On to Isle Des Saintes

We left St Kitts based on weather again.  We left around 5 am.  No squall this time!!  We traveled by Nevis and watched the sun come up behind the mountain.  When we got to the end of Nevis all the weather went to who knows where.  We then encountered 10 to 15 foot seas and winds at steady 22 - 25 knots with gusts to 30.  The gusts also drive the seas to be larger.  It was total yuk.  We kept on trucking past Montserrat.  Well we tried at least.  The volcano was blowing out gases that smelled very bad.  The seas and winds decided to join the volcano.  We had a bad time.  After Montserrat (which seemed like it took forever) we had Guadeloupe in our sights.  It was a long miserable passage that took all our energy.  We got to Deshaies, Guadeloupe around 4 pm only to find the anchorage totally full and had to anchor in 35 feet of water!  That meant anchor watch.  I took the first watch staying up till 1 am and then kirk from 1 am to 6 am.  

On the brighter side of this adventure, the next day we were able to move further up into the anchorage and set the anchor in sand and we both got a good nights sleep.  We also had good internet.  YEA We stayed 2 nights and then ventured down the coast of Guadeloupe to Isle Des Saintes.  The coastline of Guadeloupe was gorgeous green and being in the lee of the island the travel was not bad at all.

The sun rising  behind Nevis

The shoreline of Guadeloupe

Check out these silly houses.  Looks like the roof is missing.  From further away and at the angle of  approach it looked like little cones on the top of the houses.  It was not until we were closer that we discovered the truth.

Isle Des Saintes

We hiked up the road to Fort Napoleon.  These are the sights we saw.

This I believe is an old no longer used entrance to a home as next to it up the hill is a nice white fence and gate.

The streets are lined with flowers in many places, but watch out most have inch long thorns

We met a fellow cruiser on the way up and chatted and took each others pictures when we got to the fort.  Check out the harbor behind us.

This is looking towards Guadeloupe

 The harbor where we have picked up a mooring ball.  We are the second boat up in the middle of the picture.  This was taken from the fort.

Kirk on one of these stashes (for lack of a better word)  They lined the perimeter of the fort, just inside the moat that surrounded it.  

From the ground

A look down the valley

Check out the colors in this goat.

Spotted on one side and not on the other.

Coming down the mountain we had a great view of the fishing fleet.

House that is shaped like a ship on the waterfront.  Looks even more like a boat from the water.

Top fish is a wahoo.  That is what we want to catch.  Bottom is a  barracuda.  That is what we DO NOT want but catch most often.

Entrance to Fort Napoleon.  Kirk took this picture to get the date on the stone, built in 1867.  I liked the women with the madras skirts and matching hats!!    

Kirk loves this shot cause you can see the shadow of the boat on the reflecting off the bottom

 Another view of the harbor, looking towards the ferry dock 

Here is the fort as seen from our boat, actually you cannot see the actual fort it is on the higher mount behind this one.  We could not figure out what this building was.  I thought maybe a barn?

More goats

Look at those baby chicks

Captain Kirk

On the way into the dingy dock we saw porpoises that looked like Flipper.  The big grey ones.  This one had a baby with it.  They were pretty close to the boat.  So cool.