River Expedition

Brody, David, Claire, Libby

I really wanted a clever name for our expedition between the butterfly wings of Guadeloupe but all I could come up with was Up the Butterfly or Dissecting the Butterfly,  or Slicing Through the Butterfly..... Eewww.  Nothing worked.  Basically, three cruising boats took two dinghies, a picnic lunch and a dog and headed up Riviere Salee from our anchorage in Petite Cul-Du-Sac (Pointe a Pitre) to Grand Cul-Du-Sac Marin.

James

sv Ocean Rainbow with Claire and James, sv Perigrine with Libby, David and dog Brody, sv Honey Ryder with us.

Tom

According to our old Doyle Guidebook, sailboats used to be able to transit the mangrove area between the two sides of Guadeloupe but no longer because the two bridges that used to open no longer open.  The route was still marked with navigation buoys.  Sadly we didn't see much in the way of wildlife or birds.  

Grand Cul-Du-Sac Marin

When we reached Grand Cul-Du-Sac Marin (north side of the island) the wind and waves were wet in our dinghy Nick Nack.  James got a nice little bath as he was in our dinghy.  Claire stayed dry in sv Perigrine.  We tried to go to a few tiny, uninhabited islands we saw but discovered that they were actually too shallow with no place to land for a picnic.

Mangroves

We headed back into the mangroves from where we came and took a side route to explore further.  James spotted a possible landing for lunch.  We cut the engine and lifted it because it was shallow with weeds.  We paddled to the landing and in typical British fashion, James declared this spot for Queen and country or at the very least for our lunching purposes.

Lunch time

We got out all our lunching goodies to share.  Libby upped the potluck lunch ante by providing a tablecloth and smoked oysters.

Libby and David

For the return trip, we decided a girls dinghy and a boys dinghy was best.  I took the girls in Nick Nack as we don't have the testosterone need for speed that the guys have - Nick Nack isn't fast.  We were doing find until I had a bit of a challenge switching over fuel tanks.  But I figured it out about the time the guys double back to us.

James and Claire

It was a fun expedition despite not having a catchy name.   

Memorial ACTe, Scrumping and the President of France

Memorial ACTe

Sunday May 10th, 2015

Last week when we were in Pointe a Pitre we spotted a new modern building.  Diane asked some locals.  It is a new museum of some sort AND the grand opening would be Sunday May 10th.  Tom and I had already decided that Pointe a Pitre was Kewl enough (along with the whole of Guadeloupe) to warrant further exploration and thus we would sail the boat around to Pointe a Pitre.  Not an easy task as it's way up in the butterfly as previously discussed.

We also decided we would try to go to the Memorial ACTe grand opening.  A big bonus on this new location was that sv Ocean Rainbow had returned from England to their boat located at Pointe a Pitre.  Big hugs all the way around and we chatted yesterday getting caught up.  In our visiting and planning for the next few days, it came out that in fact this opening of Memorial ACTe is a really big deal.  So big that the President of France, Francois Hollande was flying in and the opening is invited only.

From a press release - Memorial ACTe  The Caribbean Center for Expression and Memory of the Slave Trade and Slavery.  The 77,000 square-foot Memorial ACTe complex will serve not only as a memorial site, but foremost as a resource center on the history of slavery and human rights as well as a forum of expression for the growing Caribbean comtemporary art scene.

Well - we all decided that if the President of France and various Ministers knew we were here, they would probably want us at the opening so therefore we should gate crash.  We figured entry by sea would be best.  Nick Nack (our dinghy) is currently out of service because the impeller on the outboard is shot with no backup and the outboard engine shop closed Saturday afternoon.  This meant our gate crashing via sea would have to be done using sv Ocean Rainbows dinghy Puddle II with it's mighty 2.5 horse power outboard.  Sunday morning rolled around and as soon as the sun came up we began to see a very active presence of French Coast Guard, Marine Police, regular Police in tenders and a fire squadron in the water in front of the new museum.  They set up a parementer and no regular boats seemed to be getting through.  Hum?  

Tom's best gatecrashing outfit

After careful observation we decided to try anyway.  We all put on our best clothes - meaning yachtie boat clothes.....nothing like what the "invited" people would be wearing but still our best and off we puttered in Puddle II.  Along the way James mentions that the last time he and Claire tried to go somewhere they weren't supposed to they ended up face down, spread eagle with AK -47's pointed at them.  What?  I was just getting ready to ask for more details on that when the local police came along.  Luckily they did not have their weapons pointed at us....yet.  They were nice but basically said we couldn't pass through this area.  Clare kicked into high gear with her French to assured them it was ok because we weren't passing through but actually going to the party.  "No.  It is forbidden." they said.  I asked in English where we should go to enter, perhaps the land side entrance and where should we park the dinghy.....the old trial close (sales 101 - assume you have the sale....assume your in to the invite only party)  "No.  It is forbidden."  They rattled off some French stating the President was there so forbidden.  James tried to assure them that the President was a friend but just doesn't know James is anchored near by.  "No.  It is forbidden."  Ok.  "Can we go to the town water front?"  They said yes but we must pass out and around "Forbidden to come within 200 meters."  James explained that he only had a small outboard and couldn't we just cut across.  Claire even suggested they escort us.  "No.  It is forbidden."  Sigh.  "When can we come see the museum?"  He shrugged and said after "3pm - after we are gone."  Meaning the water patrol.  Ok

