After passing through Pointe Noire we found the road heading inland into the rain forest and after not too long we reached our destination where we walked a short distance to a small waterfall in the rain forest. This was a beautiful place surrounded with multiple shades of green and in the middle water cascading down into a pool of cool clear water that was very inviting after a hot drive. So in we went or at lest some of us, some of us just jumping in the cool water while I (Mr. Chicken) slowwwlyyy walked into the water and eventually got in the water for a cool swim and got pounded a little by the cool water from above (did I say cool again I really mean chilly on scale but who cares it was refreshing).
Time for lunch, so we packed up and headed back to the coast and south to Plage de Malendure where we stopped for lunch at a Cliffside restaurant that overlooked the sea. The view was great, in the distance was an island (made famous by Jacques Cousteau, I will talk more about this later), surrounded by clear blue water, to the south the bay with green waves flowing to the sea and on the cliff side lounged large iguanas soaking up the sun.
After a great lunch with wine and lobster we were off to the beach so we headed north and stopped at a small beach in a cave. We also got a taste of fresh coconut ice cream. We did a bit of swimming, relaxed in the sun and did some snorkeling while the sun slowly sank into the sea, it was a good day for sunsets so many romantic pictures were taken and the kids danced until the sun went down.
It was time for some early morning action, it was time to find some turtles! Getting up at 05:40 (while on vacation) was tough but there was more to come, we walked down to the boat house where we got our wetsuits and walked out into the water (a bit of a wake up call) and got into a rubber boat and once everyone was on board we headed full speed south to the island of Jacques Cousteau, made famous in one of his underwater films calling it one of the 10 best dive site in the world (little did he known that there was soooo much more to see out in the pacific and other places in the world). Lucky for us the ocean had a glassy look in the pre dawn light, this is really a beautiful time of the day (still a bit early though and a bit chilly in a small, wet wetsuit at full speed in a little boat, really fun though). The reason to leave so early is that we will be there before all the other boatloads of people so that we can see more of the life underwater.
After an hour of high speed excitement we arrived at Pigeon Island in the Jacques Cousteau marine park and tied up to the mooring on the south side of island and soon everyone had the masks and snorkels and jumped into the water. The Cousteau reserve is truly a beautiful site with lots of different types of coral and fish and in the predawn light it was amazing to see the sea life interact. Some of the things we saw were turtle, moray eels, snapper, trevally, lobster, plus much more.
After about 1 hour it was time to move along to the next site, by this time the sun was peeking over the lush green hills as we arrived at the next site on the north side of Plage de Malendure where there’s lot’s of sea grass for the turtles to eat. This was a fairly large area so it took a bit of swimming around and in the end we had found four turtles and one the that we stayed with for a while and we got some nice video footage. An hour later we were tired, wet and hungry, and turned north again for a bit more of a ruff ride as it was time for some breakfast, warmth and rest, but in our minds we played over and over the wonders that we have seen in the last hours.
The temperature was very pleasant during our stay, around 25 – 28 during the day, mostly with a breeze, so it never got too hot. At night it was 22 – 24, and with a breeze some of us needed a hoody to feel comfortable. The food at Fort Royal was great, we got really spoiled, with new dishes every day. After another day of eating, tanning and swimming it was time for yet another road trip (road and sail). This time we had the pleasure of having Anna, Andreas and the kids along for this trip (we had been spending a fair bit of time with Stella and Alba these last few weeks on the beach, driving around, at the house and even taking them swimming in the pool, loads of fun).
Once again this was an early trip, up at 05:30 onto the bus that drove us along the coast through sugar cane fields and soon hitting rush hour traffic heading for the capital city of Pointe-à-Pitre (there are a lot of traffic jams around the capital due to the fact that almost everyone has a car. Finally out of traffic we continued our drive east now on the eastern part of the island La Grande-Terre. This side of the island is much flatter and no rainforest. Our bus travelled along small windy roads along the coast for a while passing beaches and small villages before arriving at our destination Saint-Francois harbour where our sailboat waited for us.
