Getting of the beaten track is not an easy task in the Eastern Caribbean. The track is usually so beaten that it feels more like a highway. The only way to get off it is to either be brave or go upwind. We’re not very good at being brave and have avoided going upwind for the last 22,000 miles, but the need to get off the beaten track has made us go upwind to Marie-Galante.

Tacking on every shift and working every gust we finally made it to the only port of entry on Marie-Galante which also seemed to have won the ‘smallest harbour in the world’ award. We’ve anchored in some tight spots but anchoring in Grand Bourg found us being able to walk off the stern and onto the sea wall while off the bow we could have hopped onto the ferry, complete with a, now, very grumpy looking Captain. This was not ideal, but being that we were the only yacht to be seen we had managed to get off the beaten track.

Under the gaze of the unhappy beret wearing ferry captain we shifted to somewhere that was much more ‘Ruffianesque’. Just outside Grand Bourg was a beach to rival all beaches. The sand went on forever, it was fringed by palm trees and we had all three miles of it to ourselves. This is what we’d come for, deserted beaches and a view that few people have as the sun set over The Saints framed by the mountainous islands of Guadeloupe and Dominica.

Walking the beach was as sensational as looking at it. Under our feet it felt more like velvet than sand, there were no indentations from other people’s feet, and the only flotsam and jetsam found was from the coconuts that were dropping off the trees with a rather alarming frequency.

Slowly working our way around the island we stopped at the thriving metropolis of Saint Louis. Here we actually saw things we’d not seen in days, people. Venturing ashore Saint Louis was as busy as the beach. Shutters covered all the windows and stray dogs slept in the middle of the road. We mused that this was France after all and everyone was probably having their EU mandated siesta. Things would clearly be coming alive at night.

As the sun was once again sunk behind the hills of The Saints we were sure that Saint Louis would come alive. To be fair the sleeping dog had moved from his shady spot in the road to a more appropriate place on his master’s porch but the bars remained dark and the restaurant grills remained cold.

There was more to Marie-Galante than its beautiful deserted beaches and unpopulated towns; there was the countryside to explore. Marie-Galante is billed as one of the islands where the people still live a rustic rural way of live. Romping around the fields we were charmed by the sight of carts ready for loads of sugar cane and the oxen were being fed in pastures ready to pull them. Everywhere we looked there were rows of crops waiting to be harvested and pits where charcoal was made in the old school way.

With the weather on the change it’s time to desert this island where there is so much more to see and we hope in the months to come that the people wake up from their siestas, other cruisers don’t find the island and we manage to come back.

Sunset over the saints. That’s an unusual view.


Ruffian in more lovely water.


The beaches go on for miles and miles.


The joys of swimming in the sea.


Beach, sky and no one around.


Now how can I get Iain to get one of those?


The Manson Supreme works his magic in the rock hard sand and weed.


Larry had done bad. The locals have built a pyre for him.


Beaches everywhere we walk.


I think you need a longer boom.


Looking up to Ruffian.


We so nearly ended up like this in Dominica.