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Name: Guadeloupe Pronunciation: Guad-e-LOOP Size: 629 Sq. Mi. Population: 295,500 Capital: Basse-Terre Affiliation: French (drive on the right) Independence: Overseas dept of France |
Excursions:
• Les Saintes by Boat, Swim and Snorkel (Bart)
• Fort Napoleon and Local Specialties (Marion)
First off, continuing our education, we discovered yet another island we’d been mispronouncing. It’s Guade-LOOP (French pronunciation). Not Guade-LOOP-ay (the Spanish pronunciation).
Second off, magically, my back seems to have recovered. Guess all that PT is paying off. Or maybe sorrel or one of the other various local fruits or vegetables really do have curative properties. Regardless, no complaints.
The area was really pretty. As usual, I went out to check on the sunrise:
Marion went off before me for her tour of the fort and the town. I had a slightly later departure. We took the tenders to shore with backpack, towel, and snorkel gear in tow. I met the Smithsonian ‘ocean’ guy on the tender (Josh). We sat next to each other on the boat, and I didn’t realize that’s who he was until he started talking in some detail about marine life. Then it clicked.
We split off into separate small speed boats for the tour. 12 people per boat, 9 in front and 3 in back (where I sat). In between was the console where the captain drove the boat. The guide talked to the people in front. Kevin, Kristina and I, who sat in the back didn’t get much info. After I let her know we couldn’t hear her, she would occasionally turn and tell us something but we definitely missed out.
I did learn Guadeloupe is a French protectorate, not its own country. Which is also true of Martinique and French Guyana. I didn’t know that. The French have mostly held onto their overseas holdings, unlike the British who ultimately gave them up. Like St Lucia, Guadeloupe also changed hands with the British and French multiple times. 4 times instead of 7 like St Lucia, but still a lot. It ended up French as part of an agreement with England that gave England Canada (per the James Michener book I’ve been reading). Based on what Marion learned on her tour, the Spanish didn’t want it because there was no gold and for reasons I can’t remember, farming wasn’t a good option.
The Les Saintes area is a series of small islands off the main island of Guadeloupe (which we never saw). So named because on the day Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ them in 1493, it was All Saints Day. (Multiple guides were clear that people lived on the various Windward Islands long before Columbus and spoke of their island being discovered in quotation marks. This seemed fair to me.) The tour was to motor around the various small islands and stop a few times for snorkeling.
We started off with a slow putter around the island we were on – Terre de Haut (which if you believe Google translate, means High Earth). The islands are very pretty and there were some nice homes along the water. When we finished with island number one, the captain cranked up the music and we hightailed it across the water to the next one. The boat has two 200 horsepower outboard motors. This boat can move! Very fun. It got even more exciting later when the wind came up and the chop was much bigger. More of a combo roller coaster/flume ride at that point.
We made our first stop for snorkeling. I didn’t trust the mask I had gotten on the boat and since they had told me they had masks on the tour, I hadn’t brought mine thinking I might have better luck. Of course, the other 11 people had brought theirs. So I had to be the dumb dumb saying ‘uh, I didn’t bring my mask’. But no worries. They had one and it worked pretty well (not as well as the one from the boat as it would turn out later – go figure.)
It was a nice spot and the water was warm. They had brought us to that particular spot because it’s known for having sea turtles. And, for a brief moment, we actually saw a turtle fluke come out of the water but that was it. Too fast for a picture too. There weren’t many fish to see, and no more turtles showed up. But, having a marine expert on board turned out to be interesting because he was pointing out various plants and things.
When I got back in the boat, the captain asked if I wanted a drink to ‘warm me up’. I didn’t really catch his drift. Especially when he said the choices were coconut, passion fruit or mixed fruit. So sure, let’s have a mixed fruit juice. Well, not juice. Rum. The first sip was a bit surprising but fine after that 😊.
We continued on our island tour. We saw some pelicans, some very pretty rock formations and a cool blow hole. The captain was really good about getting the boat close to the rocks without actually running into any of them.
Between islands and rock formations, the music would crank, we’d get some serious speed, some good bouncing up and down and the party was on. I thought it was really fun. One woman in front, not so much. She was getting seasick, but they had her come sit in the back and she managed not to hurl on me, which I thought was very considerate.
As the wind picked up, whenever water splashed it would blow in on me. Luckily, I brought a dry bag for the camera, and also put it in my backpack *and* covered the backpack with a towel. It was fine. Before the first time we crossed between islands, the boat captain looked at my camera and said, ‘is that waterproof?” Uh, no, no it’s not. He kind of raised an eyebrow and I knew it was time for the dry bag. From then on, he’d throw me a look every time we were about to make a crossing.
Our last stop for the second go-round of snorkeling was an area called Sugarloaf. So named because there was a big rise akin to, but on a much smaller scale to Sugarloaf in Rio. This was a great spot. LOTS of fish – needlefish, a big blue one I think was a blue chromis, a school of yellow grunts, little tiny ones at the surface, sponges, coral, parrot fish, sergeant majors, and many more that I couldn’t remember well enough to look up in our ‘Wildlife of the Caribbean’ book. Plus, pelicans hanging out on the boats. The only problem was the swim fins chafed my toes, and I had to give up after a while. They scraped a layer of skin off my middle toe on both feet. Ouchie! I need to figure out what I’m doing wrong (wrong size, not ‘flipping’ right or what).
In preparation for snorkeling it had occurred to me that the more current cell phones are waterproof and they can take pictures. Why not try to use an older one that I had as an underwater camera? After a bit of research, it was fairly clear that while yes, they’re waterproof, *salt* water might not be so good for it. But, I found a waterproof case that claimed the controls would still be usable, and it seemed to work. There’s plenty of fish here, let’s give it a try.
