Welcome back to the French West Indies.  No.  It’s not over yet.  I didn’t get my crepe yet!

Land of a Thousand Rainbows: we’ve never seen so many in our lives!

Pigeon Island (also called Penguin Island and Pelican Island, by Erica, who refuses to remember which one is correct)

January 4-5, 2013

We decided to try Pigeon Island, which was supposed to have wonderful snorkeling and diving.  We headed there on a gorgeous day and didn’t look back on Deshies…

Maggie joins us on Patronus for the trip.

Reese and Kate writing stories together on the trip to Pigeon (aboard Anything Goes)

There are mandatory park moorings off of Pelican Island, so we tied up, but we didn’t feel safe.  Our boat seemed way too close to the exposed rocks, which had waves crashing on them.  If there was a wind shift, our boat would be gone in minutes.  We found a different mooring, but we were kicked off by a professional dive boat, whose captain merely screamed at us in French until we moved.  We’re pretty sure he was saying, “No crepes for you!”

Chris and Reese off to check out the reef

We finally got in the water but kept a close eye on the kids in the rough waves.  They didn’t last long, but Chris and I were jonesing to dive.  We donned all our gear and took turns.  Craig tried it as well, and loved it.  I saw some great reefs, corals, fish, and some interesting wreck items.  I was especially pleased to see my favorite tropical fish, the Black Durgon, which is in the triggerfish family.  There was a whole little family of them.

Jacques Conway

We have PSMD: Post-SCUBA Mess Disorder

crew members scurried about as the owner arrives

In the afternoon, we took the boats on a search for the “hot springs” a few miles south, but we only saw some very industrial-looking areas.  We were pretty impressed with the megayacht we passed, whose owner arrived via helicopter!  When I looked it up, we discovered that Ice is the 32nd largest yacht in the world at 295′ 3″.  We turned back north and anchored in the harbor across the way from Pigeon Island.

check out the dinghy garage!

entering the harbor across from Pigeon/Penguin/Pelican Island

The kids had had enough excitement for one day, so they played Legos while the adults swam into shore (AFTER a shark AND barracuda sighting)!  We found a black beach, which we decided was just a cute and fancy name for Dirt Beach.  It really just looks like dirt and sticks to everything.  We found a dive shop and arranged to have our tanks filled the next morning.  We also….wait for it……found a Creperie!  We were very excited to try this little beachside food shack and decided to come in the next day with the whole gang.

perfect for ages 6-13!

Craig and I buying fresh produce from a truck.

That night, the wind started getting up.  The kids all played at Anything Goes while Wendy and Craig came over for barbecued chicken, carrots, and fried plantains.  Squalls kept coming through with heavy rain and wind.  We eventually went to bed, but I stayed awake listening to the creaking and straining of the anchor lines.  I had that same feeling I had in Anegada (do you remember what happened there?), so I went up top several times to look around the anchorage.  I took sightings on land and looked at where we were compared to the other boats.  It is difficult to do this at night, because the darkness plays tricks on your eyes, making stars, anchor lights, and street lights from shore all look like they are in one plane.  Nevertheless, I was sure that our anchor was holding, but I kept an eye on the boat just upwind of us.  I was getting more and more tired, so I started just popping my head out of the hatch above our bed to look at him from time to time.  I felt like a prairie dog.

At 1230, I woke Chris up.  “This guy is definitely dragging down on us!” I screamed. Chris was groggy and thinking that I was worrying needlessly.  But by the time we got up on deck, his boat was only about 20 feet away from us.  We shouted, but he was upwind of us.  We shined our flashlights on his portholes and even blew the foghorn.  This was one heavy-sleeping French family.  I was having serious flashbacks to our scare in Anegada.  The other boat downwind of him was awakened by our ruckus, but all we could both do was watch and wait.  I suggested getting fenders out and tying them to our bow, but Chris hoped that wouldn’t be necessary.

