Guadeloupe

Tuesday 7th April 2009, day 262. 17° 00’.89 N, 061° 46’.47 W. Falmouth Harbour, Antigua

We had another cracking sail coming up here: 40 miles in just over six hours, with the wind on the beam the whole way, at a nice steady 15 – 20 knots. The sea was slight, and we romped along with all three sails up. Tomia was delighted not to have to carry around her layer of weed, poor thing, it was like being asked to run a marathon in a sodden winter overcoat. No fish were caught on the way, though – they couldn’t swim fast enough to keep up with the lure!

Now, on the subject of fish, has anybody read Moby Dick? We all know it’s the story of Captain Ahab and the great white whale, that his boat is called the Pequod, that the book begins “Call me Ishmael”. But has anybody read the book itself – or more to the point, finished it? Because it is causing me great trouble, and Melville’s orotund, fleshy sentences, inability to get to the point, acres of heavy-handed moralising, or exhaustive catalogue of each mention of sperm whales in histories dating as far back as Pliny, are making me almost scream with boredom and frustration – and, just over half way through, there are still a further 323 close-typed pages to come. Please tell me that it gets better.

We stopped at Deshaies, on the north western corner of Guadeloupe, to pick up the new sail, and explore the island a bit. Deshaies is another simple, pretty town, perhaps Woodbridge to Bourg des Saintes’ Southwold. It boasts an excellent boulangerie (I’m not sure that life holds many greater pleasures than rowing ashore first thing in the morning to bring back fresh baguettes and pains aux raisins), a charming if steep Giverney-styled bridge to cross the little inlet, and a post office (closed due to yet another strike). Vive la France!

As a treat, and because the buses, although large, properly regulated and clean, don’t run very often, we hired a scruffy old car, and did the circuit of the island, on the look-out for a spot of culture. The Maison du Bois was closed as was the Caféière Beauséjour, but hurray the Maison du Cacao was open. The deal is that you don’t get to the tasting session without doing the tour, so we bought our tickets and spent a respectable amount of time walking round a small tropical garden, learning various interesting, but quickly forgotten facts about the different types of cocoa trees, the amount of moisture they need, the quantity of cocoa that can be expected per hectare, the place of cocoa in the global economy, associated Mayan legends … before agreeing enough was enough, and making for the hard stuff.

We went through the whole range: raw cocoa beans, roasted beans, cocoa paste, cocoa butter (disgusting), drinking chocolate, 70% chocolate, 80% chocolate, chocolate made to an old Guadeloupian recipe, hot chocolate as it would have been drunk in the court of Louis XIV, rum infused with chocolate … the visitors stood around like little nestlings, mouths open, waiting for the lovely guide to spoon us another mouthful of nectar.

Finally tearing ourselves away, laden down with souvenirs (not all for us), we carried on, taking the cross-island road, up and through the forest, coming down onto the east coast for lunch, and then back round the bottom of the island.

ps sorry there hasn't been a blog for a while, we have been busy sailing! More soon