HEADING FOR GUADELOUPE ................

The weather was calm and the active volcano on MONTSERRAT seemed quiet .............. good time to go sailing along the western side of the island to be able to see the remains of the former capital, PLYMOUTH ............ What sadness, what loss and what a tragedy...... Double-click on the photo alongside to enlarge it, and you will see so many perfect homes that are now mostly windowless ..... The people managed to flee and take their possesions including the window frames ......... It takes most of us at least thirty years to acquire a good house that's paid for, and generally speaking, there is a hardware store nearby ....... On MONTSERRAT every building item has to be brought into the island at a huge cost, and windows are exceptionally expensive ........ So when you are forced to abandon a perfectly good house, it is like fleeing from a war zone .............. And there was no compensation ...... You are left with the knowledge that you had better start all over again at the other end of the island........ Of the 9000 people before the eruption, only 5000 remained and the rest moved to England and tenement apartments ........ What a shock and what a transition .......



The night before we left LITTLE BAY on MONTSERRAT a charter boat came in with a bunch of men on board and every few minutes a different set of men would appear on deck, so I went over in the dinghy with a "Welcome, how was your escape from CUBA"?..... To which they replied, "No, not CUBA, we escaped from HUNGARY" .......At first I was not sure, perhaps they meant that they were all hungry ....... There were twelve of them on board,........ Now as it happens, we have a Hungarian flag on board which we duly presented to them ......... And received an all-male-choir applause ....... Friends for life, you might say, and the flag was hoisted as we sailed away ................ Chris Doyle, the celebrated author in his catamaran took off for ANTIGUA, while we set sail for GUADELOUPE .......



You should just double-click on these photos to see the devastation when this volcanic river of boulders and ash came tearing down the mountainside, engulfing everything in its path ..... The haze is the poisonous sulphur fumes as the volcano continues to smolder away at the top ................ Fingers crossed, and eyes on the sky as we moved down the coastline ......



A late afternoon arrival in the French port of DESHAIES on Guadeloupe and a formal check-in next morning .............. The Customs and Immigration people have now authorised others to do their work, so in this case we did the clearance in a 'Rasta Cafe' on computer ........ Now is that not just plain progressive ...... Felt tempted to take a photo and send it to the 'Homeland Security people' ....... As I said, I got tempted ..... Instead I picked up a couple of freshly-baked French loaves that smelled so good that I completely lost track of all that .............



DESHAIES has a little stream running through town in which you tie up your dinghy and a church with a bell that rings every 15 minutes ........ Which keeps things in order ........... The place is as quaint as can be .............



Sailing along the coastline of GUADELOUPE we saw agricultural endevours everywhere like the sugar cane being planted and the sugar mill right in the middle of it all ....... French farmers are subsidised and no doubt that makes a difference .......



The French also do a superb job in their cemetaries ............ Every tombstone becomes an architectual marvel decorated in classic white glossy tiles ........ The reflection alone should be visible from outer space ....... (Do a double-click on this photo) ...........




....................... NOW ISN'T SAILING ON THE OCEAN BLUE JUST DELIGHTFUL ..............

Captain Harald of the yacht "SOPHIE" who was heading north kindly sent us the photo above .......