{"id":6397,"date":"2026-05-09T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifefourpointzero.com\/?p=6397"},"modified":"2026-05-07T12:35:56","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T17:35:56","slug":"lady-guadeloupe-ep-227","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifefourpointzero.com\/?p=6397","title":{"rendered":"Lady Guadeloupe, Ep. 227"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Around these parts, easterlies are the main act. The wind might be a little soft one day, especially if you are in the shadow of tall, volcanic-origin mountains. Or it might be blowing like stink, enough to deposit your hat into the sea if it’s not secured with a tight leash. But the winds still blow out of the east. On occasion, the wind will shift slightly to the northeast, particularly if there is some kind of low pressure disturbance rolling off the eastern seaboard of the U.S. Or, as it did on this day, it can swing a little to the east-southeast, just enough for us to lay a single tack from Dominica to the island of Marie-Galante.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Guadeloupe has three main land masses within its domain, and they are all very different. I imagine Lady Guadeloupe, with equal measures of rebeliousness and free-spiritedness, giving birth to three different children from three different fathers. There is the main island of Guadeloupe, often called the Butterfly Island for its unique shape – mountainous on the west side, very flat on the east side. Then there is \u00celes Des Saintes (or just ‘Les Saintes’), an archipelago of islands jutting out from the sea south of the main island with all of the French flair and spirit. You could easily mistaken it for Saint-Malo. And then there is Marie-Galante. As the story goes, when Christopher Columbus arrived, he had run out of Saints so he named the island after one of his ships. From our position just off of the northern tip of Dominica, Marie-Galante looked like the tall sides and flat top of a single layer cake. Because it is upwind, it is not as frequently visited by sailors. We had stopped through back in 2022 on a chartered catamaran with friends. We were eager to show them a unique side of the Caribbean, but when we stopped at Marie-Galante’s main harbor of Saint-Louis, we were all a bit disappointed in the starkness of the town. Sometimes when you get too far off the beaten path, you realize that a little bit of the tourism industry is a good thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Port Louis anchorage on Marie-Galante, with the sun setting over Les Saintes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This time, we wanted to give it another try. The harbor was beautifully protected from the southeast breeze and a cornucopia of boats lay resident in the anchorage, from the usual strong showing of Canadian boats to a few tall ships hailing from distant shores. Still, the visual delights in the anchorage were a stark contrast to the lack of appeal of Saint-Louis’ streets. Shuttered store fronts – either temporarily or permanently – limited the sightseeing options to a few rum shops, with the vagrancy that they attract. By nightfall, as Karen and I walked back from one of just a few open restaurants, we wrestled with how to calm two teenager boys blocking our path to the dock, one with a long whip in his hand – at least 10 feet in length. He insisted on repeatedly slapping it down on the asphalt. Would he let us pass? Ironically, we were right in front of the local police station, but their windows were as dark as a New Moon night. Around the islands, police are rarely seen, and it is not a given they will step in for you no matter how frantic your calls for help can be. Like small towns anywhere, the police are more likely to align with the local kid, whose parents the officer could very well have gone to school with than they would align with a foreign tourist. The juxtaposition was also not lost on me. A hundred years ago, white estate owners here were the whip holders, senselessly harming their black enslaved sugar plantation workers over the tiniest of infractions. I didn’t have to dig deep to imagine an angry black kid taking advantage of a pair of defenseless white 60 year old yacht owners. We minimized eye contact and made it to the dinghy without delay, promising to each other to explore beyond this rough-and-ready town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was only one car left at the only car rental business on the waterfront. Our choice was 60 euros for a car without air conditioning, or be limited to where our feet could take us. We leapt through door #1. We soon found out that Marie-Galante’s starkness was limited to its towns. Many treasures lie in wait away from the urban areas – its beaches are splendid, its cultural sites are well found, and the french cuisine ties it all together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of many endless beaches on Marie-Galante ready to explore<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Lunch stop along the Marie-Galante coast, with bare feet in the sand!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The windward coast of Marie-Galante<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Habitation Murat – a beautifully restored sugar plantation on Marie-Galante<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Upwind as we were, it was an easy downwind jaunt to Les Saintes, so much so that we decided to hoist our asymmetrical spinnaker, just to keep our skill set in order!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Atypical asymmetrical spinnaker sailing to Les Saintes, with the main island of Guadeloupe to starboard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I think I could make an annual pilgrimage to Les Saintes and never tire of it. It could easily be a spiritual pilgrimage. There are the conveniences. You can pick up a well-maintained mooring buoy right in town at Terre-de-Haut, or the smaller, more intimate \u00celet \u00e0 Cabrit with a hilltop hike to an old fort turned night club turned panoramic viewpoint, or the divinely name Pain du Sucre with a micro beach where two groups of beachgoers are good company, three’s a crowd. We’ve never skipped a stop here over the years, whether heading north or south. On this visit, the mountain peaks were calling. I was nursing a bum knee, but leaving the hiking trails to the younger couples wasn’t working for me so we headed first on a five mile hike to Morne Morel, at 136 meters above sea level. The sweeping views to the West were delightful, and I left with a drone shot that remains as my desktop background. