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| 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,
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| 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.’
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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.
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| 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
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| 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.
