Jardin Botanique Deshaies

Le Jardin Botanique Deshaies.

The Deshaies Botanical Garden.

This is one of the most beautiful gardens we've toured in the Caribbean, not to be missed if you are visiting Guadeloupe.

The welcome center opens on to a beautiful Koi Pond.

Even the fretwork on the building has been designed to reflect the garden's name, Le Papilion, the Butterfly.

Feeding the Koi.  It's a feeding frenzy when the food shows up!

What you looking at!

A beautiful old tree with a trunk that looked like a sculpture.

The photographer at work.

There is an aviary where you can feed the Swainson loriquets.

Quit hogging the syrup!

Magnificent colors!

This visitor was surprised and delighted when the loriquet decided to ride on top!

These three were rolling around on the ground.  Love the one on the right with his feet in the air....

...and holding a red flower in his beak.

Now say with a Pepe Le Pew French accent, "Baby, I pick zee flower for you."

Banyan Tree

Flowers and air ferns grow on the branches of trees.

Here's a small sample of the flowers in the garden.

Red Ginger

Ornamental Pink Bananas

Water Lily

Begonia

Shrimp plant

The Kashmir Bouquet

Torch Ginger

The Torch Ginger towers over my head!

Walking the grounds...

Restaurant above the waterfall.

Flamingos catch a one-footed nap.

Yawn, stretch, boy that feels good!

Au revoir de Guadeloupe!

Leaving St. Kitt's

It is time to leave St. Kitt's.  After a week of cloudy and rainy weather it looks like we will have a 2 day weather window to make it to Guadeloupe before another tropical wave moves through bringing wind and big seas.  Mike and Renee came down to the marina where we've been staying to hang out with us while we finished getting ready to leave in the morning.

A few hours on a rocking boat made Renee a little queasy.  We set her up on the dock with a chair and some shade provided by her personal boat boat Miguel. 

Dinner was Chinese take-out served dockside.  We are really going to miss hanging out with these very good friends.  Thank you Mike and Renee for welcoming us into your home, letting us do laundry, cooking for us, driving us to restaurants and grocery stores, laughing with us and at us.  We had a great time!

The Domino Duel!

The Domino Duel has finally arrived!  It's been more then a year since Mike, Renee, Jim and I played together.  Jim lost that game and the Dunce Hat moved from Jacumba to Merengue.  We played at Mike and Renee's house.  Renee said if we lost we'd probably use the excuse that we couldn't play if we weren't on a boat.  Hmmmm.....she might be right.

Each new loser has to add some decoration to the hat.  Jim added a tassel made from beer caps collected from Caribbean bears.  Very festive and it jingles!

Jim jumped out to an early lead.  Maybe the beer caps are lucky?

Here's Mike putting a double-twelve curse on Jim.

Everyone was gunning for me as I was the only one who hadn't lost up until now.  Just look at all the points they stuck me with this time!

Jim jingling the caps for luck and Renee plugging her ears.

Yes, I lost!  Actually they murdered me!  I had 561 points.  Jim only had 188.  The Dunce Hat stays on Merengue.

Jack & Zura watched the action.  I think they think we're nuts!  Animals are very wise!

Hanging with our Friends in St. Kitt's

St. Kitt's is a must stop for us each year.  Not because it's a beautiful island although that is a plus.  It's because it's become the home of our friends Mike & Renee, formerly of the S/V Jacumba.  We stay in touch by email but it's never as nice as getting to see them again each year. 

We spent Tuesday afternoon hanging around the pool at their condo.  Well, Mike didn't because he had to work but Jim did enough relaxing for both of them.  He moved from the upper-level pool.....

... to the lower level pool and then to the chaise lounges.

Wednesday we lunched at one of our favorite spots, The Spice Mill Restaurant and then hung out on Cockleshell Beach.  It was pretty cloudy and we had a great view of the storm clouds rolling over the island of Nevis......

....and these showers rolling in just as we were getting ready to leave the beach.

Sundowners on Merengue.

Hans & Kristen, we miss you!  Wish you were here with us!

Later this week, the long awaited domino re-match.  Who will take home the dunce hat? 

Stay tuned.

St. Barth's

We spent 10 days in St. Martin doing the usual.  We shopped chandleries and hardware stores for parts, had a sail repaired, stocked up on French wine and cheese, visited a few of our favorite restaurants and the beach.  The time flew by.  Then it was off to Columbier Bay, St. Barth's. 

Columbier Bay is part of the marine park, a beautiful bay with free moorings, good snorkeling and lots of sea life.  Turtles were everywhere!

Carol and Pat on S/V Songbird are traveling with us and the 4 of us hiked up to take in the view over the bay.  It's a beautiful, rocky, windswept coast.

The pristine beach in Columbier Bay.  You can only get here by boat or by hiking the trail over the ridge.

The bay is alive with sea life.  These are ramoras feeding off of our boat.  Sea turtles are abundant.  We even saw a couple of nurse sharks, one while snorkeling and one just cruising through the bay.  No worries, they're not man-eaters!

Next it was off to the capital of Gustavia, a picturesque town set in the hills overlooking the harbor.  Moorings here are Med-style, bow and stern tie.  It was  bit tricky trying to pick one up, something we had never done before.  After hooking up the bowline we backed up to catch the stern.  But the wind was slightly abeam and kept wanting to push us into the next boat.  A few anxious moments ensued before we were securely tied between the two moorings.  It was only then that we discovered a small string strung between the two moorings that we could have held on to while we tied on.  Something new learned!  We'll know how to do it next time.  By the way, that's Songbird looking good on her moorings.

St. Barth's has long been an island of the rich and famous.  There are wonderful restaurants and chic shops with designer names.  But cruisers on a budget will find they too can visit.  Clearing in, like in all the French islands is easy and free.  Moorings in Gustavia for our size boat were only 6.40 euros, about $8.00 U.S. and were free in Columbier Bay. 

We celebrated my birthday a day early with lunch at a French restaurant called Le Repaire.  I had a goat cheese salad and mushroom risotto with truffle oil. FABULOUS!  Jim was treated to duck breast and some of the best mashed potatoes I've ever tasted.  Pretty good birthday!

Carol, Pat, Wendy & Jim.

Time to get the charts out and think about heading south.  Bailey and her hot-dog toy like to get right in there and help.  Or maybe if she covers up the charts she thinks we can't move the boat!

Time to drop the lines and head to St. Kitt's.  We had a beautiful beam-reach sail on Sunday with 12-16 knots of wind and low seas reaching the northeast coast of St. Kitt's in record time.  Then it took us almost as long to tack our way along the south coast to Basseterre.  The wind always seems to be coming from the wrong direction when we are heading south along this coast.  Now we're here and spending time with friends Mike and Renee before moving south for hurricane season.