The beginning of December found us still hanging out
in Guadeloupe. We decided we really like Guadeloupe.
It has a great blend of beautiful beaches, wonderful
rainforest hikes and fun French towns like
Pointe-a-Pitre. We spent the first several days of
December at a tiny dot of an island called Isle
Gossier, which is just off the coast of Guadeloupe’s
biggest town Pointe-a-Pitre. Gossier is the favorite
Sunday beach hangout spot for the locals. We join
the Sunday crowd for some nice snorkeling and fun in
the sun.
Then we spent several days wandering around Point-a-Pitre. Is a fun French Caribbean town. It has several large spice markets and a beautiful produce market. We enjoyed going in early every morning, as the local people do, for some great French pastries and to check out the fish market. The fisherman would all pull their boats right up to the waterfront city wall to sell their daily catch. Every possible kind of fish you could imagine was on sale. Since we have not had great luck fishing ourselves in the Caribbean, we enjoyed shopping and buying fish nearly every day. We enjoyed watching all the storeowners decorate their shops for Christmas. Wandering the French storefronts help put us in the Christmas spirit.
We rented a car a squeezed in a couple great hikes of the Guadeloupe rainforest. The first hike was up the Bass David River. The hike led us four miles up a beautiful river canyon dense in the heart of the rainforest. During the hike we crossed the river at least 18 times. We found several great swimming holes and immediately jumping in for a quick refreshing dip before continuing along our hike. Along the riverside the vegetation was gorgeous very dense and an amazing variety.
Our next hike was to a beautiful powerful 200-foot waterfall. The Vanoua Waterfall was in a beautiful box canyon. The fall plunged off the cliffs to a huge inviting swimming hole. We watched a couple local boys jump from the high cliffs into the deep waterfall pool. We thought about joining in the fun but decided the cliffs looked just a little to wild to climb without a lot more local experience. It was good entertainment to watch all the action.
On the 6th of December we finally left Guadeloupe and sailed to the neighboring island Marie Galante. We spent several days in Marie Galante enjoying its beautiful beaches. We rented a little motor scooter one of the days and really enjoyed exploring the island. The beaches on Marie Galante are absolutely stunning: beautiful turquoise water, brilliant white sand, coconut palms, framed by interesting cliffs and rock formations. Marie Galante is off the beaten path so the exploring was even more wonderful because most of the beaches were completely deserted…something we haven’t found a lot in the Caribbean.
In addition to Marie Galante's beautiful beaches it had hundreds of old sugar plantations to explore. Most of the sugar plantations are abandon and have fallen into ruins. But the ruins added a charming atmosphere. We could almost imagine the grandeur of the huge old European plantations as we explored the rock foundations. Over a hundred rock towers from old sugar mill windmills still remain on the island. Even today they still grow lots of sugar on the island. The locals still pick the sugarcane by hand and use oxen and cart to haul it to the mill. Instead of each plantation having their own wind driven mill as in the old days they now process the sugar in a central island factory. During our exploring we found a couple rum distilleries still very much actively producing rum. It was fun to poke around some of the old equipment, but unfortunately the rum tasting room was close when we got there.
>From Marie Galante we had a lovely 45-mile sail to Anse Barque. Sharon got lucky and caught a nice big bull Dorado on the way. Dinner would be good that night! Then the following day we had a great 95-mile sail back up to Nevis. This day Sharon caught a nice Yellowfin Tuna. Dinner was getting better all the time. We sailed right off the coast of the island of Monserate. It still amazes us to see the entire southern end of the island buried in ash from the erupting volcano. We actually sailed a little to close to the island volcano this time because our eyes started to burn and we could smell volcanic fumes in the air. We quickly turned out and sailed further off shore!
