Day Eight

First thing in the morning we took the dinghy in to clear customs. Guadeloupe is large enough, and has enough rain fall, that it has a number of small rivers – one of which comes into the ocean in Deshaies harbor. We ended up tying the dingy to a small public dock on the bank of the river. There were a number of crabs by the dock (which amused the girls later in the day). David cleared customs and immigration while Jimi found a rental car and negotiated the contract in a mixture of French and English. It was a “mini bus” that was huge. It seated 9 people and ran on diesel. There were lots of windows which made it great for touring the island. We made a two hour drive down the west coast. There were lots of great views, but also lots of little town and local traffic so it was slow driving. The island was more developed than Nevis but it still had a very Caribbean and French feel to it.

At one point we stopped for drinks and snacks. Everyone picked out what they wanted and then we tried to pay. It turned out they took only Euros and their machines couldn't read our credit cards. We managed to find 10 euros that Paula happened to have received in change in St. Barts. The woman at the store was very nice and took it, even though the bill was 20 euros. ... Then we had to get gas. Fortunately we found a Texaco station that took US credit cards.




We drove to the south end of the island and hiked to the Carbet waterfalls. The walk was through a rain forest that could have been out of Jurassic Park. There were 20 foot fern trees! At one point, a 2½ foot green lizard fell from a tree right in front of Patti – she screamed. It ran away too fast for a photo however.

The waterfall was impressive – not something you expect to find on a Caribbean island. The plaque claimed that Christopher Columbus saw the falls from the ocean and was convinced to stop at Guadeloupe for fresh water.

It started to rain on our way back and we got drenched. Fortunately the French had paved the entire path so there was no mud to walk through. Kaylynn ditched her shoes and walked back barefoot. We were worried about David's camera since he did not have a case for it (the other cameras were smaller and fit in zip lock bags). However it survived the ordeal.

After driving back to Deshaies we split up by age – the kids made dinner on the boat while the adults went out for dinner on shore. They found a fairly good local place (which served very fresh grilled fish with the head still attached). Jimi left the rental car keys on the boat and had to dinghy back to get them. After all this back and forth to the boat everyone was getting very adept at tying up to the river bank and avoiding the crabs. There was a local band playing in the park, in town but we were too tired to hang around long.