Guadaloupe

Our original plan was to miss the French islands but I'm glad we stopped here that's for sure. Completely different vibe, nothing like any of the other islands we have visited. Obviously French, very French and they have made a very good influence. It's the first island we have seen with good organisation with the farming, great crops everywhere of all sorts including massive banana plantations. And the food.... While in the rest of the Caribbean we see massive obesity problems with loads of fried take away places here in Guadaloupe the people are actually skinny! Well maybe not skinny but not massive either :) is a shame though we can't speak French which does make it seriously hard but they are very chilled out bunch.

We stayed up the top of the island on the west in Dashaies, a beautiful little sheltered bay with loads of free really good moorings. We hired a car and took a trip around the island and it's absolutely beautiful and lush, rainforest everywhere and a hikers paridise although we only did a couple of short walks in the national park.

Some tips for cruisers- there's drinking water available from a tap near the showers in harbour for free, supermarkets are really good and although it's in euros seemed no more expensive and our search for cheap beer we found cases for €18,great steaks and awesome cheeses and of course French wine from €3. Check in super easy on a computer at a little shop you can do every day of the week for €4.