The journey to the south of Guadeloupe is about 120 miles and rather than do an overnight sail, the weather has been at best unsettled recently, we decided to stop off in Deshaies in the north which is about half way.  Also they have some nice restaurants, so we could eat out. The first day was fairly uneventful and we had a great sail almost all the way.  The second day down the south was mixed to say the least, we had everything from 2knots of wind to 32 knots - which made for a lot of sail changes!

To say we were disappointed by Point a Pitre is an understatement!  What was billed as a yachting centre with a good marina, was actually a very large commercial port and a scruffy marina.  The anchorage was good however and we had a great night's sleep.  The other problem was that we can't get our English gas bottles filled anywhere in French islands - oops! We had seen in the chandlers a 1 ring gas stove which we thought would do as a spare, we would be eating lots of salad but we could at least cook the chicken, or steaks in the freezer to go with it, so John went and bought one.  When he returned I asked where the spare gas canisters were - we had decided to get a couple of spares as this would be our only method of cooking - the answer was that they don't sell spares and you can't get them anywhere else on the island.  Now, should this have set off alarm bells? Not in John's case.  His argument was that there as a picture on the box showing the cooker and a gas canister, when I pointed out that there was also a pan of sausages and eggs on the box and I was fairly sure they wouldn't be in there - so I opened the box.... guess what, no sausages and no gas either!!!  [Comment from John - the woman actually said that you couldn't get spares anywhere on the island, there was only the canister sold with the gas stove in the box - at least that's what I thought she said in her Creole accented French!!].  I should also say that by the stage we realised there was no gas canister, we had left the port and we half way to Marie Galante! As there had been a huge supermarket near the marina we had stocked up on no-cook food such as cold meats, cheese and salads, we will be very fed up of those by the time we get home! We do have a microwave on board, but as all I have ever cooked in a microwave is frozen peas and porridge, some experimentation may be needed - there is no M&S here to provide microwaveable ready meals!!

Anyway....

Marie Galante is a small island off the south coast of Guadeloupe which is very quiet and pretty.  There are few tourists here in St Louis which is the main anchorage.  We went ashore in the morning and by 9.20 we had walked around the main area and had stopped for coffee, which gives you an idea of the size of the town.  We spent the rest of the day doing some jobs onboard and went out for dinner.  The choices were extremely limited, what we ended up with was ham and cheese crepes which came with a side order of salad which seemed strangely familiar!  There is a second anchorage in the south, near the main town of Grand Bourg where we will head to tomorrow.

 The beach which was nice but not really a sunbathing beach, an the sea was very weedy so not great for swimming

 This is just about the whole of the 'town centre'