December 25

As you can see, Santa Claus arrived in the Antilles sans sled and sans reindeer.

12/22, 2008 “She still here” Took a little ferry to the only other inhabited island, Terre de Bas. Walked and walked . . . mostly up . . . There was an old ‘pottery’ there. Very huge operation in its day. Big sugar plantations on now very deserted (two tiny villages) isle. No evidence of tourists - yea!!! Had lunch with the locals.

December 23

Well a lot has happened and nothing has happened since arriving at Les Saintes. We’ve eaten lunch at a couple of good restaurants, we’ve climbed up to Fort Napoléon, strolled on a couple of nice beaches and gone to Terre-de-Bas, the only other inhabited isle in the Saintes. It was a 5 minute ferry ride from Terre-de-Haut. Terre-de-Bas is a very different kind of place than its sister island. Very quiet--few tourists and fewer things for tourists to do. Besides seeing the place, we wanted, of course, to have lunch and to buy gasoline for the dinghy. It’s really strange that the only place on Terre-de-Haut (the big town where we are anchored) to buy gas is accessible only by boat! Stranger still since there are so many motor scooters and several cars on the island. At any rate, it was easier to take the ferry to the other island and buy gas there to bring back. I was worried that they might not permit me to carry a gas can on board the ferry. They certainly wouldn’t at home! Not to worry, though, there were others doing the same thing, in spite of the fact that there was a sign posted on the boat that said carrying dangerous items such as gasoline was strictly prohibited!
Last night won the “anchorage from Hell” award for the harbor. Actually, the wind has howled through here nearly every night and the boat has rocked and rolled quite a bit. Last night, however took the award. Winds in excess of 20 knots and choppy waters guaranteed that we would get little sleep. If the wind and water were ever like this on Barren River Lake, no one would dare go out. We had intended to take the ferry to Trois Rivières today, but chose to stay on the boat in case we dragged anchor. I’ve been concerned about that since day one, but probably unjustifiably so. According to the GPS, we haven’t moved an inch)

I've added to my collection of images of doors and windows of the world. The typical Creole architecture of the Saintes is charming.