Christmas with Oma!
30 December 2006 | Ponte A Pitre, Guadeloupe
We had a wonderful holiday in Guadeloupe and Menno's mother (aka Oma) was with us! Maria flew into Ponte a Pitre on Dec 21 from Belgium! We spent the first few days at Marina Bas Du Fort and enjoyed being at the dock and visiting the many cafes and shops which surround the marina complex. Daniel and John would walk to the Boulangier every morning and buy fresh croissants, pain au chocolat and baguettes for breakfast. The marina was a bee hive of activity with boats in from all over the world, many having crossed the Atlantic in November in the Route du Rhum race which leaves from France and ends in Guadeloupe at this marina. There are many very nice racing yachts here. The winner crossed the finish line this year in 7 days 17 hours,19 minutes and 6 seconds!!Distance sailed 3,542 miles. It was an enormous catamaran, it took up 5 slips at the dock. A normal boat only needs1 ! There are also many boats here from the ARC rally (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) and these boats left from the Canary Islands and sailed to St Lucia. This is a more relaxed ocean crossing, they are "cruisers" and not racers! These boats took 12 to 16 days to cross the large Atlantic Ocean. My hat is off to all of them!
Guadeloupe is in the shape of a butterfly, the west wing is Basse Terre and is moutainous, has volcanos, rainforests, waterfalls, natural hot springs and much more! We toured the rainforest with Maria and went to the Botanical garden in Deshais.
I have started to add more pistures to the photo gallery, take a look!