The man finally woke up when his stern was swinging within six feet of our bow.  The new potential problem was that his prop, keel, or rudder would snag on our anchor chain, which, of course, sticks out straight from the bow and lies just under the surface for a good 15 feet.  If that happened, we would get tied up together, which could be disastrous, especially at night in a storm.  The man started his engine and woke up his wife.  They struggled to take their anchor up for about 45 minutes, with a lot of screaming and yelling.  We stood on the bow and watched along with the other leeward boat’s owner.  The boat started pulling away and we breathed a sigh of relief, but then it swung about in a circle and the skipper dropped his anchor in the same place!  Oh no.  Not a chance.  I told Chris that he’d better go tell that guy right now that he’s not anchoring right in front of us again.  I’d be awake all night!  But the wind was screaming and the man didn’t have his VHF radio on.  The only way to tell him would be to launch the dinghy and try to pull up alongside in the fierce waves and wind, in the dark.

So anchor he did.  Right in front of us.  After three tries.  My trust and faith in his boathandling had plummeted to zero, especially after we identified the boat as a charter boat (this means that he rented the boat, and may not have a solid feel for how that particular boat handles.)   It’s not really cool to drag down on another boat and then park yourself in front of them. Bad form.  So we sat in the cockpit for another 45 minutes and watched to see how his anchor set.   Then we went to bed and set our alarm to go off every 20 minutes.  Every time it went off, one of us went up top to see how things looked.

By morning, we expected a knock on the hull, with a thank you for saving his a&%.  Nope.  We popped our heads up after one of the alarms, and his boat was GONE.  He hightailed it out of there.  I saw him in the distance rounding the point of the harbor.  We later learned that the other boat he might have hit was just as spooked.  Its owner slept in his cockpit, with his head next to his anchor alarm (a GPS driven electronic device that tells you if your boat has moved out of a set radius. Super cool.)  Another miss and run.

crrrrrrrrrrrrreps!

The next morning, Chris and I were obviously wrecked, but this island owed me a crepe.  Big Time.  Chris banged his head pretty badly that morning, so he stayed back and rested.  We stood in line and ordered 10 crepes from the guy in the crepe truck.  Well, we ordered the crepes AFTER staring at the sign for about 15 minutes trying to figure out the menu.  In the end, we decided that we could decipher “chocolat”, “Nutella”, “jambon”, and “frommage”.  Everything else was a big question mark and we were not about to get help from anyone within a ten mile radius.  Trust me, we tried.  So we ordered chocolate and Nutella crepes for the kids and ham and cheese crepes for the adults.  We thoroughly enjoyed them as we sat on the dirt, I mean “Black Beach” and watched all the French women saunter around topless next to their “Big French Man – Teenie Tiny Little Speedo” husbands.

waiting for our crepes with seriously pent up anticipation.

happy crepe eaters

But Wait, There’s More!

Rainbows en route to Basse Terre

Basse Terre

January 5-6

By 1400, we had our crepes and had no further use for this place.  So we tried our luck in Basse Terre.  Hmmmm.  I am trying really hard to think of something good to say about this one.  The anchorage was rolly and Wendy and I had a tough time trying to buy food in town, since everything was closed.  Maybe Wendy remembered something fun.  Check out her blog on Basse Terre at threekidsandaboat.com.  We only lasted 16 hours here.

This fisherman out on the sea by himself was such a beautiful sight. We waved and smiled to each other as we passed. A complete and whole mini-relationship that filled me with much happiness.

riding it out by napping

Pointe a Pitre

January 6-9

By 0600, Anything Goes and Patronus were on their way to Pointe a Pitre.  The harbors we had visited so far in Guadeloupe were on the west coast of this butterfly-shaped island.  Pointe a Pitre is the city located on the southern tip of the center of the island.  Basically, the butterfly’s butt.  To get there, we had to sail south around the left “wing” and then north up to the city.  In all, it was 33 miles.  But it was dark, windy, and rough.  We kept in close radio contact with Anything Goes.  We were both having a really hard time and considered both going back to Basse Terre (it was that rough) as well as bagging Guadeloupe altogether and heading straight for Les Saintes.  We would have done the latter, but we didn’t know if we were required to check out of Guadeloupe first, since they are technically two different countries.  So we plugged on in seasick misery. (We later found out that you do not need to check out of Guadeloupe to go to Les Saintes.  In case you were planning on traveling between these two countries anytime soon.)

