We might have a favorite new anchorage after spending 5 delightful, peaceful days in the French islands known as The Saintes. The first little island we stayed at was Ilet a Cabrit, uninhabited except for wild goats and roosters, hens with their chicks running about. We think the name means Goat Island??? We hiked up to Fort Josephine, ruins of a French fort built in the late 1700's, and now occupied by the goats! We then visited the main island, Terre den Haut, and hiked up to visit the magnificently restored Fort Napoleon, built in 1867, with a commanding view of the town and harbor. We were very impressed with the extensive collections in the museum housed in the fort.

Fort Napoleon, c1867

We also had a lot of fun diving in The Saintes, and were happy to be able to try out our new scuba gear. It's very hard to get great photos underwater, but here are a few decent shots. They do not show all the beautiful colors and patterns and designs in every piece of coral, or the intricate details of even the smallest of fish.

I think these are Horse-Eye Jacks

One of my favorites - Foureye Butterfly Fish

Guadeloupe is actually two large islands separated by the Salee River. The island is French, so we tried very hard to speak our limited Cajun French with the warm and hospitable locals, who almost always can speak some English. Highlights of our visit include meeting a wonderful family from Belgium who rescued us when our rental car battery wouldn't start up in the mountains after hiking in the rain forest. We invited them to come for a short sail with us the next day over to Ilet du Gossier, which is just a beautiful sandy island with palm trees and a lighthouse.

Ilet du Gossier

Ricky, Robin, Fleur, Chloe, Danielle and Marc having dinner at the marina.

We thoroughly enjoyed visiting the Botanical Gardens at Deshaies, a sleepy little hamlet in North Guadeloupe. The hummingbirds were plentiful!!!  Flowers and gardens were amazing.

This way to the waterfalls!

Hiking in the rain forest of Guadeloupe

 

Nevis is both beautiful and an island full of interesting history, including the birth place of Alexander Hamilton (his father had a sugar plantation on Nevis) and the famous English sea captain, Horatio Nelson, married a wealthy widow from Nevis whose family owned Nisbet Plantation. We had a lovely lunch at The Hermitage House, built in the 1640's and the oldest wooden house in the Caribbean. They served the most amazing mango cobbler for desert!

 Living room at The Hermitage House, circa 1640's

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 Lots of goats on the island of Nevis. This pair got separated from their mother.

Alexander Hamilton was born in this house.

Saba is an island that most people have never heard of. It's close to St. Martin. We enjoyed three very beautiful, peaceful days at anchor there mid July with only a couple of other boats. The diving was absolutely amazing, and we toured the small island (only 5 square miles) in a few hours. All of the buildings there are painted white with green shutters and red roofs.

On May 19, 2016 (exactly 7 years to the day that we left in 2009 to buy our first boat in Panama!), Ricky and I flew to Tortola in the British Virgin Islands to purchase our second catamaran. We kept the name of our first boat, Always Sunday, because we had such an amazing time living aboard for 14 months, and our new boat came with the name Tequila ( I've never even tasted Tequila).
Because this is our second cruising experience, it was easier to pack things from home to bring with us, but much harder to actually provision this time because our first boat was stocked with most items needed to live on the boat, like dishes, pots and pans, and extra boat parts. The new boat, although three years old, came with nothing, and so we have spent the last two months having work done and taking major shopping excursions (with lists a mile long) to outfit the new boat. We plan to stay in the Caribbean for the first year, then we really want to visit South America and then, hopefully, on to the South Pacific in time.