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Plage de Pompierre on the eastern shore of Les Saintes, with the Le Chameau peak in the distance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Taking in the view at \u00celet \u00e0 Cabrit with our charter group in 2022<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We followed this up with a steeper 300 meter ascent of Le Chameau, following a disused and rutted road that must have been designed by impatient engineers, as it kept increasing in pitch as the summit neared. If heavy sweat off your brow doesn’t obstruct your vision, you will be rewarded with expansive views of the main harbor below and mainland Guadeloupe in the distance. At the summit, a well-preserved square-shaped tower dating back to the Napoleonic era stands proud. The reasoning for locating the tower here is clear. You have an impressive 360 degree view of potential enemy ships approaching. On the flip side, the tower ended up being hard to defend due to its existence high above the town, making supplies difficult to transport to soldiers under siege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Napolenic era tower at the summit of Le Chameau<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2007, our kids were enamored with the French bakery scene at Les Saintes – who wouldn’t be, right?! There was one bakery that opened at 7am and would always have a line out the door. Zack and I would frequently pay an early morning visit for pain au chocolat, just to make sure crew morale didn’t suffer! It was great fun to rediscover the bakery, and the still common line out the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Enjoying pain au chocolat 19 years later!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The streets of Les Saintes were a refreshing change from those in Marie Galante. Fashionable clothing is easy to find, and the selection of simple, tasty French cuisine seems to make cooking onboard a futile exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Strolling the streets of Les Saintes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you get tired of eating out, there’s always at least one old brown coconut that can be found on the area beaches, long ago dropped from a palm tree, but holding perfectly ripe coconut meat inside if you can find a way to crack it open!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our friend Brian contemplating the best way to smash the outside of this precious coconut<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Brian and Pat, displaying the results of our coconut harvesting efforts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We put Les Saintes to our stern and set a comfortable broad reach sail to continue our progress north along the west coast of Guadeloupe. The mainland has a lot to offer the visitor, but the snorkeling off the west coast at Pigeon Island is a real standout. If it was just known as Pigeon Island, it would likely not be visited as often, but the area is part of the Costeau Underwater Park, drawing eager water enthusiasts like teenage girls to a pop music school named after Taylor Swift. We bought into the hype, and we were better off for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Starfish the size of a hand – Costeau Underwater Park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The aptly named Big Eye – Costeau Underwater Park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The predatory Lionfish – beautiful to look at but destructive to the native species – Costeau Underwater Park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Pigeon Island at sunset<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Guadeloupe – set your best course for her shores. Savor the beaches, the mountains, the dining with toes in the sand. But before you leave, pay an early visit to the bakery and stuff your pockets full of pain au chocolat. If your fate takes a turn and you end up adrift, life will be better than good!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Around these parts, easterlies are the main act. The wind might be a little soft one day, especially if you are in the shadow of tall, volcanic-origin mountains. Or it might be blowing like stink, enough to deposit your hat into the sea if it’s not secured with a tight leash. But the winds still … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Lady Guadeloupe, Ep. 227”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[861,6],"tags":[862,911,909,32,905,27,907,55,906,908,910,36,56,779],"class_list":["post-6397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-caribbean-sea-rose","category-sailing","tag-caribbean","tag-coconut","tag-costeau-underwater-park","tag-cruising","tag-guadeloupe","tag-jeanneau","tag-les-saintes","tag-lifefourpointzero","tag-marie-galante","tag-pain-au-chocolat","tag-pigeon-island","tag-sailing","tag-sea-rose","tag-sunset"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifefourpointzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifefourpointzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifefourpointzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifefourpointzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifefourpointzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6397"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifefourpointzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6452,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifefourpointzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6397\/revisions\/6452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifefourpointzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifefourpointzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifefourpointzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifefourpointzero.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}