Guadeloupe – part deux

Note: if any of the pictures are not visible while reading this on a mobile phone, please go to the blog (you can click on Valent at the top of the email) where they will be visible.

After visiting Dominica it was back up to Guadeloupe, to continue our exploration of this colourful and varied island. After brief revisits to Marie Galante and the marina at Pointe a Pitre to recharge our batteries, we arrived in Les Saintes, a group of small islands off the south-west tip of Guadeloupe. In the company of our friends from family boats Saltair and Epiphany, we climbed to reach Fort Josephine and Fort Napoleon, built in the late 1700s to defend the islands against the British, with spectacular views from the top.

From Les Saintes we started our journey up the west coast of Guadeloupe, and had a fast sail one morning with perfect wind conditions allowing us to reach speeds of over 8 knots (quite fast for Valent). Coming up the coast we could at one point see Guadeloupe and Les Saintes with Dominica in the distance behind us, and Monserrat in the distance in front of us.

We anchored at Malendure Bay near Pigeon Island, where the Reserve Cousteau is a protected underwater reserve with vibrant coral and plentiful marine life. This was an excellent location for the girls to try a ‘baptism’ scuba dive, where they went down to no more than 3 metres accompanied by an instructor. They both loved the experience and it has whetted their appetites to do more scuba diving in the future.

Another activity Will and the girls enjoyed was canyoning, which involved abseiling or rapeling down a waterfall 20 metres high, and then jumping off the rocks to swim in the pool beneath the waterfall. Lucy was very brave and managed a jump from 8 metres! Suzy was rather less brave and was happy to stay on the boat that morning.

After all that excitement, we continued further north to a small fishing village called Deshaies. In the UK it is famous as the setting for the TV series Death In Paradise! As fans of the series, we were excited to see some familiar locations, including the waterfront and Honore police station, as any other fans will also recognise from these photos (can you spot Saint Marie’s latest two victims?)

When we had arrived into the bay at Deshaies, everything had been idyllic – the sea was calm, two dolphins welcomed Valent in and a turtle swam past us through the clear water.

While we were attempting to anchor, however, our throttle suddenly stopped engaging with our engine, meaning the engine would no longer drive us forwards (or backwards). We had a quick go at dropping the anchor where we were, but it did not hold and we would have been too close to other boats by the time it did take. So, up anchor and we drifted out to sea avoiding the other boats already anchored in the bay. Will tried to rectify the problem, but to no avail, and diagnosed an internal problem with our gearbox. We were by now half a mile out, and with no wind. We were drifting with no way of getting back into the bay. A ‘Pan Pan’ call for assistance on the VHF radio was answered by a German catamaran called Anila, who kindly offered us a tow into the bay. Several weeks earlier they had had a double engine failure further out to sea and had been towed to safety by the coastguard, so they were happy to return the favour. They towed us back in and we anchored safely, at the outside of the anchorage.

We were due to sail up to Antigua a few days later to have some work done on Valent, but the problem now was how to get into the marina in Antigua safely. Sailing to Antigua should be no problem – after all, sailing boats used to have no engine – but we needed the engine for manoeuvring out of the bay at the start and into the marina at the end.

We delayed our departure by 12 hours until there was enough wind, and at 8pm on 11th March we unfurled our main sail, raised our anchor and crept slowly out of Deshaies bay, giving the other boats a wide berth. As we got away from land the wind built and with 15 knots of wind, Valent made good speed north away from Guadeloupe. As our speed averaged over 7 knots Will reefed in the sails to avoid going too fast and to make sure we arrived in daylight. By 7am we were sailing along the west coast of Antigua and in the shadow of the land. As the wind died away we had all the sails up. For a couple of hours we serenely sailed along at a sedate walking pace, gradually slowing to a crawl. But keep moving we did, and eventually managed to pass the fairway buoy, cross the channel and anchor safely in 3.5 metres of water outside Jolly Harbour, again at the back of the anchorage. Phew – we had made it! Will went in by dinghy to do the customs clearance and chat with the marina and contractors. A fishing boat was employed to tow us into the marina, and that lunchtime we were brought alongside the wall of the boatyard where we currently reside. Our priority now is getting our gearbox problem fixed, followed by the other issues we originally came here for. The gearbox is a major problem which could require the boat coming out of the water for a week and us moving into an airbnb. Something tells me we could be here for a while.