The following day we took the tender over to the island to go snorkelling but this time it was really windy and the tender ride was bloody scary. I thought I was going to fall out. After a few hours on the island the wind picks up and gets much worse about 35 knots. There were loads of kayakers on the island stranded cos they did not want to risk going back in such bad weather. I cant say I blame them. We decided to make a go for it cos we thought this wind might be in all night. The ride back made the first one feel like a ride on a calm lake. We were bouncing up and down about 2 metres in the air off the waves and every time we landed I thought I was going to break my back. Anyway we survived. That night the wind in the anchorage hit 40 knots and three boats dragged at anchor, so it was not the most restful night sleep in the world.
The following day we pop to the supermarket to go and get some food and discover there is a strike on. One French guy we met told us that the strike would be on for another week, it had started a few days before but we were too busy having fun to notice. Everything was closed because they wanted the prices on fuel food etc to be cut down to the same prices as France in Europe. He explained the wages are far lower but the cost of living is so high people cant afford to live there.
Great we thought, typical French were so inconsiderate we had totally run out of cat litter and food and we can’t do anything about it for a week. That afternoon we went on the hunt for a substitute for litter and ended up taking some rubble from a builders type place. Anyway it was an emergency and the cats appreciated it!!
That afternoon we sail on a few miles down the coast to another wicked anchorage called Petite Anse. It was much smaller than the last few and by evening we ended up being the only boat there which was well tasty. We decided to sleep out on deck for the night which was cool still we had a squall at 3am and it starting peeing it down.
After a couple of days we decide to sail 15 miles to Basse Terre the main town, hoping that it would have somewhere open. We anchored up in our first rolly anchorage in months and went for a wonder around the town. Well it was nuts there, it was like a ghost town, everything was shut and the only people on the streets were tramps, drunks and weird people with only one leg. It was really rough with graffiti all over the walls and burnt out cars. We did not feel entirely safe so after finding a supermarket open with the shelves mostly empty, we bought what was available and made a quick escape back to the boat.
We moored our dingy up in the marina which was bazaar place as well. There we four half sunken boats and some rocks in the middle of the entrance on the way into the marina which had not been moved since the hurricane which hit last October. I was soooo glad we did not go into the marina cos we would have smashed our rudder and keel up on the way in no doubt.
As you can imagine we did not stay here to long and the next morning we head south for the small French islands Les Saints.
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