Kate, Porter, and Reese

Happy Smurf revives a bit and learns how to splice line for his Boy Scout badge

We arrived at noon and anchored outside of Marina Bas du Fort.  We had a quiet afternoon on the boat to recover from our ordeal.  We had a nice visit from Rick on s/v Island Time and rallied to have him and his wife over to Patronus that night for some drinks.

The next morning, we went into the marina and schmoozed our way into using the laundry room there.  It did not go smoothly, as the power kept going out and resetting the machines.  We also found a nearby supermarket.  More importantly, we had Wifi for the first time since December 30^th!  Everyone went to bed early, but I Skyped with Lana and Dave and blogged late into the night. (Hey Friends!  Get on Skype so we can talk!  Our top secret code name is erica.conway)

Porter and I did a detour to find some french clothing shops and found Haagen Dazs instead. We were so happy on our little date!

the colorful produce market. all the ladies wear traditional madras dresses in bright green, orange,and red

The next morning, we dinghied over to the city of Point a Pitre and had our best experience in Guadeloupe yet.  We found a little outdoor café and ordered lunch, completely in French.  I even managed to get kid’s meals, ask for the check, and paid, without speaking a word of English!  I did use a lot of hand gestures, though. : )  Afterwards, we walked by the fresh market, gazed through the windows of many city shops, and even watched a man painting graffiti on a main road in broad daylight.

bon jour. deux baguettes e cat merengues si vous plait! merci, au revoir! (not enough wifi to look up the correct spelling, but we managed to order in french, which was fun!)

Porter finds his favorite store

wondering if my new wardrobe will fit into the suburban NJ scene… i should have gotten the sleeveless orange jumpsuit with the giant white belt….

laughing and giggling and fooling around as we make our way past the busy shops

Kathy’s Store: all flip-flops, all the time!

Reese: “Mom. Mom.  MOM!!!  That man is doing graffiti!  Is he allowed to do that??!!!  Should we call the police?”

Erica: “Yes, Reese.  Let’s call the police.  Do you see a payphone?  Oh, and do you know how to say, “There’s a guy painting graffiti on a crumbling, broken-down old building” in French?

cool buildings in Pointe a Pitre

dinner up in the cockpit after a long day of sightseeing

Chris on passage. Happy as a clam.

December 30-January 3

“We were once more upon the ocean, where sky and water meet.” –Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast

It was with trepidation that we set off from St. Croix to Guadeloupe.  It was our first overnight passage since “The Big One” from North Carolina to St. Thomas, and I was not yet completely recovered enough to forget the pain.  Chris is different.  He loves passages.  He needs very little sleep when running on the adrenaline that he gets from sailing a boat.  The only thing that gets me to give up sleep willingly is the prospect of dancing all night.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Remember that statement when we get to Dominica…

Goodbye 2012… What a special year it has been.

Reese and Bryson on passage between St. Croix and Guadeloupe

Starting off 2013 in the ocean.

Our passage was rough and rolly and I felt seasick for some of it.  We ran into a number of squalls as we passed by the island of Montserrat.  Montserrat has an active volcano, and if you get too close, floating ash will land on your boat.  Not cool.  We managed to rally for a 2 minute New Year’s Eve celebration.  Don’t I look thrilled?  Chris took pity on me and didn’t wake me up for my night watch.

make it stop!!!

Note: Bonjour!  I have worked ridiculously hard to make this website a positive and inspiring place for people to visit.  Some visitors are living vicariously through us, others are remembering their own adventures, and many are just reading along to make sure we haven’t sailed off the edge of the world.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading.  However, I must beg your pardon for the next few islands.  If I reported our activities in the French West Indies with only cheerful and positive anecdotes, there would be two problems.  First, it would be a very, very short post.  Second, you would miss out on hearing about some of our more interesting, albeit frustrating adventures.  So, we are taking a pause on the “unicorns and rainbows” approach.  Be prepared for a bit of complaining, a little bitterness, and a peppering of “Are you kidding me??!!”.  But I promise you this: you will laugh!!!!

Good morning, 2013!

