, I looked back at our blog to see what I had written about Deshaies and sure enough, I mentioned the awful wind speeds and directions. How quickly we forget.

Back a bit to Antigua…. On Monday 24 February, we walked up to Fort Berkeley at the entrance of English Harbour, to watch the start of the RORC Caribbean 600 yacht race. When we first saw all the yachts out at sea, we both said a HUGE ‘WOW’! It was an amazing sight to see. What at first looked like chaos, soon took on some order as the various starting times approached and the official hooters went off, to signal the countdown for the different race handicaps. It is unbelievable to see how fast these racing boats can go and how close to their limits they are pushed. We were able to monitor the whole race live on an App, along with the Mini Globe 5.80 race.

On Wednesday morning at about 5.00am, we heard the first hooter go off, signalling the first boat had come in. Mel and I decided to walk up the ‘goat trail’ where you can see way out into the Caribbean Sea. You can just make out Montserrat and Guadeloupe and it gives a clear indication as to the reasons why Nelson built forts on the hillsides as he had such a huge advantage against the French and Spanish,

One of the forts on the Goat trail 
-trees growing through the walls.

hiding his fleet of ships in Falmouth and having his headquarters in Nelson’s Dockyard.  While we were walking up the goat trail, we saw another boat come in and a few others in the distance.

Wednesday evening, we met up with Julie and Alan for dinner, to say ‘Au revoir’ as we had decided to check out of Antigua after our trail walk and would be setting sail for Deshaies, Guadeloupe, early the following morning, Thursday 27 February 2025.

We had a pleasant sail to Deshaies, just a few gusts of winds to make it a little interesting, but other than that it was a good sail. We found a good spot to anchor, along the north side of the anchorage and we felt happy to be back in an anchorage/place that has so many happy memories for us.

Those happy memories soon dissipated when the wind started howling down the valleys. I then went onto our blog and some other apps that we use for anchorages and remembered one well known sailor and author, Chris Doyle say, ‘there are times when you are anchored in Deshaies, when you might think you are in the roaring forties.’

Deshaies - waterfront, at the
dinghy dock.

On Friday, we decided to stay on board to monitor the situation, as we also knew that the holding was not the best. Apparently, the northern side is meant to have better holding, although we did see a rather large Cat, drag its anchor. When this happens, hooters are sounded and anyone near the dragging boat puts out their fenders to protect their boat. Fortunately, the anchor took hold again but was remarkably close to another boat. The people on the boat that dragged, eventually came back to their boat, and reset their anchor. They had gone onto land for dinner.

As per usual in an anchorage, from 5.30 – 10.00 am, a common sound is of anchor chains being pulled up and then usually from 3.00 – 6.00pm anchors being let out. On several occasions, when we are sitting out in the cockpit at night, we will see boats still coming in at all hours.

Saturday morning, we thought despite the wind, the anchor had set, and we could venture onto land.

 It was lovely walking around the town. As mentioned before, Deshaies has become quite popular due to

Death in Paradise - the Police station.

the T.V. series, ‘Death in Paradise.’ There are, of course, Death in Paradise Tours, where you can go to the Police station and the restaurant that features in the T.V. series. Luckily, Mel and I, on our previous visits, had already been to the restaurant and knew where the Police station was. The small-town centre was crowded with people from the cruise ships who were on the ‘Death in Paradise ‘Tour. We struggled to find a place to have a bite to eat, it was that busy.

Unfortunately, when we returned to the boat, we noticed something was not quite right. When we got on board, we heard the anchor alarm was blaring. We had dragged about 12m. In sailing, you say ‘It is not IF you will drag but WHEN.’ Despite making sure we had set the anchor well – we usually reverse back on the anchor, we had spent the whole of the previous day, checking that all was okay, we still dragged.

It then took us over three attempts to re-anchor as the wind was howling down the mountain sides. I then re-read one of our previous blog entries and realised we had been in a similar situation on our previous visits. How we forget!

We managed to find another spot close to where we had first anchored however, it was a little further

English Harbour from the Goat Trail.

out in slightly deeper waters, something Mel does not like doing. He would prefer anchoring in depths of about 6 metres or less. We anchored in 12 metres but then lets out more chain. Sailors will often discuss the scope of the anchor – 5:1 or 7:1. Some sailors let out less which will often result in them dragging. For example: If we are in 6 metres of water, we will let out min of 30 metres of chain sometimes even 42 metres of chain, depending on the environment and conditions. This became an issue later in the week, while we were still in Deshaies and then when we moved further south to Malendure near to Pigeon Island/Ilets Pigeon which is where Jacques Cousteau’s underwater reserve located.

