I still had some shopping to do in the Zone Industrielle Jarry (service kit for the forward head and getting a second 24V LED down light) but I didn’t want to remain in the marina so I spoke with my neighbours on “Sweet Chariot” and they decided to join me for some shopping and then we were going to go into the woods to visit the walking path at the Maison de la Forêt and go for a plunge at the Cascade aux Ecrevisses. The shopping took a while as we had to visit several chandleries and I had no luck but Kent was able to find a fishing rod and hull attachment for their boat.
This time the car, with 5 of us inside, had to work a bit harder to make it up the hill but in the end we made it and found that the parking lots were full to overflowing. It turns out that school
is out here in Guadeloupe so everyone was out and enjoying the picnic area. But we found a remote parking spot for the walk in the forest and had a comfortable trip around the circumference of the small path, with the two girls enjoying the adventure. After the walk, we took a short drive down to the waterfall parking and were fortunate enough to snag a spot from someone who was just driving out. The waterfall and pool were quite busy, but we managed to get a good swim and cool off in the clear mountain spring waters.
We stopped off at a roadside stand selling produce and asked the lady if she could slice open a pineapple for us to snack on; it was deliciously sweet and succulent after our walking and swimming in the forest. We also purchased some of the locally grown items and then proceeded to return to our distant marina in Pointe a Pitre.
Back aboard I realized that I still had a lot of tasks on my Post-It board, so got going with the cockpit table undersides, where the locking mechanism needed all the rust removed and the gelcoat needed cleaning and waxing. Apart from cutting my scalp on a protruding bit of metal and having Madison from next door point out that my head was bleeding the work went well and that happy-hour beer tasted very good once the job was done! I went to the local pizza place in the marina for dinner and had a tasty and spicy Tex-Mex pizza before returning to the boat and trying to re-read Machiavelli’s “The Prince” but not getting very far before nodding off for the night.
