Since the last update, we've had a few days in Portsmouth, Dominica, and a terrific sail up to Guadeloupe -- all sails set, beam reach. Couldn't get any better if you screamed at it. Now, I'm sitting in the cockpit, smelling the bacon and onions that Randy's adding to fried rice -- rice leftover from a brilliant curry dinner cooked by Stewart last night. I'm just sitting here slivering a baguette into oblivion. All in all, rather a nice day. Sort of like yesterday and the day before. Etc.

Looking around the bay here at Les Saintes (a small group of islands that belong to Guadeloupe, just north of here), there's a couple dozen boats, including a huge motor yacht with five, count 'em, five satellite communication domes, local fishermen roaring around, and parked right in the middle of the bay is Picton Castle, out of Lunenburg. Small world.

It's beautiful here in Les Saintes. Terre en Haut is the largest island in the group and the little town is a combination of all the best bits of every beach town we've visited. There's a daily influx of visitors on the ferries from mainland Guadeloupe, and the occasional cruise ship disgorging tourists, but they don't detract from the charm of the streets, the houses, the hills and the beaches. There's scooters darting around everywhere (makes you a bit wary when you realize that a lot of the drivers are the day-trippers) and the main street is just for walking, strollers, and bicycles. The baguettes are great, the wine is inexpensive, and there's lots of little shops to explore.

My only problem is that it's also very French, and my French, is, how-you-say, "execrable"? ("Merde" would probably do.) There are many reasons why Randy is handy to have around, and his rudimentary language skills rate high. Tara and Stewart are here as well, and Tara's French gets really pretty good after she's had a few glasses of wine.

Stewart and Tara, Randy and I and Axel (a single-hander from Germany who took some of the best photos you'll see below) celebrated Tara's 40th birthday a few days ago with a lovely long restaurant lunch, champers, balloons, ti punch back at Nancy D, and, just to destroy the elegance and maturity of the situation, we played Black Peter. I was introduced to the game by my friend Alice, who then thoughtfully brought me a game from Ireland. Alice has added such richness to my life. :-) The game is juvenile and brutal, and I think we all used outrageous French accents during the game. It's just like Old Maid - whoever ends up with Black Peter is the big loser, and whoever sticks them with the BP gets to decorate the loser's face with a blackened cork. Usually it starts with a mustache, then deteriorates from there. Aptly, we used the cork from the lunchtime champers bottle. That cork had a big day -- when Stewart took the wire and foil off the bottle, the cork launched itself. It hit the restaurant ceiling, rocketed back down and smashed a champagne glass. Initial sheepish embarrassment, then hilarity ensued. Who has more fun than us?

Livelied up by our excursion to Victoria Falls in Dominica, we've been walking ourselves all over Terre en Haut, which is, thankfully, not too large, but big enough to walk off the pain au chocolats. The windward beach is an easy walk past the big cemetary, and it's at the end of the runway for the tiny airport. I couldn't bring myself to walk across the sand directly under the plane that was taking off overhead. Randy and I walked across to Marigot (how many "Marigots" are there in the Caribbean?) and we also went with Tara and Stewart on a loooong up and down (mostly up, both ways) trek over to a beach on the south side of the island. We saw lots of goats, beautiful views, flowers, banana quits and hummingbirds. A sign by the beach warned us that there was to be "no-bareness." There were a few other people on the beach, some partly bare ones, and a large family group with lots of kids who were setting up a big picnic in the woods behind the beach. It reminded me of family picnics when I was a kid -- blankets and bbqs set up beside the Volkswagen, the kids all splashing and screaming in the water. The best way to spend a summer Sunday afternoon. Even better when it's in January.

Chris Parker has promised that the wind will be kicking up again late in the week, so we're off to Deshaies tomorrow, maybe spend a day there, then off to Antigua to wait for Tom and Haley to arrive. Yay!