Bienvenue aux Saintes

What do a Catamaran, an island, a scooter, and an open bar have in common? Perhaps the combination sounds like a recipe for disaster to you. Fear not, your adventurous leading characters in the continuing saga of the Chronicles of Justin & Ashley have everything under control. For your personal enjoyment, I have managed to combine all four elements in an unforgettable episode you won't want to miss.

On Sunday, Justin and I "island hopped" over to Terre de Haut in Les iles de Saintes, just south of Guadeloupe. The local Canadian restaurant, Tomato, sponsored a day trip for students looking to take a break. It wasn't hard for us to think of a good reason to go. I thought of four...as in the four A's Justin made on the last round of tests. So we woke up early on Sunday and walked to the dock, where we found the catamaran waiting for us.

The Passion, our sailing vessel for the day.

We boarded the Passion and helped ourselves to the bagels and cream cheese (items NOT easily found on the island, and certainly not cheap if you do score some), Starbucks coffee with Dominica styled Baily's and Mimosas. If you can see the green netting on the left side of the boat, then you can see where we sat to start our journey, only on the right side.

There were about 30 people total including three crew people, the owner of the Tomato, Justin's Physiology professor's wife (who called herself the party lady and so we never quite caught her name, but kept our drinks filled the whole way there and back with a smile on her face), associate Dean Myers, and various other students. Our group consisted of our neighbor Lauren, and my friend from the bookstore Rachael and her husband Brian.

Lauren, Rachel, Brian, Justin, and I sat at the very front of the boat in the green netting which was a cross between a hammock and a trampoline- very bouncy. The weather was perfect, slightly overcast which meant I wasn't sweating yet, with a nice breeze. We left the dock and I sailed on a boat in the ocean for the first time in my life. After about 30 minutes, we had cleared out of the bay and were getting further out into the Carribean Sea so the waves were larger and we were only getting a small sea spray every once in a while when we hit some huge waves and decided we'd had enough of the green netting. So we're standing near the bar still at the front of the boat when we hit a huge wave (which doesn't hit the area we had just left, of course) and the splash was pretty much the equivalent of having a bucket of water dumped on your head.

So much for waking up early and fixing my hair so I could be a cute tourist on a french island. Plus my iced coffee with bailey's was completely ruined. Thank goodness for the party lady and her quick refill skills.

For the rest of the two hour ride, we learned it was better if we tried to stand where we wouldn't get quite so wet. I also learned that I get sea sick. It is very similar to car sickness. I'm glad I don't get sick riding in airplanes. I'm also glad I didn't throw up on the boat.

As we reached the islands, the crew pulled in the sails and we came into the bay where we were greeted by cheerful red roofs and sandy beaches.

Lauren and me as Les Saintes comes into view.

The Dominican flag on our boat as we dock at terre de Haut.

The first thing we did when we arrived was rent a scooter. I won't go into the entire ordeal it took to finally rent a scooter, but it involved going to three different scooter rental stations (scooters are popular), standing in line (scooters are popular), and standing in line some more (what can I say, scooters are popular).Rachel trying to figure out how to put on her helmet. She has a knack for over simplifying things.Lauren taking a test drive around the plaza before the rental guys were comfortable with her scooter skills. Don't worry, she was awesome.

So Justin had never driven a scooter and I had never ridden on a scooter. Is the phrase "recipe for disaster" resounding in your head? It shouldn't be. We only got about 10 yards before I hopped off so Justin could follow suit with Lauren and take a couple test laps before I added my extra weight and awesome balancing skills. Once we got the hang of it, we were fine, although I couldn't help but think of the horror stories we heard from the other tourists while standing in line... scooters going off cliffs, scooters crashing through storefront windows... but we were fine. After a while I was able to relax and enjoy the wind in my hair and the fact that we were actually riding around a French island on a scooter!

Our first stop was Fort Napoleon, a nature reserve to the north of the island that closes at noon. We arrived at 12:10. While we weren't able to see the old fort, we did get some great pictures of the bay and town.

That is Guadeloupe in the background.

So the next stop was the beach. We had a hard time navigating the one way streets with our tourist map but somehow we made it to an unnamed beach, thanks in large part to Lauren's French skills.

The locals-only hidden beach we found! The water was cool and clear. Brian brought a snorkle mask, but there wasn't anything to see.Me and Justin post swim and ready for some lunch.

We hopped back on the scooters and scooted around town looking for a place to eat french bread and wine. Unfortunately, our choices were slim because it was after noon on Sunday. But we did get to drive around and see the whole town while we were looking. We found a cafe, Les Amandiers, where Lauren's French again came in handy and we ordered fish and chicken and wine. By the time we finished eating, our time was running out. Justin, Brian, and Lauren returned the scooters while Rachel and I tried to find baguettes to take back with us. We found a place that only had 6 two foot long loaves, which we bought, but forgot to take pictures of! We bought a few more bottles of wine, and some ice cream with the left over Euros we had (it was delicious, by the way, and the server even said "voila!" after every scoop! Justin ate plain jane vanilla, I ate berries and cream (the first fresh berries I've seen or tasted in months!) and Lauren had papaya. Tres bien!

The end of our visit was very hurried, no pictures of the bread or ice cream, but that just means we'll have to make another trip!

The boat ride home was very long. We were all tired, but there weren't enough places for everyone to sit. The open bar continued, and Justin polished off at least one whole bottle of wine on his own (and wore another half bottle on his shirt). We sailed through a cloudy patch with rain, but on the other side was a beautiful rainbow and a pod of dolphins. It was breathtaking to watch them swim alongside the boat. We were going too fast to take a clear picture, and I haven't had a chance to ask the others if they were able to get a good shot.

So the catamaran brought us back to Dominica safe and sound. Now we just have to make it through three more weeks before the final round of tests!