Sunday, we enjoyed our time on the boat and went snorkelling at one of the main areas in Deshaies anchorage. In the afternoon, a Cat anchored near us – we referred to it as the nudist Cat, as the occupants would walk around starkers most of the time. We thought they had anchored a bit too close to us but most of the time there is nothing you can do, except let them know where your anchor is and your scope when they are anchoring. Most sailors are obliging as the last thing they want is to bump or collied into other boats.

Monday, we decided to go to the Botanical Gardens in Deshaies. We were going to take the bus up to

the gardens as Mel had run most of the way up the hill that morning and said it was extremely steep. I thought it would be good exercise since I had not done much other than some swimming for quite a while. My goodness, it was steep and at one point quite dangerous as the foot path disappeared and cars came speeding around the corner. When we arrived at the gardens, a pleasant guy from the gardens, spoke to us in broken English that there was a complimentary bus the Botanical gardens have, preventing people from walking up the extremely steep road. I insisted we take the bus back down into Deshaies centre when we had finished wandering through the wonderful, lush gardens.

We spent an enjoyable 2 – 3hours walking around the gardens. Unfortunately, everything was in French. See short video clip at the end of this blog entry.

When we arrived back at the boat and noticed that we were close to the nudists Cat. We went across to chat with him. Thankfully, he was sitting down so he was not on full display although his partner was as she was cleaning their dinghy.

One of the rules in anchoring is, whoever anchors first, has right of way. We did not need to change our position as we were there first. He seemed reluctant to do anything as Mr Nudie continued to clean his hull, so Mel just sat in the cockpit monitoring the situation. IF we had of put our engine on, we would have lost the advantage. EVENTUALLY, Mr Nudie put his engine on and adjusted his position – his boats position, although it did not help much, so we put out some more fenders to make sure Passages was as protected as possible.

We stayed in Deshaies for another two days and said ‘Goodbye’ on Thursday morning after doing some quick grocery shopping of fresh fruit and veggies, we had an extremely short sail (2 Nmiles) to another

Pointe Ferry.

anchorage called Pointe Ferry. We spent a comfortable and restful night there as there were no other boats to worry about like in Deshaies and we knew the anchor was in solid sand.

While we were in Deshaies, Dave and Monica on Evy and another couple Mel had met in St Martins, Nick, and Wendy on Paper Moon had arrived.

On Friday morning, we had another leisurely and comfortable sail down to Malendure. We knew we would have to anchor in a space that would allow lots of swing and movement as the wind can shift 360 degrees. We found a good spot and the other sailors around us seemed happy with the space we had provided.

Saturday morning, we decided to take the dinghy across to the Pigeon Island/Ilets Pigeon to do some snorkelling.

We normally do not like to compare but it is part of human nature – when we arrived at Pigeon Island/Ilets Pigeon, we noticed that the mooring balls were for commercial use only. Before, in 2014, there were mooring balls for dinghies, but not anymore. We managed to find a mooring ball that was not being used and attached ourselves to it.

Pigeon Island/Ilets Pigeon

We spent about ½ hours snorkelling but were also shocked at how desecrated the corals looked. There were a few good spots but not even half as many as what we saw in 2014. Such a shame.

When we arrived back on Passages, another boat had decided to anchor a bit too close to our liking as they had not allowed for the daily 360 swing. Once again, we put out our fenders but thankfully they left early Sunday morning. Another boat soon took their place but were a lot more generous and thoughtful in the placing of the anchor, allowing for the daily swing and movement. Earlier in the afternoon, Mel had let another boat know that they had anchored WAY too close to us. It is easy to ‘communicate’ with the occupants on the boat when they are about to anchor than when they have already anchored as they are reluctant to take up their anchor again. It is too much of a hassle for them generally as they must put their engine back on.

So here we are in Malendure, where we have easy access to some snorkelling sites and a dinghy dock of sorts to get to Carrefour – the main supermarket.

Our plans are to make our way slowly down the west coast of Guadeloupe, stopping in a few

One of the many Cati we saw on the
 Goat trail, Antigua

anchorages we haven’t been to before, before making our way to Iles des Saintes, where we will stay for a day or two before checking out of Guadeloupe and making our way to Dominica – Portsmouth anchorage.

Until next time – take care and keep safe.

Best wishes always.

Mel and Caryn

P.S. we have been monitoring the situation along the east coast of Australia, with Cyclone Alfred. It looks awful.

👉The Botanical Gardens in Deshaies