Death in Paradise and An English Patient

We got up early on the morning of 25 February and set sail from Jolly Harbour. Well, actually we motor-sailed [mainsail only] out of the anchorage and down the west coast of Antigua until, an hour and a half later, we were out of the wind shadow at the south west corner when we were able to haul out the genoa. We then had a cracking sail averaging 6kn – which is pretty good for us – in 12-17kn ENE wind and, six and a half hours later, when in the lee of Guadeloupe, we dropped the sails and motored for 40 minutes before anchoring in Deshaies Bay.

Surrounded by hills, Deshaies provides good shelter from all but westerly winds and, as a result, is a very popular anchorage.

Traditionally a fishing village, it has retained its charm and attracts a few holiday makers to this NW corner of Basse-Terre Island.

Now, I hope I am not confusing you by calling the island first, Guadeloupe and then, Basse-Terre. The reason for this is that what most of us know as Guadeloupe is actually the name for the whole archipelago with the butterfly shaped “mainland” comprising two islands – Basse-Terre and Grand-Terre joined together by a couple of bridges and a mangrove swamp. The smaller offshore islands of Les Saintes, Marie Galante and La Désirade complete the Guadeloupe island group.

Geography lesson over – let’s return to Deshaies.

Other than the obvious, to English folk at least – and which we will come to in a minute – Deshaies seems to be famous – to the French – for this guy.

He was a black officer in the Republican Army who fought at St Lucia, St Vincent and Guadeloupe. He was an abolitionist and opposed the arrival, on May 6 1802, of General Richepauce who wanted, on behalf of Bonaparte, to restore slavery to the islands. On May 10^th Delgrès became the leader of the Resistance and after several bitter battles against the General, on May 28^th -seeing the Resistance army lost – he chose to sacrifice himself with his companions rather than allow himself to be sold. They committed suicide using explosives in accordance with their motto “Live Free or Die”

Deshaies village consists mainly of tourist shops and bars and restaurants which front the bay. There is just a small sliver of a beach, but a half hour walk north takes you to Grande Anse – a beautiful long stretch of sand…..

…. backed by a lagoon…..

…… with lovely views across to Montserrat.

It was Mike’s birthday when, after starting the day with coffees in Deshaies, we did the walk….

…. and, after a much-needed beer in an extremely hot tourist bar in the “complex” of popular restaurants fronting the car park, we found a very different kind of bar at the southern end of the beach.

Walking back into Deshaies we detoured very slightly from our outward route to walk up to – wait for it -…..

I can tell you now that the main reason we came to Deshaies at this particular time was to celebrate Gill’s 60^th birthday which is the day after Mike’s.

It was Gill’s wish that we should eat her birthday meal at “Catherine’s Bar”. In Series One and Two of “Death in Paradise”, the bar used for filming was “La Kaz” which looked out over the beach. That part of the bar still exists but is no longer part of La Kaz. The new, and still current, “Catherine’s Bar” is actually called “La Madras”.

Unfortunately, La Madras was not open for evening meals on Gill’s birthday – or on Mike’s – but we did manage to get drinks there on other occasions…

….and eat at the now streetside restaurant La Kaz for her birthday meal. Phew!

The following day, after provisioning at the Spar shop we motored 12nm down to Bouillante [which translates to “boiling” in French] and went to the Hot Springs for a swim.

Located in the middle of Basse=Terre’s western coast it lies below steep volcanic slopes. Tourism and geothermal power, by means of steam driven turbines, form its main income. Having been colonised in 1635, it became a thriving small agricultural town and, despite a cholera epidemic in 1865 it continued to produce coffee and cocoa until the mid C20 when many of the younger generation moved either to the larger towns and cities on the island or to France. Evidence of its past can be found in several buildings scattered around the town.

After two nights we left Steve and Gill there and did a 2.5nm hop down to Petite Anse.

Our kind of place, with not much to do there except visit the beach bar, eat lunch at Chez Monette, chill, swim off the boat and the beach .….

…. walk up the hill…

…. and find a caterpillar to photograph!

