The Ups and Downs of Sailing life

Deshaies is in the northern part of Guadeloupe. It is a port of entry which is the reason for our destination. It was pretty quiet when we pulled in. Like Nevis, there are mooring balls in Deshaies that you should use. It took us a little bit to find one that was suitable, as some boats were on mooring balls and some boats were anchored. Each swing differently with the change in wind direction. You need to be careful you don’t swing into another boat or they don’t swing into you.

Normally you don’t hear this from a cruiser, but I love checking into Customs on the French Islands. Most French Islands have their Customs computers in a shop, a restaurant or a marine store. The one in Deshaies was in a tee shirt shop. You enter your boat information on the computer, pay 3 Euros, get it signed by the store clerk and you are checked in. “E viola” as the French would say.

Guadeloupe is the largest of the Leeward Islands. The west coast runs for about 41 miles. We explored Deshaies and decided to move to Malendure across from Pigeon Island. We couldn’t use the mainsail until we fixed the lazyjack lines holding up the sailbag. With just the jib, the sail to Malendure was pretty nice as we were somewhat protected from the wind by Guadeloupe. It was as calm as a lake during the first part of the trip.

We arrived in Malendure trying to figure out where to anchor, but again they had bouys set out for mooring as a big section of the bay is National Park and you can’t anchor. We had been to Pigeon Island twice before on Tradewinds trips. It is a island off the coast of Guadeloupe and was set up as a preserve in honor of Jacque Cousteau. The park in called the Cousteau Underwater Park. There is a statue of him underwater about 60 feet deep. Malendure is definitely a seaside resort town that is busier on the weekends than during the week. We counted at least five dive shops and numerous kayak shops that cater to the weekend crowds. They take tours out to Pigeon Island to either dive or snorkel. Very pretty spot. After we explored Malendure, it was time to move south to head to the Capitol, Basse-Terre to find rope to fix our lazy jack lines on our sail bag.

We had a good jib sail to Basse-Terre. The winds were about 15-17 knots. Our guide book said that there were mooring balls outside of the marina, which can be paid for inside the marina office. We grabbed a ball and went to the office to pay. Our French is not very good, but when we showed the guy in the marina the ball we hand grabbed, we understood when he told us that it was not secure. We moved a little south and anchored the boat. Better to be on your anchor than an unsecure mooring ball. The guide book doesn’t always get things correct.

The marina was pretty quiet, with mostly local boats on their docks. We went in search of a chandlery to get the rope to fix our lazy jacks. The gentleman in the chandlery was very helpful and we found the perfect rope. He spoke enough English to help us.

We got back to the boat and proceeded to fix the lazy jacks. The tricky part about fixing the lazy jack is that someone needed to go up on the boson’s chair and pull down the old line that had a ring attached that we needed. Margie and I drew straws and I won. Margie was going. Just kidding. It made sense for her to go as she was the lightest and it was probably easier for me to hoist her. I have gone up in the boson’s chair once and it is pretty scary. You sit on a support that is pulled up by an extra halyard. You just hope both hold and the knot you tied was a good knot. Margie did awesome. Got the ring down with the old rope. We fixed the lazyjack line and raised it up. Pretty good work for rookies.

The next task was to free up the halyard for the mainsail that was wrapped on one of the stays. As you continue to get experience sailing there are mistakes that I think you only make once. We had to take the main sail halyard out of its track to use the other halyard to raise the boson’s chair. The mistake was not putting a stopper knot in the main sail halyard. As we were trying to free the part of the main sail halyard that was wrapped on stay, the other end came out of the mast and dropped on the the deck. Uh Oh. How do we get that back in? We don’t have a halyard that goes all the way to the top. How do you string the halyard back down into the mast? (Editor’s [Margie] note: Neither of us said “uh oh.” More colorful words were spoken.)

A sailboat has two kinds of rigging, running rigging which is all of the lines (rope) and standing rigging, which is the mast and cables and stays that keep the mast up. In order to fix this we need a rigger to rerun the line through the mast. Not easy to find in Basse-Terre, especially difficult when we don’t speak French.

Our next stop was Iles des Saintes, which is a group of islands 11 KM southeast of the coast of Guadeloupe. We knew we couldn’t get our halyard fixed there, but wanted to go as we had been there two times before and loved it. The main town of the Saintes is Bourg. Picture a French Village on the coast of the Mediterranean. It is beautiful with red roofed buildings and great restaurants. It is a weekend getaway for people in Guadeloupe. The ferry from Guadeloupe runs pretty frequently. We made it to the Saintes with just the jib and a little bit of engines. We practiced our tacking along the way as we had a wind angle of about 40 degrees.

When we were in town we met a couple from Nebraska, Chris and Alisha, who were traveling with their five kids and nanny on a two week vacation. I had on my tee shirt that had the Colorado flag and they recognized it right away. Margie and I thought the same thing, five kids on the boat, WOW. Their boat was on a mooring ball on the next bay over.

We rented an electric golf cart and toured the island and its many beaches. One of the stops was a hotel, which had a great beach. Chris and Alisha’s boat was moored off the beach. Chris spotted us right away and took us to their boat for a tour. Alisha insisted we stay for lunch. It was great spending time with them and their five kids. The next day we decided to move our boat into the bay where they were moored so their kids could use our peddle board. Another great afternoon spending time with them.

The next day they had to leave to move onto Dominica. We were hoping that we could get our halyard fixed in Dominica. That’s a whole other interesting story.

Margie up in the bosun’s chair grabbing the lazy jack ring with our moo ring ball hook.

The market in Basse-Terre which is a pretty big city.

The red dot is Deshaies and Terre-de-Haut is the island we were on in Iles des Saintes.

Celebrating our anniversary a few days late at one the best restaurants we’ve ever been to. Au Bon Vivre https://www.aubonvivre.net/

Chris and Vivian

Christopher (peddling) Tommy (not too happy) and Frances. Missing Ruthie who just had her 13th birthday. Also missing their amazing mother, Alisha.