Well, despite working just fine out of the water, once in the water, I couldn’t get the screen to do anything. I don’t know if it was the pressure from the water or what, but try as I might, I couldn’t get the camera app to stay on the screen much less push the shutter button. I fumbled with it for a bit and finally gave up. Especially after the strap floated off my arm and the phone was heading out to sea before I noticed.
It was nice having Josh, the marine expert, with us. He could name every coral type and fish. But honestly, it isn’t that much more interesting to know it’s a Blue Tang (other than the name is cool) than ‘ooh, look at that blue one’. Actually, at the time that was true. But after a few of his talks our later snorkeling was more interesting because I could recognize different coral types. So score one for learning stuff.
We buzzed the ship on the way back, with the music cranked. Sending a clear message of “We’re having more fun than you!”. We got back to the dock and then the tender to the ship. Just in time too. I needed a bathroom. There was none at the dock or on the little boats (we had been warned) for our 3+ hour tour. And yeah, ok, I did avail myself of the ocean while snorkeling (which is tricky with lots of people around with masks and clear water), but I still had to go pretty bad when we got back.
Marion had already eaten since it was late when I got back. So I headed down to the restaurant for a lonely lunch. You have to be served. There are courses. It takes awhile. We never adjusted to the ‘extended meal’ model.
When I got back Marion asked if I wanted to go back over and see the town. She already had so that was nice of her. I did want to but didn’t relish the idea of going by myself and didn’t want to ask her. We got down and *just* missed the tender. (It was literally 2 feet from the boat). So we had to wait 30 minutes for the next one (first world problem).
The town is very nice. Much nicer than Saint Lucia or Dominica. All the stores seemed to be either ice cream, restaurant/bar or ‘island clothing’. Which I suppose is what you’d expect. It had a reasonably-sized church (of course) and a nice beach. A 30-40 minute wander and we got back just as the next tender was showing up. Perfect timing this time.
Marion really enjoyed her tour of the fort. It was set up as a museum of daily life at the time. Sort of a natural history museum but for people. The fort itself? Perhaps a bit less interesting. Although funnily enough, it was built after a battle and never used. Peace through strength I guess. They also went to a boat making place and learned how the man there made boats. He used cashew tree wood which is very light. And masts made from pine trees from Oregon! When completed the boats are so light that one person can carry them.
She learned there are a lot of feral goats. You’re allowed to just ‘take one’ if you get hungry. C’mere nice goat. Want to come to dinner? It’s nice to have them around but they cause erosion. There are feral chickens too and it’s the same policy for them. There’s low crime because people are well taken care of. They have free health care (unlike some countries I could name). The place is definitely in better shape than the previous two islands. Score one for remaining a dependency. You can see it’s ‘richer’. People live a long time here because their stress level is low and good health care is available. There are some folks who are over 100.
We headed down to the main lounge for ‘tea time’. It’s ‘lemon’ day and the chef made lemon meringue cookie things that were pretty tasty but hard to eat without getting the meringue all over your upper lip/mustache.
Then the first talk by the ‘ocean’ Smithsonian guy – Josh. A really interesting discussion of coral and how it’s formed and grows and the risks it’s facing worldwide. He really knows his stuff. And it was somewhat encouraging to hear that people are studying coral a lot more now and there are potentially some things to do to help keep them from dying off.
There are different types of corals that live at various levels of depth and behave differently based on that. They are self-replicating. So a coral reef is basically one large animal (or really, a series of clones). They eat by ‘farming’ algae. It’s amazing to me how these brainless animals have figured out how to farm. How did that happen?
But due to how they eat, when the water gets too warm, the farming process fails. They also need clear water for sunlight/photosynthesis. So pollutants in the water (like the runoff from farming in Australia near the Great Barrier Reef) causes problems. This is what’s causing them to die off.
We also learned there are coral reefs off the gulf coast of the US (threatened by offshore oil drilling of course) and along Florida. I didn’t know that.
There was a reggae sort of band before dinner. We caught the tail end of it. Lots of drumming, shaking of maracas and fast dancing. Kind of cool. But it seemed to run later than expected and it was in the same spot as where the café dinner was. So the staff was very rushed trying to get everything ready as anxious diners muscled around for a seat. That made dinner feel kind of rushed.
We were joined by Mike and Patty who it turns out are from Portland! She knows Barbara Gaffney who was CxO at Sequent when I was there. She was a home nurse. He ran a company that provided arcade games to Wonderland and such. (Never liked those particular kind of arcade games…) It turns out they are big Scrabble players so we hooked them up with Mark (the NY lawyer from the other night) who was looking for someone to play with.
After dinner, Marion and I had ‘some discussion’ about whether the islands where we were are actually Guadeloupe or a separate entity. Her guide on the fort tour said they were different. Different culture, created from a different geological formation. And has its own name. And of course there is an actual island named Guaeloupe. Those are the arguments in favor of them being separate. But my belief, but unable to back it up with data at the time, is that it’s all collectively Guadeloupe and it just so happens that there’s an island called that too. Kind of like Hawaii is a collection of islands but one of them is called Hawaii. But those islands are much more ‘unified’. These islands don’t have a separate flag and the daily program from the tour said we were in Les Saintes, Guadeloupe. I will leave it up to you, the reader to do your own research and form your own conclusion.
There was a casino night but we didn’t attend. But we did so see a documentary about Guadeloupe, which I thought had been described as providing history but was in fact about the wildlife. But it was pretty good.
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