Guadeloupe, Basse Terre – Off to the capital city for a little shopping

After going a ‘bit bohemian’ on the small islands of Les Saintes, the winds calmed down, and it was time to continue North.

The human’s planned a quick hop across the Channel des Saintes to the capital city of Guadeloupe, Basse Terre.

Although the guide books say you can anchor up at Basse Terre they do recommend using the Marina on the south end of town.  Of course my ‘cheap’ owners anchored.

We anchored up on the south end of the Ferry dock.  We were warned that the coast here was subject to a SW swell and we promptly started rolling side to side.  Another boat anchored beside us for all of 30 minutes, before making a fast retreat.

But we had not come here for the view, and only stopped here to restock and do a little shopping.

Basse-Terre has a huge fruit and vegetable market and a French discount grocery store called ‘Leader Price’.

The fishermen pointed the humans (remember they do not speak French) to a small dock at the North end of the Ferry terminal that they could tie their dingy to.

They were delighted to find that Basse-Terre was a proper ‘city’.  There was a tourist office right off the Ferry Terminal, that let them use the internet quickly for free and a whole multitude of shops.

At ‘local’ rather then tourist prices the humans were able to find a few Christmas presents and stock up on cheap French goods.

The city is close to many tourist attractions and has excellent bus links to the whole island, but the anchorage is a bit too rolly for most cruisers comfort so we only stocked up and headed on North.

Careful, if you anchor here, not to get too close to the river mouth.  We had to free some metal poles and a big log from our anchor chain.