This was a very large sail boat and once we stowed our gear we set off for the island of Petite Terre. The trip over to Petite Terre was very pleasant so we all lounged around deck and spent some times up in the front netting, as the sail boat was a catamaran. The sea was fairly calm with large rolling waves (it made some people a bit sea sick) and soon we set the sail with help of some of the passenger. After about an hour or so we were close to our destination and that's when saw that there were large waves everywhere, now for the fun part, we secured the sail and the captain waited for the right moment and then caught a wave heading for shore and while surfing on the wave guided us safely to a quiet bay between two small island. The island was beautiful, surrounded with clear blue water and a large coral area to snorkel in, the beach area was white pearly sand with palm trees scattered along the beach area.
After finding a place on the beach it was time for snorkeling, Andreas and I were the first to see what we could find and we were not to be disappointed, the first thing we spotted was a small octopus trying to hide in among the coral, after that it was swimming in an aquarium with small fish darting in every direction. The area was very shallow varying from half a meter to five meters or more in the boat area so after circling for a while we caught sight of a nice meter or so long shark that we followed off into the bay. Lunch was fish grilled with rice and salad on the beach which was prepared and served by the crew and of course rum punch was available as we were in a rum producing country. After lunch it was time for some more snorkeling and Anna also wanted to see some sharks, sad to say no sharks, after 20 minutes plus no sharks. All was not lost as we were on our way back to shore Anna spotted a sleeping turtle, we circled the turtle for some time taking videos until the turtle woke and decided to take a leisurely swim with us. We swam with the turtle for about 5-10 minutes before heading back to shore to rest and play with the kids.
Before we left Petite Terre I took a little walk to take some picture and as I walked down path I was startled by large iguanas racing out into the bushes as I disturbed their sleeping in the sunshine, at one time two raced out in front of me have a major fight for one reason or another. Jorunn decided to have a look but the first thing she saw while walking along the beach was that were several baby sharks swimming around in the bay, so after a short walk on the Iguana trail decided to go back and get Anna and the kids so that they also could see them. So we all ended up seeing shark that day! In the end it was time to sail back so we packed our things and went to the landing for the trip back to the sail boat, we were lucky here too as a couple of small baby sharks swam by to say goodbye.
The trip back was pretty uneventful but still very pleasant but about half an hour after climbing the waves to get out of the bay we caught a quick glimpse of two dolphins, sadly they did not stay long. Some of the French guys had more than enough rum, and started to sing. Finally we got to shore and spent some time playing hide and seek with bus before finally heading back to the hotel for dinner and some rest.
My head cold had finally cleared and I really wanted to do some diving at Pigeon island to find out what the talk was about and to see for myself why Cousteau called this one of the top ten dive sites in the world. Things were looking very bleak for diving as there had to be a minimum of six divers for such a long trip. Thursday (we were leaving Saturday in the evening and I had to stop diving at less 24 hours before flight to minimize my chances of decompression sickness) I got lucky, I ran into the organizer of the dive trip and he had been trying to get hold of me, the trip was on for Friday morning and it would give me more than 24 hours surface time before our fight home.
After breakfast we drove to the marina where we boarded the boat and headed south for an hour to reach Pigeon Island and our first dive site on the south side of the island, the second dive, after lunch, would be in the bay which they call the swimming pool. Both dives were very good with lot's of beautiful coral, a good amount of fish and even a statue to commemorate Jacques Cousteau and all the things done to protect the oceans. Things we saw; a school of 30 trevally, moray eels, cleaner shrimp, arrow crabs, spotted drum, rainbow runners, lobster, trunkfish, frogfish. We could sadly not find the seahorses, but they have them here. There was a turtle that we watched for some time as he ate a large sponge. This was a very good dive area and was probably better in the 70's when there was more fish but at the time he had not as yet ventured to the pacific too much and had seen the wonders there and may have been a bit hasty to name this one of the top ten dive sites in the world, who knows.
After washing out my equipment and hanging it out to dry (can’t have a wet wetsuit in my luggage) I watched the ocean in hopes of seeing a whales as they were in season now and had been off Pigeon island two days earlier, but no luck this time so for the last time I watched the green hills of Guadeloupe go by as we entered the marina. Thanks to Andreas, Anna, Alba and Stella for everything, it was great to see you all again and for showing us around Guadeloupe.
THANKS FOR THIS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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