Month: March 2026

Our only stop on the island of Guadeloupe is Bouillante. We came straight here from Antigua because our friends Sharron and John were anchored here and they said it was a wonderful place – they weren’t wrong!!

I was still nursing my sore back on our first full day at Bouillante (March 6th) so I stayed on board and rested. Mark took the dinghy back north to Pigeon Cove to do a bit of grocery shopping. It’s always fun to see what is available on these French islands – usually some really nice bread!! Mark returned with a good selection of items. We had a happy hour onboard CK with Sharron and John that night and we heard all about their anchoring adventures here in Guadeloupe. This island has some interesting challenges due to the height of the hills. After a nice day of mostly calm weather, the katabatic winds pipe up and it’s not uncommon to go from 4 knots of wind to 20 knots in seconds. It can cause boats to drag their anchors which in turn causes those onboard to go into a panic!! Sharron and John experienced very strong katabatic winds when they first arrived in Guadeloupe (at an anchorage north of here). They saw over 40knots of wind and lots of boats were dragging. Our current anchorage also gets some stronger winds in the late afternoon but nothing like what Sharron and John experienced.

Today (March 7th) we decided to go for a walk in the town of Bouillante with Sharron and John. My back was feeling much better and I figured the movement would help – it did!! We also decided to visit the hot springs here – called Ravine Blanche. After our walk, we swam over to the mouth of the hot springs and it was crazy hot!! It was like being in a hot tub. It was so relaxing to float along in the hot water mixed with the cooler water of the ocean. It was a great way to end our afternoon adventure on shore.

We’ve decided to keep moving south because we have a good weather wind to cross to Dominica on March 11th. Tomorrow we’ll pull up anchor and move about 20nm south to the Guadeloupean islands called Les Saintes. These islands are well known for their special flavour! Sharron and John are also jumping down with us so we’ll have another adventure with them!

We made it – let’s just start with that!! Our sail down to Guadeloupe was an adventure. We knew the jump was going to be difficult because the predicted winds and waves were high (20 knots with 2.5 m swells) but we had some challenges that made it even harder. When we were leaving the dock on Wednesday (March 4th), I hurt my back trying to untangle a very heavy bow dock line (it wasn’t our line – it came from the boat beside us). So I was not in the best condition for this kind of hard crossing. To add to the pleasure of this trip, Mark had probably his worst bout of seasickness in a very long time. He was wearing the motion sickness watch device but it wasn’t working.

We got going nice and early on March 5th, pulling up anchor at 6:30am. The first part of our crossing was great – we had jib and mizzen up and we were sheltered by Antigua so the waves were tiny. It took a couple of hours until we were out of the protection of Antigua and into the full ocean wind and waves. The wind and waves were slightly ahead of the beam on the port side (on the beam means the wind or waves are 90° to the boat). We were expecting east wind but we were seeing wind slightly south of east (which gave us waves more on the bow then we would have liked). It was a rough, bouncy ride until we were about halfway across (the crossing distance between Antigua and Guadeloupe is about 40nm. Our trip was 60nm because we were going to Bouillante Harbour to meet up with Sharron and John). At that point, the waves changed to being on the beam and the wind was now east/northeast (going behind us!). By this time, Mark was starting to feel slightly better and I was trying to move around as much as I could. By mid afternoon the conditions were much improved and we were sailing along at 6 knots and higher. The wind and waves were behind us and the ride was much smoother. The last part of our trip was easy – we were behind Guadeloupe and protected from the waves. The island impacted the wind direction (more south) so we took sails down and motored the last 8 nm to our anchorage. We arrived around 5 pm and had trouble getting our anchor to hold. After 2 tries in one spot, we thought we were good but our friend John swam over and checked our anchor (super cool of him to do that for us). It turned out we were anchored on top of dead coral and not secure so we moved to a new spot in the anchorage. This time our anchor held – it was after 6 pm when we were finally settled!

Guadeloupe is a very mountainous island – also looks very lush. Our anchorage is well known for its hot springs. Hopefully we will get a chance to enjoy the hot springs but for today, we need to make some water and I need to rest my back!

We left the dock this morning (March 4th) around 11 am and are now anchored just outside the inner harbour at Jolly Harbour. Mark has been very busy the past 3 days doing a few boat projects. He painted more of the forward deck with the non-skid paint. He polished the dinghy davits (the stern being close to the dock sure made that job easier) and he replaced the ignition switch for the engine. The switch was acting up on our jump down from St. Martin so Mark was able to buy a new one from Budget Marina (which was right in the marina). I spent the past 3 days cleaning and putting the V-berth back to travel mode (basically the notch piece comes out and is stored). I also started crocheting another project!! We did a very little bit of grocery shopping and Mark got his hair cut!!

All in all we’ve had an amazing stay in Antigua but now it’s time to keep heading south. The plan is to jump down to Guadeloupe tomorrow (March 5th). We’re hoping to catch up with Sharron and John (Sundog) who have been in Guadeloupe just over a week now.

Here are some Antigua photos that didn’t make it into previous posts.