Guadeloupe on land

Guadeloupe seems to have sucked down our anchor, and we are firmly ensconced in Pointe-a-Pitre harbour. After dropping off our boat guests, we moved the boat to Marina Bas-du-Fort to make it easier to get some boat jobs done. Our guests had kindly delivered parts for fixing the holding tank, and we sure didn’t want to risk having no head, living at anchor. Once that job was done a few more cropped up, including the broken roll pin (see blog post “all that for an 85 cent part?!”). By the time that was done bad weather rolled in, with the waves outside the harbour in the 9 foot range. While hanging around waiting for the weather to clear, one of the marina staff created another boat job to be taken care of…while backing a boat into the slip next to us he drove it hard into our bow, leaving a six-foot streak of blue paint off the incoming boat onto ours. So now we are waiting for the marina to come fix and polish the gelcoat. You know what they say, cruising is just fixing your boat in exotic locations.

As far as exotic locations go, this is a pretty nice one to be stuck in. In addition to taking in the local Carnaval, and spending time updating our blog (finally), we have explored quite a bit of the island, both from P-a-P, and prior to that while sailing along the coastline. Of course, our favourite way to explore is to hike, preferably to the highest point we can find for the views. Here are some of our favourite places on land:

Le Parc Nationale de la Guadeloupe

 

View of Grande-Terre from the top of Morne Louis

Suspension bridge over pretty river

Walking trail named after my favourite Son

Tropical rain forest full of fun Tarzan vines

La Riviere Rouge

Giant ferns on the trail to Le saut d’eau du Matouba

 

St-Claude

walking through a banana plantation. Did you know it takes from 9 to 18 months to grow a banana plant? The plastic bag is to protect the fruit from disease.

Check out the flower on a banana plant!

Les Saintes

What looks to me like a Rapunzel Tower, but is actually a defense post for the island of Terre-de-Haut

Pigeon

Volcanic islands provide lots of interesting Geological formations – check out the well-defined layers here

and some pretty spectacular sunsets

Deshaies

Boulder-hopping up the Deshaies River with fellow cruisers Al & Tess

boulder-hopping up the Deshaies river with fellow cruisers Al & Tess

Guadeloupe is a lush, green island, not to be missed!

 

 

 

 

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One thought on “Guadeloupe on land

  1. Now I am all caught up! B-e-a-u-tiful pictures! I must point out that David is your only son…heehee! Thanks for all the posts. I have had a great morning drinking coffee and reading your well written posts! Now I must get on with my day!

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