The Necessity of Water

We left Ile a Cabrit in Guadeloupe headed for Point a Pitre, with a full main and 3/4 jib.  It was initially an upwind sail, with the wind blowing 16-18 knots.  The jib is on a furling system, which allows us to easily unfurl the sail to meet the weather conditions.  We decided that we could release the rest of the headsail and were moving along steadily at 7+ knots.  The sea state was quite manageable so it was a beautiful sail.  

Along the way we crossed paths with a similar sized Dufour sail boat, also headed upwind to Pointe a Pitre, and suddenly a leisurely sail became an unspoken race.  The winds were shifty, and at one point the wind died down to a few knots.  The boats were hardly moving so I said to Roger we should start the motor,  and he said "No, not yet".  My response was, "If the Dufour wasn't there would you have started the engine already?"  Fortunately for Roger, the wind picked up right at that moment, and we were able to sail the rest of the way to the marina neck and neck with our competition.  But we all know the answer to my unanswered question.  

The marina at Pointe a Pitre is very nice.  The boats are moored Mediterranean style, with boats side by side, stern in, and bow tied to a ball out front. The ball was so far away that it required our longest line simply to reach it.  

Marina Guadeloupe is also relatively inexpensive at 40 Euros per night (1 Euro = 1.20 USD).  The mooring ball at our previous anchorage was 16 Euros per night. Compared to our sailing in the Mediterranean where the dockage was $200 USD to an insane $3000 USD (Capri off the Amalfi coast) per night, it is quite inexpensive.  

We headed in to the 'Capitanerie' to register the boat, but in typical French style, they were closing for lunch and told us to return in an hour, so we scouted out a local restaurant to have lunch ourselves!  This Italian themed salad was exceptional, with fresh parmesan, prosciutto and a full burrata.  

When I registered, I was surprised to learn that we would have access to fill our tanks the day of arrival, however, no water would be available the next day.  This seemed odd, but we thought okay, first priority is filling the tanks while water is available.  We have 180 gallons of water storage capacity, but we had used 120 gallons over the past week, with primary usage from washing the salt water off ourselves and Pirate after swimming.  

After filling up our tanks, we headed out to the marine store in search of the much needed high pressure hose for our watermaker.   Roger was in touch with a Salty Dawg friend, Ben from Daggers Down, and he pointed us in the direction of the chandlery most likely to have the hose we were looking for.  As luck would have it, thirty minutes later, we were back at the boat, 26 ft of high pressure hose in hand!  Roger got to work substituting the multiple hoses in the water maker system, and I headed to the local 'laverie' to catch up on 2 weeks worth of laundry.  I didn't want to wait an extra day as I wasn't sure whether the water supply would be cut off to the laundry as well! 

By 7 pm that evening, the watermaker was up and running, and we high-fived Roger's handy husband capabilities once more.  

We then joined our Texan friends, Kitra and Ben, on their catamaran, Dagger's Down, for pizza and celebratory cocktails.  The last time we had seen each other was 2 years before in the Grenadines and Grenada!  It was great catching up.  Another couple, Amy & Patrick, had also joined in.  They had just arrived from Europe on their new Outremer 52 ft catamaran, named Wayfinder.  Their boat has a really cool graphic of a Vegvisir, or Icelandic nordic compass, which in Iceland means "wayfinder".  It is intended to have the bearer find their way through rough weather - very appropriate for folks that have just crossed the Atlantic Ocean! 

The next day we learned that the water outage was not a 'one-off' situation, and indeed there are significant issues related to water supply in Guadeloupe.  While there are underground reserves of water which are maintained by rainfall, the infrastructure is weak and there are reports that 60 to 80% of water is lost through leaky pipes in the system.  

While there are efforts to address the leaks, there are also water quality issues.  There are concerns that wastewater treatment plants are not up to standard, and that the soil and ultimately then the water and food has been contaminated with chlordecone, a pesticide that was used in banana plantations in the French Caribbean until 1993. (It was banned for use in the USA since the 1970's.) The pesticide was used to combat the banana weevil, a serious pest for the banana crop.  However, chlordecone is toxic to humans and may be linked to prostate cancer and other health issues. It is estimated that 90% of the population of Guadeloupe and Martinique is continuously subjected to chlordecone contamination, mainly via the food chain. 

As North Americans, we take water for granted, and in particular, with the fresh water Great Lakes we are in a very enviable position.  In fact, at our summer home in Georgian Bay, our water supply is straight from the bay, with a set of filters and UV lights to ensure purity.  However, we do not have to remove salt, like we do on the boat with our watermaker.  

With our water maker issues addressed, we headed back south for the 4 hour sail to Ile a Cabrit, the jumping off point for Martinique.  

When we returned to the little islands on the southern end of Guadeloupe the wind had cranked up as a front was coming through, accompanied by a few rain squalls.  The crews decided to hunker down to wait a few days for the wind and waves to moderate.  

We took the opportunity, as we sat on the mooring ball, to use our newly repaired watermaker to produce drinking water as we were down to our last jug.  It got me thinking that we all may assume water is a basic right, but for some, perhaps it is a luxury?  We were able to solve our water issues with a simple high pressure hose, while others are not so fortunate.  

The winds are subsiding a little now and Tuesday looks like a good weather window for our 70 mile, 10 hour sail along the coast of the island of Dominica and down to the northern tip of Martinique. As it can be tricky to arrive in an anchorage at night, we will need to leave this anchorage at 4:30 AM. That will require us to navigate out between the islands in the pitch black Caribbean night. Let's hope there is no GPS jamming going on and we have a successful exit back out to sea.