Pigeon Island

Anse Fideling proved rolly as well so both James and I were already awake to move at first light. We ran at 8kts across to Vieux Fort then rapidly lost the wind in the lee of Basse-Terre. We had an erratic sail – motor – sail but made Pigeon Island by 11am. This is one of the first marine reserves, on the insistence of the legendary Jacque Cousteau who said it was one of the best dive sites in the world.

Dismasted yacht at anchor - presumably off to Antigua for repairs.

Beneath the waves, the island site was one of the best shallow coral gardens I have ever dived. The coral was healthy and thick, and even the near sand bed was a thriving animal community. The fish were abundant, from juveniles to large grunts and snappers. Off the anchorage, the bed was sea grass on sand and home to good numbers of large hawksbill turtles. One stopped grazing and lifted off towards me when I saw it had just dislodged a hitch-hiking large remora, longer than the large turtle. I swam away rapidly for fear the remora would prefer me.

Pigeon Island marine reserve

Guadeloupe itself is also superficially European, with obvious large urban areas of late 20^th century housing. Anchorages on the west coast are sparse and ashore prices are less “bonne-marche”. We arrived in Deshaies late afternoon to a plague of yachts but managed a good spot near the beach. After a drink ashore we made the most of our last opportunity to buy French cheeses and retired aboard for our last night in Europe for a while.

Guadeloupe's west coast

Normandy in the Sun

Bourg les Saintes

Bourg les Saintes is occupied by a predominantly white population, descended from original Norman settlers. It has escaped the tourist development and so, has itself become a tourist draw. Visitors flock on the day boats from Guadeloupe but, out of hours, it is as sleepy as a Fenland village.

Crested Hummingbird

Matthew and I climbed the hill to Fort Napoleon and were treated to stunning views over the islands and iguanas. We had hoped to come across these large lizards on the other islands but finally found them here. We also found an American kestrel, hunting for smaller lizards.

Iguana guards Fort Napoleon

Beneath the waves, again the guidebook dive sites proved unremarkable. The rock reef around the mini-piton Pain de Sucre showed signs of silting and over-snorkelling near the wonderful beach at Anse a Cointre but improved when I went deeper and further towards the north east. The main feature was damaged coral and decaying reef – I am no longer surprised at the increased incidence of ciguatera poisoning here as this is thought to be related to toxins from dying reef. Another result was in increase in larger predatory fish. I have finally seen decent sized porgies and snappers. Both children enjoyed the plethora of tiny fish in the shallows and Elizabeth spotted a ray.

Croix des Gardes at anchor

Later we moved again to the barely-inhabited Terre D’en Bas to anchor in Anse Fideling. This gently shelving sandy bay is fringed by rocky caves and promised good snorkelling. The fan coral damage was less than the more popular spot we’d left earlier, but the corals were still in mediocre health. Elizabeth and I rounded one boulder to find a small eddy, filled with plastic litter from tourists and yachts – water bottles, toothpaste tubes and yoghurt pots were among the identifiable refuse along with a discarded lobster pot.

Discarded nylon rope

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that no anchor zones, such as those in the marine parks of Dominica and St Lucia are hugely beneficial to the reef, not solely because they reduce physical damage from anchors, but they eliminate the more insidious peril of visitors discharging sewage, litter and seeping oily residues into the delicate ecosystems. Tomorrow we head for the Jaques Cousteau’s marine reserve at Pigeon Island to see what difference that has made.

Snakes!

Canon at Fort Shirley, Dominica

Having passed by the chance to see the Jaco (Red-necked) and Sisserou (Imperial) parrots, we went ashore to visit the Cabrit national park and Fort Shirley. This British garrison was abandoned in the 1850s and the forest has regenerated since then, complete with large teak trees (James was very self-controlled and left them all standing healthily). The fort is undergoing reconstruction, thanks to EU funding, and promises to be very impressive on completion. Best of all, and just as the guide book promised, we found two types of lizard, land hermit crabs, lots of half-eaten shells of large crimson land crabs, and snakes! The snakes here are small, shy and harmless. We found several, including a pair interlocked whilst mating. All of them were mainly black with small white markings and under two feet long, living among the leaf litter.

