If you like Pina Coladas.. and getting caught in the rain (Guadeloupe)

We remain, for now, anchored in the bay at Deshaies (pronounced Dayhay) on the North West corner of the butterfly shaped island of Guadeloupe - home, as I’ve previously mentioned to the TV show ‘Death in Paradise’.

We had dinner out in the small town two nights ago - hunting for a restaurant that:

A) Catered to our culinary requirements B) Had wifi...

The first one we visited gave us our first taste of local Gallic rudeness..

We opened with: “Bonjour!”

This was greeted with a look of utter distain, the unsmiling waitress advised:

“Bonsoir actually” and turned away.

After taking a seat, we are ignored until we eventually go and ask for menus. She points to a QR code on the wall - the menu apparently being online. For this we obviously need wifi.

“Do you have wifi?”

“Non!” Replies Miss No-Smiles.

We are glad to depart.

Before I go on, I should point out that this is by no means representative of the people here - smiles are warmly returned on the street, and the town generally has a warm welcoming attitude.

The restaurant we eventually settle on is close to full, tourists fill the palm frond roofed balcony which overlooks the bay. Laughing locals pack the bar area. Not having made a reservation, we’re sat with the locals. We take a couple of Guadeloupe produced beers (Gwadas) which are excellent, and catch up with what we’ve missed online (not a lot). Dinner turns out to be an expensive disappointment, Chez getting a boney, dry overcooked fish, and my chicken fillets turned out to be little more than oversized chicken nuggets. ...but hey: the wifi was good!

The next day, we’re both feeling a little low from the recent realisation that we really do need a break from sailing. This slightly glum mood is immediately lifted at lunchtime with the sound of an anchor dropping not 30 meters away. Usually this would be cause for a polite but firm chat from the bow to suggest to the newcomer that they’ve probably dropped anchor a little too close. However, looking up I see the smiling face of Ryan (From YouTube channel: Sailing Sunday) who we haven’t seen since Cape Verde. He, Brittany and their German Shepard, Jackson pop over in the tender to say a quick ‘Hi’ before heading into town. We catch up with them later on ‘Sunday’ (the boat, and the day) and have the first glimpse of the puppies which they’ve picked up/adopted along the way. Both Ryan and Brittany are passionate animal lovers, and finding puppies dumped at the roadside, were unable to leave them to their fate. They’re podgy brown little bitsers, not the prettiest, but far from ugly. Hope they’ll be able to find good homes for them, but I suspect that may be a struggle.

The lush high hills that surround us here at Deshaies, cause a constant build up of cloud from the East, frequently turning into an absolute deluge. These 5 to 10 minute cloud dumps are usually followed by a rainbow, with bright warm sunshine following soon after.

Ryan and Brittany join us later - with Jackson - on board Serenity Now for a dinner of spaghetti bolognaise. We spend a lovely evening chatting about our Atlantic crossings, our first impressions of the Caribbean islands and swapping fishing stories as Jackson slept under the table. It’s exactly what we needed. They drop by again the next morning to say goodbye as they head off, dropping off a fresh baguette by way of thankyou for last night’s dinner. They’re heading North, our plan remains to continue South down the West Coast of Guadeloupe in the coming days. We head ashore, and having snaffled the wifi password of the restaurant where we dined a couple of nights ago, we sit on the beach just outside and once again catch up with the online world. As one of the aforementioned downpours hits, we head into the restaurant for coffees in the dry. Inside, seeing the signed cast photos on the walls, we realise that it’s the bar used as the local watering hole in Death in Paradise.

The next morning after a final trip ashore, we once again up anchor and wave goodbye to Deshaies. As we head out of the bay we notice a dingy and some swimmers have been joined by some large inquisitive dolphins. We decide against stopping to swim with them... thinking back a bizarre choice, but our destination for the day goes some way to explain it. A short two hours sail down the coast, is Pigeon Bay, a location which Jacques Cousteau had described as one of the best diving locations in the world. There we anchor, after an uneventful, and surprisingly dry, trip down.

We head ashore into the small dingy dock to do some shopping. Tying up the tender we meet our neighbour, a nice French single hander called Jerome on ‘Nemo’. His boat is the same as ours, a 45ft Sun Odyessy, but considerably newer. After exchanging pleasantries for a few moments, he invites us over later for sundowners.

After a successful shopping trip, which shames the Antiguan supermarkets both in cost and quality of goods, we head back to the boat. We’d originally planned to go over to pigeon island to sample some of the famed snorkeling, but my aches and pains (back, shoulders, elbow and neck) are causing me quite a bit of discomfort at the moment, so we opt instead for a lazy day reading. At 6 we head over to Jerome’s, and are treated to his rum punch / pina colada mix which is an exceptionally tasty beverage. There we spend a pleasant evening chatting (he speaks good English with a heavy classic French accent), he gives us a tour of his boat - similar, but very much cleaner and newer than Serenity Now. Having made a new friend, and been gifted a burgee from his local yacht club in France, we head home.

Next morning we made a quick trip ashore to pick up a few bits including some fresh baguettes for lunch. We then took the tender the mile across to Pigeon Island to see if Jacques Cousteau was telling the truth about the quality of the dive site there. We tied the tender to a buoy, and were joined by a French catamaran who politely asked if they could share the buoy with us. We ended up tying to their stern, then flopped over the side of the tender into the clear water below. The coral is not quite up to Barrier Reef standard, but there’s an abundance of fish, from small spotted neon blue ones to large plump rainbow coloured parrot fish and everything in between. We spent an hour floating around, taking it all in - both agreeing that it was a wonderful experience. Good ‘ol Jacques - he was telling the truth!

Jerome joined us aboard Serenity Now in the evening for another batch of Pina Coladas and chit chat as the sun went down.. and came over again the next morning to share his wifi & internet to allow us to get a weather update - he’s a really nice guy. After he headed off, we took a walk along the shoreline, stopping at a local artist’s collective shop along the way - inside its stylish walls are some surprisingly good artistic output. From there, we walk along to the small dark (volcanic) sandy beach. There’s a village worth of shops and stalls among the tall palms at the rear of the beach, mainly selling either iced cream or snorkelling trips to the island. It’s a pretty place, and it does us good to be off the boat stretching our legs. Flora and fauna along the way include a quick thinking hummingbird catching a moth on the fly in front of us. A babbling boulder strewn river flowing fast down from the hills, and heavily laden mango, and what we believe to be breadfruit trees along the side of the road. Guadeloupe is a lush, verdant and really quite beautiful island.