Month: April 2014

We sailed up to Montserrat but the 18kn ESE wind rounding the shoals in the north still kicked up a nasty swell round the leeward side so we couldn’t stay. Passing the 2 mile exclusion zone around the hot steaming volcano and crossing the edge of the larva flow was a sight. Hot gases at 1000 deg C can roll down the mountainside at any time we are told. The last photo is of the old airport and you just see a single building still standing and that’s all. Some of the boulders are larger than that.

Where yachts disappear during your lunch hour! A couple of fisherman dragged in a yacht that we thought had set sail a few hours ago. There was no sign of any crew onboard even as it entered shallow water. We had seen the two older gentleman owners earlier and thought that perhaps they had had a serious piracy issue. The yacht was towed up to the shoreline and out of our view. We were concerned at the mystery and things didn’t look right.               The mystery revealed itself when a cat appeared about 100m

I’ll take it as it is and bung it in the inflatable….

It was only a matter of time….

We read that the gardens were well worth a visit but you can’t be sure? Deshaies Botanical Gardens involves a steep climb up a winding and heavily cambered road, dodging runaway camions on the way (if you were on the inside of a couple of the blind corners then a front grill would be the last thing you would see), and a costly entry fee but it’s all for access to a very well maintained and presented collection of plants. The snack bar is good value and the views from the hillside are pleasant enough.  

Anchored on set in Deshaies the filming location for Death in Paradise. We went for dinner on the seafront at the restaurant to the left of the dinghy dock at L’Amer. After the tasteless ‘appetizer’ we declined to continue with the meal and headed to Kaz’s which was great. The in thing was crayfish. The crayfish soup in particular looked like a real winner but we opted for the skewered version. Some say Kaz’s is the Death in Paradise beach bar film set which we can safely say is wrong because it is inland! The church   The Police Station

Along the long, very long, same around every corner, this is a bit tedious, are we there yet, rocky shoreline of western Guadeloupe

The guide is clear that being low lying the Iles Des Saintes are dry. Las night we knew we had rain but we had no idea how much until Yves told us to look into our tender. Who’s Yves? He is anchored next to us at Iles Des Saintes with his wife Miriam. Yves came out here on an expedition to search for the missing treasure of 5 sunk Spanish galleons the location of which he studied extensively in Chicago. Diving at 90m depth did not uncover the wrecks and Yves would like to have been able to go to