From Dominica we crossed northeast to the large island of Marie-Galante, a part of the nation of Guadeloupe. The trip was more against the wind than planned (always is) and therefore a bit rough but it was over soon and we anchored in the bay in the town of Saint Louis on March 14, 2026. Our friends on eKahya left the next morning due to the rolly anchorage (only to find that Les Saintes was just as bad). We wanted to see MG so stuck it out and the swells did improve over the next couple of days. Marie-Galante is a bit off the beaten path for most so it has a very slow pace with few cars and little traffic. To explore, we rented a scooter and saw it all! Driving clockwise we stopped at a popular arch on the very north end; explored several 17th century windmills from when sugarcane was king; toured, tasted and purchased at Habitation Bellevue which was in the midst of fermentation; had a great lunch on the beach on the southeast corner; toured a massive, partially restored sugar plantation called Habitation Murat; another huge one in ruins, Habitation Roussel-Trianon; and generally had a ball bouncing along dirt, grass and paved roads in our very beat up but functional scooter. The two big plantations are remarkable in their scale. These people were Rockefeller rich. Records show that the one in ruins was producing more than 250 tons of sugar a year by the 1800’s. There were over 100 total sugar plantations just on this island. Murat was the largest with roughly 200 slaves. As the island is prone to earthquakes and they did not yet know about how to reinforce concrete structures, everything is overbuilt with extremely thick walls and foundations. Nonetheless, the main house at Roussel-Trianon, founded in 1669, was finally destroyed in a hurricane in 1928.
After a few days, we sailed west to a small group of islands known as Les Saintes, just south of Guadeloupe. We stopped here last year and vowed to hike up to the lookout tower on the highest point when we returned. The hike up was steep but mostly on a paved road. Bruce (eKhaya), of course, led us down an alleged goat path on the backside that brought us to a great beach. On the way up we passed La Convalescence, a natural water catchment that served a nearby French army post and continued into the 20th century as a source of fresh water. The tower itself was proposed by the French in the mid 1700s as a critical part of the islands defense but, being French, they didn’t get around to it until the British easily took the hill and bombarded Fort Napoleon and the other garrisons into submission in 1809. The tower was finished in 1843 and housed 36 men. It never saw combat. We thoroughly enjoyed Les Saintes hiking, diving (looking for sea pussies), and had a couple of great French meals with friends before we all sailed up to Guadeloupe proper.
We next anchored in the middle of Guadeloupe near Pigeon Island and enjoyed some great diving in the Jacques Cousteau marine reserve. Bruce and Brenda rented a car, and we were able to tour around much of the island. One of the great (huge) French forts exists in Basse-Terre, now called Fort Delgrès. Begun in 1650, it was the scene of an extraordinary battle in 1802. France had abolished slavery in 1794 but Napoleon, in desperate need of money for his European wars, reestablished slavery in the islands as income had plummeted with abolition. Freed black soldiers, led by a black officer-Louis Delgrès, opposed the reinstitution of slavery and took over the fort before a French general and his troops arrived. After a battle, Delgres and his men retreated to higher ground and eventually blew themselves and their defenses up rather than be re-enslaved. Slavery continued in the French islands until 1848. Unfortunately it was closed this day so we only saw parts of it.
The small round watch tower was built by a Dominican priest in 1703, has 7′ thick walls, several cannon and was protected from assault by a substantial cordon of cacti, a novel method to me. The sirop de… is a bright blue flower based product with many uses apparently. The cowfish for sale in the grocery store horrified us as they are such mellow fish and can’t possibly have much meat.
This next video is amazing. Brenda realized what was happening and got this footage. Sergeant Major males essentially sand blast, by blowing water, a clean flat space for their mate to lay her eggs. The female then lays 200,000 tiny purple eggs in a large mat. The male changes to a dark purple color and will defend the eggs 24 hours a day against any size predator for the 4 days they take to hatch. We’ve seen many of the egg mats this year and the extremely aggressive males but this shows the female actually laying eggs! Cousteau would be proud.
We ended our time in Guadeloupe in Deshaies. Tess had a terrible bout of possible food poisoning but the restaurant was great and no one else got sick. She recovered quickly and we got in one more dive where we found an old ship anchor used as a mooring. John managed to film a juvenile Spotted Drum fish and a mature one on the same dive. A pretty extraordinary transformation in the fish world.
Stay tuned for our next stop, Antigua and Barbuda!