Land hermit crab, Dominica

James then cleared out, including a fee of a further $2EC (50p sterling) and we sailed for Guadeloupe. The wind had been quite strong for the last few days so we had a decent 3m swell and a brisk wind on the beam. We crossed quickly and comfortably and reached Les Saintes via the ‘tricky’ Passe des Dames. This involved sailing between an uninhabited island and a spikey rocky outcrop in a narrow 10m deep channel. We then rounded up towards the only village to clear in.

Working lunch (on passage)

The islands are tiny, little developed and beautiful. There are no high rise buildings and the only visitors come by yacht or on a day trip via ferry from Guadeloupe. Less welcoming was the proliferation of moorings and lack of suitable anchorage since the 2007 pilot guides we had. We tried to find a spot among the French boats and were chased off by an officious Gaul in a powerboat. We tried the area he sent us too but it was too deep. In frustration, we opted to move well away, anchor off, take a swim and clear in tomorrow rather than get flustered and rush tonight. We moved to an uninhabited island with a sheltered bay and were just tying a stern line to the shore when the same officious Gaul came and told us we couldn’t anchor there either. James then spotted the recently established ‘no anchor zone’ and also that we were only in it by 30ft. Rather than motor off another few miles to the other crowded anchorage, we decided to be belligerently British and shifted the requisite 30ft to be just outside the no anchor zone – so there.

Sea front at Les Saintes, Guadeloupe

They even sell rum punch from their verandas!

I took a snorkel and yet again, the most popular spots for yachts have the poorest reef. The sandy bottom had large quantities of coral rubble (mainly reindeer corals) then shelved to a rock reef at 3m. This was a pleasant sponge garden but with few corals, and those there were damaged. The more shallow areas were silted up. However, there were large numbers of juvenile reef fish and schools of tiny fry among the rocks, treating the boulders and silt as a mangrove nursery.

Dominica

Dominica was cited as one of the poorest and cheapest of the Caribbean islands we would visit. The reality we saw seems to be rapidly changing. All the housing we saw looked tidy, spacious and well kempt with no evidence of the ramshackle dwellings made of tattered wood and corrugated iron that we’d seen further south. There is far more rainfall than in the other islands and that may account for better housing. Our guide also told us how it is easy to get a mortgage from the bank and many people buy a plot and build a capacious home. Terms start at 11% for a car loan over three years and reduce for longer terms on a house.

Those involved in the tourist trade are living very comfortably. We also chatted with a street vendor trying to make her living selling trinkets to cruise ship passengers. She told us that her daughter had won a scholarship to study medicine in Cuba. Although her tuition was paid, she was not permitted to take any work to pay her food so her mother was sending her tourist cash from Dominica. Now the daughter has a practice in St. Lucia, but the mother still sells trinkets by the roadside.

The only thing of value were the drinks at the beach bar. This was the only opportunity we had to see the ‘real’ Dominica as tourists arriving by sea are tightly controlled. We had to obtain a permit to move between the only two permitted anchorages, and each time the local ‘guides’ had advance notice of our arrival and monopolised our agenda. Having billed itself as the “eco-“ or “nature-island”, they have also managed to button-hole their visitors and ensure that they see only those parts of the island they want us to and extract as much of the tourist dollar as they can.

Indians and Turtles

I am writing this entry from a rather nice bar called the Purple Turtle. The lighting is low, there are strange purple lights illuminating the drinkers and music is blaring out. No, it’s not the pub / venue frequented by many of our friends in Camden but a beach bar in Portsmouth, Dominica.

The Purple Turtle bar, Dominica

Dominica has been a bit of a tourist stinger for us. All the guides told us we had to go inland to enjoy the country so we did. The tours were painfully pricey, but as we don’t foresee any more land tours in the near future, we gritted our teeth and paid. This morning, when James went to collect a permit to change anchorage, it turned out there was no fee – the chap who was going to charge him for it last Friday was sheepishly making coffee whilst the official uniformed lady calmly told us there was no additional fee. Later, we took a tour up the Indian River  in Portsmouth (which also featured in Pirates of the Caribbean) and were charged twice the amount mentioned in our pilot guide. This has been an expensive three days.

