SV Windrifter42

Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Deshais, Guadeloupe

The guide books say that the town of Dehais looks like a Broadway movie set. Well almost - it was actually the set of a television program. As we landed our dinghy at the fishing village we ran into a movie set. We are told it is for and English/French joint production eight week television program called "Death in Paradise." We watched the set for awhile - waiting for a good moment to cross the set to get to customs. In Deshais one clears in at the Le Pelican, the local Internet café. They showed us to a computer and we typed in our information - a quick check by the man running the café - and we are in - only cost $5 for computer time. The man who runs the café is amazing. He was helping us check in, taking passport photos for several families, selling souvenirs and nic nacs - and doing it all with a great smile. We walked town and found a nice small café to eat - jambon Paninis (ham and cheese sandwiches) and passion fruit juice - one of our newest addictions.

We took one more walk over to the film set. They weren't filming but instead we watched some locals cut down all the coconuts from the trees at the beach - I guess the film folks had heard more people die from being hit on the head from coconuts than ....I got a nice coconut for a snack. PS I was told the green young ones are the best for drinking - that's what they make all the canned coconut water from - the brown ones are best for a liquid to add to alcohol for a great punch - and for eating the coconut. Since we still have plenty of canned coconut water onboard, I chose the eating kind.
I spoke for awhile with one of the film directors. They will be editing the film in AVID - we are still loyal to our brand. They are shooting with three cameras - two new ariflex and one "throw away" canon HD camera - that's a $8,000 still camera. They said they use it when they need a shot and the car needs to run over the camera or they need to bury it is the dirt. They have been here six weeks and have six more weeks of shooting. They said the town seems happy to have them . They have sort of an encampment set up on one whole side of town = it looks like they have every rental truck and van in the entire country - Eurocar Rentals has done really, really well.