Usually travel days are boring and annoying, but this one turned out all right. The literature told us to be at the ferry 2 hours early, so of course we arrived 2.5 hours early. Then we met 8 French people waiting for the same ferry. They were drinking rum and banana (put bananas into the bottle of rum and pass it around) and eating Pringles (to “sponge” the rum). When we approached them, I said (in French) “Hello. We are American. Pardon us.” They all laughed, said “Sorry!” And invited us to share their rum banana stuff, which we did. We chatted a bit in a mixed Franglais and enjoyed the wait with new acquaintances.

Our ferry was called Liberty, but was similar to this one, going in the opposite direction with Dominica in the background.

Powerful engines propelled the ferry at around 30 knots, covering the distance between the islands in a little over 2 hours.

The ferry ride between the islands was spectacular! The Atlantic Ocean is deep blue, with a lot of white caps (similar to our sailing day, but on the ferry we did not see any flying fish, and we could actually take some pictures.) Islands were visible the entire 2 hour trip.

A colorful sailboat with Grande Terre (Guadeloupe) in the background.

The ferry passed between mountainous Îles des Saintes, above, and the very flat island of Marie Galante, below.

Our first view of Dominica confirms that it is a steep, mountainous island with numerous volcanoes.

Roseau, the capital and largest city, appears as a fan alongside its namesake river. The main part of the city is about 8 blocks square. The population of 15,000 can increase by thousands when cruise ships dock here. Fortunately, we have at least a couple of days with no cruise ships. Like Antigua, we are happy to not be renting a car as driving and parking are challenging. Even walking in the city is a challenge, due to lack of contiguous sidewalks and missing storm drain covers. Most of the businesses were closed when we arrived on Sunday, so we ate dinner at the Fort Young Hotel on the far side of the cruise ship dock; we watched a cruise ship leave as we sat down to eat on the deck of the Palisades restaurant, listening to the waves pound the rocky beach below.

Today we went to the National Park from the east side to find a famous waterfall. This is the one that Christopher Columbus saw from his ship in 1493, which caused him to land on Guadeloupe to find fresh water. Les Chutes du Carbet are three waterfalls; we hiked to the middle fall which is over 400 feet high!

The walk to the waterfall is about 1.5 miles, nicely paved with volcanic rock and with a lot of stairs and wooden walkways with wire grids to prevent slipping.

But today we learned what a tropical rainforest is all about – rain!

Large snails are rare but happy here.

The forest has a huge variety of vegetation, ranging from tiny leafed ferns to giant leafed vines.

See the 2 Euro coin in the middle of the green leaf? For scale.

Part of the stream below the waterfall. Steep valley!

An incredible morning. I’ve never hiked with an umbrella and a pole before. It takes talent!

For lunch, Clare ordered crayfish, and Brian wondered who would be eating whom?

Bananaquit visiting an adjacent table. We saw these a lot on little birds on Antigua, but never when we had a camera.

It is a bit of a lazy afternoon, because both of us are sore from yesterday’s sailing. I never knew it was possible to get a core workout from a sailboat ride. What we did not mention yesterday is that on the way to the other island, the passengers were used as ballast for the sailboat, which was tilted at 30 degrees (Brian said) but Clare swore it was at least 45 degrees (believe Brian). We needed to lean this way and that, front, back and sides, to compensate for the wind and the waves. We all sat on the same side of the boat with our feet dangling down the side. Waves splashed us at inconsistent intervals, which was fun because the water was a blazing 26°C, but the ride lasted an hour and a half. Both of us are bruised and have sore muscles from that part of the day yesterday.

So this afternoon, we might watch some Pirates of the Caribbean in French with French subtitles, then go to sleep early for tomorrow is a ferry boat ride to our next island – Dominica!

Today, Friday, we went sailing with Olivier on a 25-foot boat from Marina Rivière-Sens in St. Charles to Îles des Saintes, a small archipelago south of the Basse Terre island of Guadeloupe. Olivier not only sailed the boat, he was also tour guide, bartender, and cook!

After almost two hours sailing over somewhat rough seas (3-4 foot swell), we arrived at a small harbor next to this cliff of columnar-jointed volcanic rock.

We snorkeled and swam.

We did not see many fish, but found some Sargent Major fish and a fan coral.

After lunch on the boat, we got a tour of the islands. This bar and restaurant was the first to open on the islands.

This unusual house is shaped like the bow of a ship.

We saw a couple of kite surfers. The volcano that we hiked to yesterday was obscured by clouds all day.

At the end of the day, we saw young people jumping off cliffs beneath a lighthouse, and were treated to a rainbow and an amazing sunset. What a day!

We hiked up the volcano! Not all the way to the top, but pretty high.

The trail was steep but well maintained, with volcanic rocks lining parts of it and making stairs for us to climb.

See how thick the vegetation is? Such an interesting place to go!

The top – a view seen for about a minute before it was covered with clouds once again.

A selfie, from as high as we went. Piton Tarade is the hill in the background.

We took a different way back down, an old road that was much wider and easier to walk.

Views from the road down. It was easier to take pictures on this road because no other people were on this path.

Thus began a new adventure! This screw got into our left front tire! (Brian could hear it clicking the pavement once we got into the car at the volcano parking lot.) Because no air was lost from the tire, we drove into Basse Terre and parked to look for a restaurant and to call the rental car firm. However, we found a police station first and they helped out by calling Hertz and then directing us to a tire repair place. The tire was fixed in 10 minutes for €15! A late lunch consisted of two kinds of grilled fish, rice and beans, vegetables, breadfruit, plantains, and sweet potatoes.