On Nevis we stopped in to see our favorite bartender “Collis” at Sunshine’s bar and grill. Collis has a wonderful smile and for a kid just 20 years old he has a great out look on life. We shared a couple beers and swapped stories. The following night at Nevis we got to experience hurricane force winds right in the anchorage! The weather had been kind of rainy and squwally all day. Just after sunset, wouldn’t you know it, the wind started to build and with in a half-hour the wind had increased from 20 to 30, to 40 and then to over 50 knots! For over an hour the wind blew at 50 knots with gusts to 65knots…that’s hurricane force boys and girls!! Let us tell you, it was a real thrill! We were the only sailboat in the bay so we let out lots and lots of anchor chain and just rode it out. “Reality” did just fine, great in fact, just our nerves got a little shot. We hope we don’t see those kind of winds again for a long time! We spent another couple days in Nevis waiting to be sure the weather was stabilized. You’ve got to love the folk of Nevis…one day while we were wandering around the only town we talked briefly with a lady about our age. She asked where we were from, we of course told her San Francisco. She promptly asked, “How big of an island is San Francisco?” Vaughn very nicely informed her that San Francisco was a town on the very, very big island call North America. She was a sweet lady who had never been off Nevis. I guess if you live on an island all your life ….you think of every place as just another island!
The week before Christmas we left Nevis and headed to St. Maarten. St. Maarten seems like it would be a fun place to spend Christmas. Plus our friend Mark from the boat Velemo 2 was in St. Maarten and he had invited us to join him on New Years for a sailing race around St. Barts. Velemo 2 is a beautiful Swan 56 racing boat. Mark is the captain and his boss; the owner is a multimillionaire. Velemo2 is just one of his many toys. Anyway a race on a really fast boat sounded like a great way to bring in the New Year.
We had a very nice 75 mile sail to St. Maarten. We spent a week doing some Christmas shopping and catching up on a few boat projects. Sharon’s best Christmas gift was getting to talk to her family, Mom and all 5 brothers and sisters for an hour on the phone! Her family was celebrating Christmas the weekend before at our cabin up in Tahoe. Vaughn got to talk to his Dad and girls on Christmas Day. We spent Christmas Day at a pretty little French Beach…very French…clothing was optional. We of course didn’t “completely” join in…. It was a beautiful day and the beach was the perfect French Caribbean atmosphere!
We made the best of Christmas…but it was kind of a bummer…besides missing being with our families…on the day before Christmas we went to start the boat and our brand new motor would not start! Even though it was Christmas Eve, we called out a mechanic he came to check it out. What he found wasn’t pretty! Our brand new motor wouldn’t start because it was full of salt water!! It seems the guys in Trinidad installed the anti-siphon wrong allowing the motor to totally fill with seawater! The mechanic said the engine starting filling up with salt water just after we last turned it off which was over a week ago! Salt water had now been in the engine for over a week just rusting the heck out of everything! Uck! He said if we had known right away we could have just flush the engine really good and change the oil and bunch of times and run it and it will be fine again….but since the salt water had been sitting in the engine for over a week without us even knowing, parts were in bad shape.. At this point we had no options except to have the engine pulled out of the boat and completely broken down to pieces to get all the rust off. We needed all new shaft bearing, piston rings and complete washing of all other parts. It was almost a complete rebuild! WOW! Not a good Christmas present!
For New Years we did join our friend Mark for the sailboat race around St. Barts. It was a welcome distraction from our engine saga. Since “Reality” was out of commission we sailed over to St. Barts with Mark and his boss on Vellamo 2. Mark’s good friend Doug lives in St. Barts. Doug had offered to put us up in this spare bedroom. Doug’s house was lovely, it was right on the waterfront overlooking the row of Mega yachts.
Even though Vellamo 2 did not win the race it was a beautiful day and the race was a lot of fun. It certainly was not the boat’s fault, we were just too green of a crew at racing, but we sure had a grand time! After the race we joined Mark, his boss and some local friends for dinner and lots of Champagne at their home over looking the harbor. It was a wonderful evening. We ended up on a 150-ft mega yacht partying until 3:00am in the morning. It was a lovely way to usher in the New Year! Happy 2002!!!