Deshies (prounounced Day-Hay), Guadeloupe

“No Soup For You!”

We arrived early in the morning at Deshies, Guadeloupe.  s/v Anything Goes, who made the passage from Virgin Gorda, miraculously arrived just hours before us.  It was quite a coincidence.

A local cow tries to give us directions, but we ignored him.

After some quick New Year wishes and fish reports, Wendy and I dinghied in to find the customs check-in, which was supposedly in an Internet Café.  Le Pelican was closed, and the few people we saw couldn’t help us because they only spoke French.  Hmm.  We gathered up the kids and the boys and came back onto land to try a hike that we had read about.  In the coming hours, it would be questioned just WHO read about it and forced all of our poor kids to have this miserable experience.  Let’s just say that neither Wendy nor I are willing to push each other under this bus.

Porter and Olivia are troopers.

Personally, with the exception of getting separated at one point, I thought it was a great hike.  Instead of a trail, we just followed the Riviere Deshies up the hill.  We saw intrepid little ants carrying giant leaves on their backs to build something.  We climbed over rocks, looked at the lush foliage, got our feet wet, and enjoyed being outdoors after being on the boat for so long.  Once we got to the road at the top of the river, we realized just how far we had climbed.  It hadn’t felt like so much climbing and we enjoyed sweeping views and quaint residential areas on the easy walk down.

waiting for the grown-ups to catch up…

With Patronus back in her spot, we bring in the new year as we toast friends: new and old, close and far…

As we enjoyed said sweeping views, someone casually asked, “Hey.  Where’s Patronus?”  Hmmm.  Not there.  Chris and I left Wendy and Craig with all the kids and ran the rest of the way down the hill, across the road, onto the dinghy, and out to the harbor.  We saw Patronus, but not where we had left her!

The anchor had dragged.  It was our first experience with this and we were very lucky.  The folks on the boat next to us had noticed we were dragging and had reset our anchor and tied a line from our boat to theirs as an extra precaution.  We pulled the anchor, found a better spot, and reset it.  This time, we dove on it, which means that we swam out to the anchor and dove down to the bottom to make sure it was set securely.  We were so tired that morning when we had arrived after our long passage that we had gone right to sleep and forgot to dive on the anchor when we woke up.  Lesson learned.

How many Americans does it take to fill out our names and passport numbers on a french keyboard?

The next day, we finally found the customs office open.  Apparently, the islands of the French West Indies like to take a lot of “breaks”.  They are open for a few hours in the morning.  Maybe.  Then everything shuts down from about 12 till 4.  Give or take.  Then they might open up for another hour or two.  We struggled to fill out the customs form, which was on the computer.  The keyboard was French, so we had to hunt and peck for every letter.  Did everyone else but me know that the French have a completely different keyboard?

We consulted each other and realized that none of us knew more than a few words in French.  We knew that it helped to at least try, so we did that during our entire stay in the French West Indies.  The owner of the Café was not very helpful as we struggled to figure out why we couldn’t find “USA” or “America” in the “Citizenship” area.  That’s because it was listed under “E” for “États-Unis d`Amérique”.  Were we supposed to know that?

Porter buys a little treasure chest with his Christmas money

We looked at each other after about twenty minutes at the computer, still typing in the names and passport numbers for all the kids.  It was then that our new catchphrase was born: “This would be a lot easier if we didn’t have all these kids…”  Being as both families are doing this trip entirely BECAUSE of the kids, it’s funny to sometimes throw that out there when things are particularly difficult or hairy.  Imagine trying to catch a bus with 4 adults and 6 kids.  Imagine trying to keep track of 10 people at Carnival.  Imagine racing your 47’ sailboat with a couple of 6-7 year olds needing to use the potty.  Imagine pretty much anything.  These are all good times to say, “This would be a lot easier if we didn’t have all these kids….”  It makes us laugh every time and reminds us that we are happy that it ISN’T easier.  We are happy that we have this incredible opportunity to show our children the world: expanding their minds and opening their hearts.  Even if all the retired cruisers are laughing at us from their cockpits as they read their books and enjoy their afternoon cocktails…

At least the kids enjoyed the store.  They purchased a few small items with their own money while I tried to ask the store owner where we could get some crepes.  If we are going to be in a French country, I’m a gonna get me some crepes.

