The plan: leave Deshaies after our almond croissants are delivered at 7:00 am, stop at the big Carrefours supermarket at Pigeon, partway down the coast, then go into the marina at Basse-Terre to get water, and either pick up one of their moorings or take one of their slips for transients. Then we’d get an early start to Iles des Saintes the next day, and have a morning arrival and therefore a chance at picking up a mooring during the height of the season. All planned according to Chris Doyle’s guide to the Leeward Islands, the cruising sailor’s go-to book for information.

The actual day: I didn’t awaken until close to 8:00, to discover that the bakery truly is no longer making almond croissants—only plain. Tom had already eaten one, and I gave him mine as well, since I had awakened with—surprise—a headache! I blamed it on the glass of white wine I’d had at our “farewell to Deshaies” dinner ashore, and I wasn’t going to make it worse with a slug of gluten. We left about 9:00, and by 10:00 my headache had reached prescription strength, so I took my pill and reclined in the cockpit. I was enough better by the time we reached Pigeon to go ashore to shop, so we anchored at the far end of the beach away from Pigeon Island where we’d been snorkeling in November. We found the tiny inlet the fishermen use—a “fishing port” the guidebook says—and Tom waited in the dinghy while I ventured off to find a few groceries for us and a list of school supplies, cleaning supplies, and vegetable seeds for Dominicans. Once again I felt like the brunt of the old joke: “What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks one language? An American.” That’s me, and I so regret it.

We raised anchor and continued on to Basse-Terre, to the Marina Rivière Sens. As we approached we heard another boat attempting to call them on the radio, unsuccessfully, so we didn’t bother. We could tell from the photograph and diagram in the guidebook that maneuvering would be tight, and we’d need to be ready with dock lines and fenders on the starboard side, so we were. As we rounded the breakwater into the marina, the only people we saw on the fuel dock were a couple young boys, fishing. The dock was short, the wind was swirling, and it took us three tries to secure the boat, but we did it. Finally a man sauntered along, and he asked, “Diesel?” “No, water…eau…agua,” Tom replied. “No water.” And apparently no transient dockage, either, as what the guidebook showed as designated “visitor berths” was filled with small powerboats, all snugged in for the long term. So much for that part of our plan. We let off the lines and backed completely out of the marina, since we weren’t sure there was room to negotiate a turn. The few moorings we saw were taken, and it was pretty rolly outside the marina, so we pushed on to the Saintes. Once we passed the southern tip of Guadeloupe and were out of the lee of the island, it got very rough very quickly. We slammed through the waves, with winds averaging 30 knots on the nose. Longest couple miles ever. Finally reached the islands, and went from one mooring area to another, but they were all full except for one empty mooring at Pain de Sucre, but that seemed too rolly. We looked at the mooring field off the town and began preparing to anchor outside its perimeter, but the harbor master chased us off, so we returned to Pain de Sucre, where a different mooring was available. My headache had reared up again, and when I went below to lie down, realized that our forward hatch—the one right over our bunk—had been closed PRETTY securely that morning, but not COMPLETELY securely. There’s a huge difference in that last little quarter turn of the latch. Our bunk was soaked—mostly my side, and since I’m probably the one who messed up on the latch closure, I probably deserved it, but as I laid down in the main cabin and covered my head, Tom did all the cleanup. We were both asleep by about 8:00. It was a rolly night, but there was a French naval ship anchored nearby, so we felt well protected.

Around 7:30 the next morning, Sunday January 21, we motored around to the mooring field off Bourg des Saintes, and found an already-vacated mooring. Quiet day—went into town to walk around, got some WiFi time at a bar (Pellegrino and Heineken), and back to the boat. The young Frenchman on the beat-up metal boat next to ours asked if we’d seen anyone on his boat—his PC had been stolen while he was ashore. After that, we lock up when we go ashore. Another rolly night.

Monday we took our laundry to the Les Saintes Multiservices (LSM) office (moorings, customs clearance, laundry, WiFi, Internet café and sports bar, and they sell water alongside the ferry dock during certain hours. You pay at their office and they give you a coded key that triggers the hose on the dock to deliver the prepaid amount of water. While I did the customs checkout for Tuesday, Tom paid for water, and we returned to Bravo. We had until 12:45 to finish filling the tanks, so we hustled to rig fenders and docklines. Since we were landing on a dock meant for large ferry boats, the bollards were far apart—one at the end of the dock and the next one about 50 feet away and up six steps!—and the two-foot-wide rubber fenders on the dock stuck out a couple feet and were spaced about 20 feet apart—there were only two on the section of dock where we’d be landing, so we had to position a couple of our fenders to land on the one central dock fender, since that’s all we’d be touching. According to protocol, We tried to call the ferry dock to request permission to come alongside for water, but got no response. The catamaran that had tied up to get water at about 10:45 was still sitting there, so we decided to impart a sense of urgency to the them by approaching and circling next to them. They caught on, and finally left at 12:15. Tom maneuvered the boat in perfectly, and somehow we got lines to the bollards. I stuck the little coded key to the proper place on the water dispensary structure, and the water flowed from the hose…and stopped. I repositioned the key, and the water flowed, and stopped. I did this several times, and then Tom figured I was doing it wrong, so we switched roles, and he positioned the key and the water flowed…and stopped. Several times. We decided that for some reason it was just going to dispense water one liter at a time. About 12:43 a man from LSM came along and showed Tom that all you do is tap the key once and remove it, and that turns the water on. By holding the key there, we were constantly turning it on and off. And on. And off. He also told us not to worry about the 12:45 cut-off time—we wouldn’t get booted off the dock. Ahh! A little more excitement getting off the dock, almost leaving me behind, but it all worked out. The afternoon was uneventful after that. The wind had shifted so the harbor wasn’t quite as rolly, and it was a lovely night. January 23 off to Dominica.