We had a guest! This for us is a pretty rare occasion, as most of you well know. One of our friends finally took the bait and asked if she could come down to spend some time in the sun with us on the boat. “Sure, c’mon down” we said to Gloria. The meeting point as decided as Guadeloupe… convenient flights from Canada, and with some good choices of places to go to from here.
After a big cleanup of the boat (nothing like company to spur that activity), we had to get to the airport to fetch Glo. Well, apparently the taxi drivers kicked up a stink about public transport being available to the airport, so the nearest bus stop is about 3 km away. We found this out as we went along… However, we were willing to walk to save ourselves some Euros, anyway. We got to a bus stop that looked promising and asked a gentleman and a lady who were chatting. The man was a driver, and he said the only way to the airport was by taxi. We explained that we were willing to do some walking, so the lady took us under her wing, and even flagged a bus for us to get there. She told the driver very clearly where we needed to get off, and told us as well. I love the people of Guadeloupe.
We had given ourselves plenty of time to get to the airport, and that was a good thing. We grabbed a drink at the mall and walked. We thought it wasn’t going to be all that far, but it really was about 3 km to get to the terminal. We saw the bus stops along the road, and only found out later that they were no longer allowed… and people think that Pearson in Toronto is bad.
The airport isn’t massive, but it certainly is big enough for the large planes that arrive. We killed time, as Gloria’s flight was also a little late, and we were still early. It didn’t take much time to explore the terminal before we found a quiet place to sit down. When the plane arrived, we scooped up Gloria with her one small checked through bag (thank goodness), caught a cab and headed back home.
Pointe-a-Pitre anchorage, while convenient, is not exactly the sand, sea and surf that a vacationer is seeking out, so we quickly got going to Marie-Galante after a day of letting Gloria get her sea legs. We had a great trip over and found a good spot to anchor. I started to feel a sore throat coming on.
On the Monday, with my sinuses fully congested, we walked to the Distillerie Poisson, home of Pere Labat rhum. This is a very authentic, very unpolished rum distillery… with free tastings. Ken and I have seen enough distilleries that we could fill in the blanks for Gloria, and we thoroughly enjoyed the access to almost every component of the production. I think I may have enjoyed the tasting a little more than the others two, but it was a good trip. However, our hopes of catching a bus back seemed dashed, as we didn’t see any busses passing by until we got to the point that a rest stop was called. I chose to go out on the road and try to flag a ride, but that was when a bus arrived.
Marie-Galante wasn’t panning out as hoped, as it was more rainy than we remembered it. After a couple of days, we decided to head back to the main island to Gosier, with the hope of going to the market and to catch some live music. The sail was fantastic, but the anchorage was rolly. It didn’t take much of a thought to say “let’s head to the Saints!” the next morning after everyone had a rather rough sleep.
The Saints are always a delight, and they didn’t disappoint this time, either. The weather was pretty much darned near perfect, Pompierre Beach was gorgeous, and the baguettes were fantastic as always. I slteadily got over the bug, just as the other two were catching it. Thank goodness we had good drugs.
We ran into friends Judy and Bob from “Adastra”, so had them over for brunch, and also were lucky enough to see Paul and Sheryl from “Distant Shores II”, so I had to bust out one of my new recipes for them for dinner. It was a very social day!
Eventually, the reality that Gloria was going to have to fly back to Toronto brought things back to Earth, and we headed back up to Point-a-Pitre again. Except for a very disappointing dinner at the marina at Les Pirates (really, don’t go there for dinner), it was all good.
Gloria is now (hopefully) on her way back to Canada, as a freezing rain warning is messing up flights; her flight was already delayed by 90 minutes this morning.
It is a little different on the boat, for sure.