Me: “Do you know a restaurant that serves crepes?” (note that I pronounced it like we do in the US: crapes)

Store Owner: “Crepes? No, no crepes.”

Me: “The restaurant across the street has a sign that says “Crepes” but it’s closed.”

Store Owner: “Crepes?  Crepes?”

Me (thinking): What the hell kind of a french dude is this who has never heard of crepes?

Store Owner: “Oh!!!!!!!!  Crepes!!!!!!!!! (pronouncing it: crrrrrrrrrrrreps)  No.  No crrrrrrrrreps here.”

Me: (thinking): When are we leaving Guadeloupe?

quaint, colorful houses in Deshies

So we left the Internet Café but I was convinced that the owner must be mistaken.  There must be crepes here somewhere.  So all ten of us started to stroll down the deserted street (as it was now noon) looking for a place to eat lunch.  You know.  ‘Cause it was LUNCH-time.  Nothing.  We couldn’t find an open store or restaurant anywhere.  We got to the end of the village and rested awhile on a cute little balcony overlooking the harbor.  Wendy and I took some nice photos of the quaint village, which had definite European overtones to the architecture and colors but that Caribbean “haven’t been fixed or painted in 20 years” quality that makes for great pics.

taking a rest in the middle of searching the town for food

Everyone was starting to get a little hungry and cranky.  Ok.  I was starting to get hungry and cranky.  But I warned everyone that my blood sugar was starting to plummet and that I needed a g&$-damned crrrrrrrrepe as soon as freaking possible.  We saw a restaurant a little further towards the end of the village and dragged ourselves there with little hope.  Chris and a few of the kids went in to see if we could get a table.  A minute later, they came out and Chris looked dumbfounded.  He told us that the owner said that unless one person in our party spoke french, we couldn’t come to her restaurant.  We all stared at him like he had obviously misunderstood her.  But then she came out of the restaurant and leaned in the doorway, arms folded across her chest, and glaring at us until we got off the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.  Yes, folks.  She was serious.  No soup, or crrrrrrrreps, for us.

We walked away in shock.  Is that legal here?  We quickly decided that it didn’t matter if it was or wasn’t.  We weren’t getting served.  We continued to walk around and saw many more restaurants: all closed.  By the time I started swaying back and forth as a precurser to fainting, we found a supermarket and bought a hunk of bread and some cheese.  We sat on a retaining wall and thankfully ate in silence.  Within a short time, a French woman (the older kind, with the gray-haired bun, the long skirt, and a long, white apron) came up behind the gate near the wall.  She was wringing her hands and saying something but we didn’t understand her.

Us: “No Francese” (then we looked at each other, not sure if that’s even the right way to say “No French”).

Her: (wringing her hands and pointing to the retaining wall) “String of french words that were getting MORE and MORE FRANTIC AND ANNOYED!!!!!”

Us: “I think she wants us to get off the retaining wall.”

We didn’t even realize that the retaining wall was a part of her property.  It was just some dilapidated, crumbling piece of concrete on the side of the road.  We weren’t really expecting a Welcome Wagon when we arrived, but this was getting ridiculous.  We finished our bread and cheese on the steps of the village church, thinking that any minute, the French God was going to strike us with “lé lightning”.  (sorry if you are super religious, or French, but that’s some funny stuff right there).

After that, we decided to stay on the boat.  The kids did schoolwork in the morning and played all afternoon, the boys worked on boat projects, we played Euchre till all hours of the night, and we cooked all three meals per day onboard!!!! You might expect me to say that we hightailed it to the first english-speaking country we could find, but you would be wrong….

Bryson works on his book report

Maggie and Reese playing together.

Chocolate-filled crescent rolls. ‘Cause we’re all french now.

Porter plays on his iPad in the cockpit

Olivia and Porter sitting on top of the counter on s/v Anything Goes

Reese chillaxing on our bed and reading Archie comics

Craig climbs the mast to look for crepes in the distance

breakfast together on Patronus