On 6^th March, leaving Steve and Gill again – they had joined us on our second day at Petite Anse, we intended to anchor off Marina Sens near the SW corner of Basse-Terre. There was absolutely no wind all the way down the island so, because we had left early, we thought we might be able to make it all the way round to Pointe-á-Pitre. No chance. There was 20k+ from the ENE which we would have had to head directly into and we therefore dropped anchor just short of the corner at Anse de Vieux-Fort [aka Anse Dupoy].

It was surprisingly calm and having chosen not to go ashore we enjoyed a very peaceful evening.

It started to roll at 6am the following morning, which woke us up and so we set out before the wind speed rose too much and actually had a decent 24nm motor-sail to Pointe-á-Pitre where we anchored in Darse Dubouchage …..

…. just to the north of the Memorial ACTe – a cultural museum and slave trade memorial.

It was a great place to watch pelicans.

One of our reasons for coming to Pointe-á-Pitre was to go to “Decathlon” to get some stuff for our forthcoming land trip. We had so much to carry, including a set of boules for Steve and Gill, that we couldn’t go to Carrefour!!!!

We did find other shops and had a wander round the city a few times finding interesting statues and murals….

……though neither of these depicted its somewhat startling history. The French had wanted to establish a city here during the early part of C18 but the inhospitable swampy land deterred them.  During the British occupation [1759-1763] a settlement was built on the hill overlooking the swamp. After France regained the island, the settlement was officially founded and named and the swamps were drained allowing urban development. It has since survived massive fires in 1780, 1850, 1871 and 1931, earthquakes in 1871 and 1931, hurricanes in 1865 and 1928 as well as several epidemics of cholera. What a place to live!

Our second reason for coming here was to enable Mike to visit a Saxophone repair man who lived near the SE corner of Grande-Terre, accessible by bus from Pointe-á-Pitre. Although he lived between St Anne and St. Francoise – both of which have anchorages, we had determined that neither were suitable for us as they were too shallow. His house was actually also accessible from another anchorage just outside of the city on the SW corner and, with hindsight – the reason why will become clear soon – it would have been much better to anchor there for the whole time we were in Pointe-á-Pitre or, at least move there, after going to Decathlon.

Anyway, on the morning of 9^th March I dropped Mike off and then took the dinghy, through lots of weed, to do laundry at the marina. Back at the boat in the early afternoon I was reading in the cockpit when I realised that we were closer to the buoyed off area than we had been. The wind had changed direction so, initially, I thought it was that which was blowing the buoys nearer to us. However, we got even closer still and I then noticed that the dinghy engine shaft was on the other side of the ropes. I pulled the dinghy with the painter but it didn’t budge and was now held stuck about six or seven feet from the transom so I couldn’t climb in. I had to do something as we were definitely drifting and I was going to have to move the boat but couldn’t leave the dinghy behind. Summoning all my strength I tugged really hard and managed to move it close enough to half jump and half slither in. It was then really difficult to lift the engine shaft to free it but I also managed that and clambered back onto the boat.

So, stage one complete. Now to stage two – move the boat on my own. There are single handers out there who do this all the time but neither Mike, nor I, have ever lifted or dropped the anchor alone. Engine and instruments on I completed the raising quite easily, but then had to decide where to drop it. It was a small space where we had been so that wasn’t an option. I therefore decided to move to the front of the memorial museum. The water was much deeper here [14/15m instead of the 5/6m we had been in] so I was going to need plenty of chain particularly as it was still soft slippery mud. I decided to halt the boat, run forward, drop between 30 and 40m, run back to the cockpit, put the boat in reverse, run forward again, drop another 20-30m then run back to try to fix my transits from the cockpit whilst pulling back harder. I don’t know if it was the right way of going about things but, bless my soul, it worked! I was holding. I was also shaking somewhat with adrenalin and heaven knows what my blood pressure might have been!

It obviously also gave Mike quite a shock when he got back but all was well and, before darkness fell, we moved O&P again to a better place.

I say all was well, but unfortunately it wasn’t – though this didn’t become apparent until a couple of days later.

 The following day we set off early….

…… to avoid the Sargassum weed which was, once again, entering the part of the anchorage we were now in. 45 minutes later we were at the anchorage I mentioned above – Le Gosier – where the weed had completely taken over the swimming pool….

