CRUISING
When an Atlantic crossing left their boat in need of repair, Lou and Tom Luddington were drawn to the most southerly of the Leeward Islands and discovered a paradise teeming with natural wonders
The French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe is the most southerly of the Leeward Islands. Shaped like a butterfly, it is split into two halves, the wings forming Basse-Terre in the west and Grande-Terre to the east. Its varied coastline provides curiosity for sailors and land explorers alike. In the south-east we cruised over sunlit seagrass meadows roamed by green turtles and stingrays, and out west we dived the deep blue waters and coral gardens of the Cousteau Reserve, serenaded by humpback whales. Squally winds kept us alert on passage and made for adventurous journeys between anchorages, on a leisurely partial circumnavigation that we measured in weeks, then months.
Essential boat repairs from our recent Atlantic crossing drew us to Guadeloupe; a broken bobstay chainplate meant we needed a chandlery and a boatyard with a lift, neither of which were available in Dominica, our first Caribbean landfall. Heading to Pointe-à-Pitre, the main port that lies deep in the southerly cleft of Guadeloupe, we learned there was a four-week waiting list for the lift.
We booked in and resigned ourselves to a few weeks of exploring nearby – we had broken the chainplate on the third day of our 25-day Atlantic crossing, rendering our genoa unusable. We could, however, manage a few more weeks’ sailing without the big headsail.
SOUTH COAST
After two nights in Bas du Four marina at Pointe-à-Pitre we set off south-east for Iles de la Petite-Terre, a tiny group of low lying islands off the far south-east corner of Guadeloupe. Tucked in a sheltered lagoon between the two islands, the anchorage is reached by a shallow pass in the reef that surrounds them. Arriving on a calm day we breezed through, shepherded to the lagoon by a lone bottlenose dolphin that burst through the water at our bow, took a breath through its blowhole, then vanished.
Lying 10 kilometres from the nearest coast of Guadeloupe, these two uninhabited islands and surrounding waters were protected as a national nature reserve in 1998. The government recognised their importance as a stronghold for lesser Antilles iguanas, as a nesting area for three species of sea turtles and home to a stand of guaiac trees that have otherwise disappeared from the lesser Antilles. Since that time, hunting, fishing and collecting or harvesting of animals from both land and sea have been forbidden, whilst mooring buoys for visiting boats prevent anchor damage to the seabed. With a land area of less than 2km2, and protected surrounding waters of 8km2, it is a reserve of modest size, yet it is p