Scrumpers Tom, Claire and James

All dressed up in the dinghy, ready for something and our gate crashing attempt had failed.  So we decided to go mango scrumping.  What?  Scrumping?  Apparently it's like when you go apple picking but perhaps you haven't quite gotten the....er....um....proper permission.  I had spotted two lovely mango trees ashore just off our anchorage.  We dinghed over there, made a stealth like landing in puddle II and started harvesting mangos like fiends.  The trees were located on school or university grounds.  No one was around AND there were tons of mangos on the ground just going to waste.  It was obvious that no one had harvested these trees.  Many, many mangos were withing reach.  Tom had taken our boat hook to assist in getting higher fruit.  James used to play cricket so he did the catching.  We even got a demonstration of Jame's cricket bowling with a few mango from the ground.  Of course the Yank Tom had to try his hand at mango baseball pitching.  We went home with three full bags of manages - 28 in all for sv Honey Ryder.  Yum!  

James bowling for England

Tom pitching for the KC Royals

The scrumping haul

4pm and we made out way back towards the ACTe museum.  The various water patrols were gone so we thought we were good to go.  There was one offical boat at the landing.  It was fire and he didn't say a thing when we tied up behind him.  He didn't say anything when Claire and I crawled under the locked cable from our dock area to the sidewalk.  However, apparently he said something to James like "You are not authorized."  Claire and I were already wondering along snapping pics, being press and all.  Then a man in a nice suit came down.  Tom recognized him from a tourist magazine as the Minister of Tourism.  James quickly started chatting him up in French.  Claire joined in.  Tom and I just stood looking stupid, smiling and pointing to the building and giving him a thumbs up and ok sign.  Sad monolingual Americans that we are.  It seems this was the grand opening, invite only.  The ACTe museum doesn't actually open to the general public until July 6th.  However, a little more chatting and he said it probably wouldn't hurt if we looked around a bit.  Woo hoo.  It quickly became apparent that we did not fit in.  Everyone was very dressed up - ties, suits, dresses and proper shoes- So we tried out best to fade into the background, take our pics, and see the outside as best we could.  No way we were getting inside so we scooted before drawing too much attention to ourselves.  Actually the President of France and most of the Ministers were long gone so we probably could have stayed and listend to the music but we opted to leave.  

Later we were treated to a wonderful fireworks display that was basically on our doorstep as our anchorage is near the museum.  It was a grand display.  

Memorial ACTe at night

Fireworks

We will have to come back next year to offically see the ACTe museum.

Dirty Laundry - We Are Not Sailing Purist

Saturday, May 9th, 2015

Some people are sailing purist or close to it.  We are not.  We use our engine.  We have a 56 horse power engine and 200 gallons of diesel and we are not afraid to use it.

There are those cruisers / sailors that rarely use their engine.  Sometimes this is because they don't like or want to - purists.  Others, it's because they have limited fuel.  There are those that don't even have engines.  Not an option for us.  Must have a good strong engine was high on our priority list when picking a boat.  It's a vital tool for us.  We use the tools we have.

I have read many a cruising blog where after a year of cruising the blogger states with shock how much they motored.  Not me.  I knew we would motor a lot.  While we keep track of engine hours, motoring and sail sets in our log, it's not something we are hung up on.  Yes, we 

like to sail.  It's wonderful to shut off the noise of the engine and move along under sail power alone.  

However, move along is an important factor.  While we are not on a schedule, there are things we are purists about such as never coming into a new or unfamiliar harbor at night.  Never!  The same is true for one we have been into but that is challenging.  For the most part, we don't enter into anywhere at night.  If we are out sailing at night, it's several miles off shore on passage to another island.  This is very different than our previous lake sailing where we sailed nearly everywhere.  Sailing up the long arm of the lake to the yacht club meant 5 hours tacking back.  Oh well.  Night sail until midnight and then back to the slip, fun stuff.

Another factor is getting a good anchoring spot or mooring ball.  Some anchorages are small with limited good holding spots.  You don't want to dilly- dally around getting to these anchorages.  Thus if the wind drops off, we might fire up the engine to help us get there and get a mooring ball vs sailing along at 3 knots and arriving late to find no mooring balls and screaming winds in the anchorage meaning anchor watch all night or possibly dragging anchor.

We motor sailed yesterday to get to our new location.  Big deal.  We arrived safely to a new to us, upwind ie challenging to sail to destination in plenty time to find our way in to this new harbor, get anchored and straighten the boat out from sailing mode back into anchor mode.  We actually attempted to get here the day before but we discovered that we didn't set out early enough.  The upwind beat was tougher than we anticipated - tacking back and forth and even using motor sailing from our location was not going to work against the wind, waves and current....making 2 knots, it would take us hours and hours and we would arrive after dark.  Plan B - crack off, sail to The Saints and try again tomorrow - earlier and at a better angle.  

This morning we left at 6:35 AM.  We motor sailed tight on the wind to clear a certain point of land on Guadeloupe to arrive mid-day into our new anchorage.  An anchorage with a challenging seabed - meaning it took us three attempts to get set and even then we have been on cautious anchor watch throughout the afternoon to be sure we are really set and don't drag.  

While cruising for us is about the journey - the exploration, the unexpected discoveries, and adventure vs the destination......we still need to get places and thus sometimes we sail and sometimes we motor.