Terre de Haut, Les Saintes

Today we decided to explore the town a little and we tempted to walk to Napoleon’s fort which we could see from the boat, however as we started walking (as we always seem to time in the full heat of the day) and discovered it to be much further than originally anticipated with no shade whatsoever we decided to confine ourselves to the town. It is beautifully kept with nice little squares, brightly painted French style houses, many small restaurants, boutiques and souvenirs shops. The town was buzzing with people, many of whom were tourists but also I think many local residents who all seemed to stop to pass the time of day together. It is said that in the small island of Terre de Haut which because of its arid and small land mass which made it unsuitable for plantations and therefore did not receive a new population of slaves that the people on Terre du Haut claim a direct ancestry to the Breton and Norman sailors who populated it and certainly the island has a very much minority black population and the locals seem to be predominantly European in looks.


Le Bourg high street


Le Bourg town square


Town church


Ferry Pier


View over anchorage - we are right at the back on the centre right

We really enjoyed the relaxed holiday atmosphere of Le Bourg and wondering around the town, however we’d had an interrupted night’s sleep with a swell that crept into the bay after dark and decided to move around into an anchorage off a beach on the south side of the island we spotted on the way in. So we motored round and dropped anchor in a bay with one other catamaran, the least crowded we have visited in the whole Caribbean so far. Unfortunately, the low isthmus in the centre of the beach and the headland to the east gave us winds from two directions at once which didn’t reveal themselves until we were anchor but which immediately threatened to trip the anchor, albeit they were at this stage quite light. We decided to ensure a decent sleep that night to drop out a kedge anchor too, so a small amount of additional faff we could relax again, take a swim and enjoy another fantastic fresh salad this time complete with authentic French baguettes (we were too late the first day) on the back of the boat in relative isolation.