Day 162, Year 6 Happy Anniversary to Justin and Jo
Date: Monday, April 4, 2011
Weather: Beautiful; Wind 2-29 Knots from the N, E, S, & W
Latitude: 15 51.729 N
Longitude: 061 36.077 W
Location: Anse du Pain de Sucre, Terre de Haut, Iles de Saintes, Guadeloupe
It is the fourth day of April, the fourth month of 2011, and our son Justin and his wife Jo are celebrating their fourth anniversary. Happy Anniversary!!! We are so looking forward to reuniting with them in only three weeks from now in Vieques in Puerto Rico. Can’t wait to see you.
After the fourth anniversary, the second headline for today is, “What a fight, man against fish.” Just before we reached Iles de Saintes, the fishing reel started whirring. Steve was out there trying to reel in the catch. This went on for five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes . . . and the mahi mahi fought on. They are such beautiful fish with their brilliant iridescent blue-green and gold colors shining as they jump out of the water trying to escape capture. Mahi mahi is the Hawaiian name for this fish and it means “strong, strong.” The one we hooked today was at least four feet long and it was certainly strong. In the end, the fish won. After twenty minutes, she jumped high and turned hard to the left and broke the line. It was the second lure fish we lost today but we didn’t see the first one. The line whirred and almost immediately the line broke. So we had chicken tonight instead of sushi. Sad for us, happy for the fish.
We dropped the mooring line at 6 am and headed north from Roseau, Dominica to Iles de Saintes, commonly called The Saintes. There are two main islands, Terre de Basse and Terre de Haut. We are anchored off Terre de Haut near the only town in The Saints, Bourg des Saintes. But instead of anchoring off the town, we anchored about a mile away in the what is known as the “nicest” anchorage in The Saintes. We are anchored off a conical-shaped promontory with basalt pillars called Anse du Pain De Sucre. The discussion after anchoring in mid-afternoon was whether to jump in the water and snorkel or to go to Bourg des Saintes to see the town and check-in. The latter won but this meant that we had to get in the dinghy and motor into the wind and seas for more than a mile. We knew this was going to be a wet ride, so we all put on ponchos. But even with the protection, we all still got pretty soaked before reaching the dinghy dock in Bourg des Saintes. The town is small and very quaint and very French. Slavery was never brought to this island, so there is very little African influence here. We stopped in the Tourism Office to find out how to get to the right location for clearance and when we got there we met another couple waiting to check-in. They were from the US and when we delved further, we found out they are from Boothbay, Maine. As the conversation went on, we discovered that the woman, Carolyn Shubert, knows our son-in-law’s mother, Marti Goldstone. This reminded us of checking out in Bequia where the man behind Mark in line was from Australia but lived in Falmouth, Massachusetts at one point and knows Sylvia, the manger of West Marine there. What a small world.
Tomorrow we will go back to Bourg des Saintes to walk up the mountain to Fort Napoleon. We will then return to Windbird and snorkel. Can’t wait to see what the underwater world looks like here.
