Despite waiting for a good weather window, we had an "interesting" sail of about 35nm down to Les Saintes. There were lulls of absolutely no wind at all for the first few hours, increasing to 30knots by the time we were halfway through the passage, and the E/NE forecast turned out to be SE'ly so the last 10nm towards Les Saintes were painfully slow with wind and waves against us. However, it was well worth the effort as we dropped the hook in a sheltered anchorage off the town with picture postcard scenery all around.

We immediately liked the island of Terre de Haut, again French as it belongs to Guadeloupe. The pedestrianised main street is very quaint with lots of little shops selling local crafts as well as lovely clothes, jewellery etc and every other building is a café or restaurant.

We spent the first few days relaxing and exploring locally. It's extremely expensive for the likes of us on a cruising budget (a family-sized packet of crisps is about £4!) so we only bought essentials and stopped for the odd beer.

We arrived on a Friday and over the weekend the town was quite busy with several small ferries bringing day trippers from mainland Guadeloupe but by Monday the town was quiet, noticeable mainly by the lack of scooters on the roads which can be hired from several shops and are the main mode of transport for locals and tourists alike.

We hiked up the hill to Fort Napoleon, a very impressive fort which has been restored and houses a museum which displays include the Battle of the Saintes, examples of the old Saintoise fishing boats and the history of fishing in the islands, and information on various other aspects of island life through the years. Outside are many plants, labelled for information, and iguanas live in the grounds which have stunning views over the various surrounding bays.

We walked to a few different bays on the island during the next few days, inbetween some much-needed admin and outboard repairs (well done Dave Dog!). One beach was reached by scrambling over some rocks for a few hundred yards, only to find that we could have reached it by road! Still, the snorkelling was worth it and we enjoyed the day. Another time we reached a small bay with only a couple of people there and had a lovely dip in the sea, just before it started raining. Back on board we made ready for an early departure tomorrow to head for Dominica.