The river tour was very pleasant – our guide rowed us up among the mangroves and swamp bloodwood trees (yes – when cut they do ooze a thick, sticky sap that looks like blood). Matthew took delight in spotting the crayfish and crabs whilst I enjoyed the birdlife. I had been looking forward to a trip to the parrot reserve tomorrow, but the guide wanted over £100 to take me the nine miles inland and back. Ouch!

Great and Snowy Egret, Indian River, Dominica

Adding to the ‘twitcher’ list were were two species of thrashers (scaly-breasted and pearly-eyed), snowy and great egret together, great blue heron, yellow crowned night heron, belted and ringed kingfishers and a random sandpiper (I’ll look it up later!). The children were treated to coconut water, which is not the coconut milk that we buy canned – that comes from squeezing the grated coconut flesh. The water is a natural antiseptic and still used on cuts, grazes and in the eye for conjunctivitis. The ‘milk’ can be left for a few hours until it starts to ferment. The foam is then boiled to produce pure coconut oil which is added to camphor as a “Vicks” cold remedy.

By popular request - photo of the author

Tomorrow we shall cross to our next destination – Les Saintes islands south of Guadaloupe, then it’s Antigua on Friday to meet up with Ariane and John.

Whales Ahoy!

Is it wrong to invite your child’s hero back to the boat and drink been with him? The “Deadly Pole to Pole” team proved very amenable so we asked them over to Croix des Gardes for a drink or three. Presenter Steve was joined by his soundman Nick and cameraman Johnny (filming on Canon DSLR lenses) and young researcher Matthew. Johnny and I bored the rest of them talking photography, Nick and Steve regaled us with tales of wildlife encounters and tropical diseases (Nick was due a check up at the centre for tropical medicine in London in his return whilst Johnny had recently had a bot fly larva in his scalp whilst another colleague had been so infested with tombu fies that he drank an entire bottle of whisky and tried to kill himself whilst alone in Africa and was found and rescued by a shaman). Johnny is convinced he wants to buy a classic yacht now.

Children with "Deadly" hero in front of Sperm whale skeleton

We also discussed the local policy of culling lionfish. The divemaster on my morning’s dives had destroyed several, using a litter picker and a metal rod. The Beeb team reckoned they’re most prevalent between 50m to 80m so I doubted that divers picking off ones at 30m or less was really going to have a useful effect on the problem. Although there are other predatory fish naturally on these reefs, the lionfish is a recent arrival, has no natural predators and locals fear that it will soon annihilate the local small reef fish. I’d like to find out more on the matter.

Lion fish cull

The kids and James played in the hotel pool whilst I dived. We also visited the Champagne Reef where sulphurous gasses seep from the sea bed, leaving the water a mildly golden colour and fizzing with bubbles. The sea bed is actually warm to the touch here too. This area was much shorter on fish and devoid of corals or sponges, but several tang and goatfish were busy near the transition zone.

Young sperm whale diving off Dominica

We then boarded the 75ft sailing catamaran to go sperm whale watching. The crew use a hydrophone to listen for the regular clicking noises the whales make whilst it hunts for squid in the darkness, and then they home in on the source. The whales dive for around 45minutes before resting at the surface for ten minutes or so before diving again. We got good views of several, including a female and calf. There were two boats, the other one getting far closer and carving up our boat. The viewing is quite regulated as they don’t want to drive their source of income away. Locals are permitted to snorkel and dive with the whales so tourists can join them if you find someone to take you out. However, any filming or photography in the water is considered “research” and requires a permit. The Beeb said it took two months to obtain their permit and it was hugely expensive. The whales are quite odd, not just by being the largest toothed whale, but also because their blowhole is at the tip of their body and offset on the left side. We told Matthew it was like having your nose on the back of your head above your left ear.