….where we wandered up the main street…

….. had a late afternoon drink at a beach bar…

…..and where, on a Friday evening, they hold a street market……

…… which we wanted to experience before moving again the next day to St Louis on Marie Galant. When in the Caribbean 12 years previously we had tried to get to this island but had turned back because of the wind so I was really pleased to be there. It was actually a very strange place but I only have one photo – taken on the way to the supermarket.

We had intended staying for a few days and exploring more but it wasn’t to be. The “all was not well” happened when, as a sixty-five-year-old woman, I started losing blood. Not a good thing. Looking back, I remembered that when using all my strength to get into and free the dinghy I had felt a pull in my abdomen. It would have been easy to say “Well, that’s obviously the cause” but not very sensible. Therefore, Mike and I returned to Le Gosier for one afternoon/night during which we managed to get ashore on Îlet du Gosier ….

 

….. and then onto a mooring ball at Marina Bas de Fort so that we could find a doctor or gynaecologist for a consultation.

Maybe not unsurprisingly, it would appear that doctors in Guadeloupe do not take patients without an appointment and appointments can only be made if you are registered and, possibly, resident. We found a hospital on Google Map which supposedly had a gynae dept. It didn’t – in fact, it didn’t have very much at all. A clinic which was kind of attached to the hospital did have a couple of resident gynaecologists but I was told that I needed to go to a mother and baby hospital some distance away outside the city. To cut a long [and hot and dismal] journey short, we finally managed to get to this place at about 3pm, having left the boat at 9am. I was seen 3 hours later and told that, as there was a shadow on one part of the uterus, I might have a problem and should make an appointment with a gynaecologist there with a view to a biopsy. It was unlikely that the process would be completed in under 2-3 months and there was a language barrier so, we decided I had to return to the UK.

Believing that I would need to seek private treatment I consulted my sister and sister-in-law [who is a nurse] and started by trying to make an appointment with the Nuffield Hospital. During the phone call I was told by a very helpful receptionist that I should really start with a GP as that would result in a quicker appointment. Without going in to all the details, on 20^th March [one week after seeing the Guadeloupe doctors] I flew to Paris and then onto M’Cr the following day. The NHS has a fast-track system for suspected cancer and I have to say that, although there were a couple of small delays along the way, I was seen by the GP the day after arriving and consultant a week later, had the biopsy and got the results on 17^th April – all clear. The NHS system really worked for which Mike and I are very grateful.  Just as an aside, I had told all the doctors about my physical and mental stress when I freed the dinghy and shifted the boat but, rightly, they all insisted that I should get the test done.

I apologise now to friends and family in the UK who, until now, won’t have known about this. The only UK people who knew about my visiting other than Sis and John and Claire [John’s sister] were our friends Dave and Maggie. I did not want a fuss and wasn’t in the best frame of mind for company before the result and, afterwards, Mike got me on a flight back to the Caribbean almost immediately. I just had time for a bit of last-minute shopping….

…… and an impromptu quick visit to Dave and Maggie….

…. where, it ended up in almost party mode as Jenny was home and meeting that day with Claudia which meant Kevin and Bernie came round to pick Claudia up mid evening.

So, aside from a few evenings in the Winterley watering hole, getting my eyes tested and new glasses, eating Fish and Chips and take-out Indian and Chinese, watching squirrel antics in the garden…

…. and dog walking….

…. I stayed in and passed the time quietly.

I flew from Manchester to Barbados on 20^th April where I spent one night – having, almost 3 hours after landing, finally collected my luggage which may, or may not, have been taken to the cruise ship dock as most of the passengers on the plane were joining a cruise there!

I then flew to Grenada…

…. to be re-united after a long and very difficult month apart.

This post would not be complete without saying a massive, massive Thank You to our friends from Seattle – John and Jerie. They had been scheduled to come and stay with us in the Grenadines on 3^rd April. They cancelled that and instead, John flew out to Guadeloupe on 25^th March and crewed with Mike down to Grenada from where he caught a flight back to Seattle on 13 April.

 Mike has said he will do a short post about that time as obviously I can’t but, we will never forget the caring and friendship extended to us.

Love you all very much – Chris and John, John and Jerie, Dave and Maggie – your unconditional support got us through this.