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Cleaving GuadeloupeYou have to admit it’s quite cool to be able to say that you have sailed right through the middle of an island. Of course Guadeloupe is not really one island, it’s two, and the Rivière Salée (Salt River) which bisects it is not really a river but a channel. But let’s not get picky. Taking your boat along the body of the butterfly that is made by Guadeloupe’s two ‘wings’ sounds much more interesting, and that’s the kind of adventurous stuff we cruisers do, right?
As so often in our roving lives this short journey is both wonderfully romantic and plagued by the prosaic and practical. We nearly didn’t do it. Chris Doyle’s pilot advises that headroom through the two lifting bridges is 80 feet but maximum beam is 7 metres 60, “and for this you will need lots of crew and fenders”. Our catamaran Zingano was launched at just on 7 metres - without fenders. Since then with all the stores we’ve taken on board she may, for all I know, have put on a few inches. Well, it’s happened to me! And though we have plenty of fenders, we had only our number one helmswoman, Léonie, and me for crew. Friends with cats not quite as fat had gone through, but from their reports it sounded a bit tight. So by the time we arrived in Pointe à Pitre, heading for Antigua, I’d pretty much decided to give the idea a miss on the grounds that it was all going to be a bit stressful which is not what we went sailing for.
Go for itBut…while going back in the dinghy from town to our boat I thought ‘lets just take a look’ and so we set off to check out the bridges. There’s a speed limit of 5 knots in the channel, but it is unsigned and I was blithely ignorant of that at the time, as the locals seem to be. So we followed someone through the southern bridge and up to the northern one in no time. We reckoned them to be decidedly wider than 7 metres 60 – I’d say there was a good extra metre there. Perhaps the “official” maximum boat width is 7.6m, not the actual bridge width. I called the local Sunsail base to see if they had any advice and they were very helpful, saying they thought we’d have no problem and cats bigger than ours regularly go through. Back to Doyle who points out that you save over 40 miles on the trip up to Antigua going this way; and I calculated we would gain a blessed 20 degrees of Easting too, so we were on. The French authorities helpfully provide three moorings just before the south bridge – there are no charges for these or for the passage. The water here is a scant 6 feet and they are a tad close together. Knowing that there would be no wind in the night and we might end up swinging any old way compared to our neighbours we chose to anchor a bit away in deeper water. If you do this do be sure to put an anchor light on as there were at least a dozen boats powering through from 4am. You could also just as well stay at anchor the night before off the marina or by the town, since it’s only 1.5 miles up to the bridge, and the channel is wide and unobstructed. Once anchored I was comforted to find us joined by an Italian crewed catamaran, which looked about as beamy as ours, particularly as they only saw fit to pop out a couple of fenders on each side. I had liberally festooned Zingano with our entire stock of defences.
An early awakening5am is the opening time for the south bridge, and from half an hour before the navigation lights of four or five other yachts started popping on as they got ready for the off. As we set off we appeared to be followed by a boat that was reversing all the way. I wondered for a minute if this was their preferred technique until I realised they’d simply forgotten to switch their low hanging anchor light over to steaming lights. My plan was to go last, on the basis that if we got stuck we would parade our shame only to the bridge operator, and could shout at and blame each other in peace. Like many careful planners though I change my mind at a whim and seeing that the Italian cat was pawing at the starting gate it seemed a good idea to follow them through so we could see how they fared. The north bridge opens earlier at 4:30am so as you would expect they let the southbound boats through first and we could see one loitering on the other side. The Italian cat must have missed it for when the bridge operator called (in French) for the southbound boat to come through the cat roared towards the bridge only to be driven back by a hail of polite but stern instruction. This little setback overcome, and the other boat through, they set their bows for the gap. Next thing we knew five of them (and the bridge operator) were pushing off the starboard side. So there was indeed a current as we suspected, and this would set us to starboard.
Rubbing alongThe south bridge is actually two bridges and they open together. The first is wide though barely lit and the second is narrower but well lit. As we approached in the dark I’d forgotten all about the first one and was drawn towards the light of the second, so we got needlessly close to the piers of the first bridge before realising our error and jinking accordingly. You have to do a bit of jinking with these bridges. A daylight recce is well worth the trouble – and it’s pleasant stretch of water anyway. Despite seeing the problems the Italians had, we got it wrong too. We helm on the right so Léonie instinctively kept that side tight so as not to worry about the blind side, and the current just pushed us against the wall. But no matter, that’s what those fenders are for. We just rubbed along for a few moments and popped out safely the other side. Once through this bridge it’s fairly plain sailing to the next one. You have to be careful and there’s no point rushing, but the buoys are lit and we had no problems. We found there was hardly any wind as is often the case at that hour – thankfully so for it would be on the beam where you don’t want it.
Next one pleaseWe were grateful for our Italian pathfinder, but not surprised to find her champing at the bit as the north bridge failed to open at the appointed hour of 0520. There is a surprising amount of road traffic at that time so it is common sense for the bridge operator to wait for all the upcoming boats to get near the bridge before opening it. As they got close some of the boats behind us started to bunch up and then cursing the ones in front for not moving ahead before they realised the situation. By this time they were tight together and had a little trouble holding station. One of the boats in our flotilla never did appear and after a wait of several minutes the bridge opened and we went through. This one is quite a bit wider than the other and seems generally easier, though you have to jink sharply to the left as you pass through (another reason to let someone else show you the way). Just north of the bridge there are three moorings in 9 feet of water. Doyle suggests you breakfast here before moving on in daylight and enjoying the scenery. We’d thought about doing that, and the Italians picked up a mooring. But there are reports that the world’s largest mozzies infest this corner so in the end we decided to crack on although this meant we were now the pathfinders. Some of the other boats stopped too but one continued to follow us before mysteriously disappearing into the dark after a little while, perhaps to wait for more daybreak.
Way to goThis next section we found the most difficult. Having dealt with both bridges you think you are through but you still have to pick your way through swamp for another mile before getting to more open water. During the earlier part of the passage we could see the banks looming each side in the dark. Here though the banks recede in places at false branches and pools, so you really need to be guided by the buoys. Luckily our friends Lenny and Sue on Windancer had tipped us off that the lights on some of the buoys had failed, so I was ready in the bows with a searchlight and able to pick them out. We were lucky too to have just a few drops of rain as the reduced visibility would have been unwelcome. The depths were never a problem for us with our 4’6” draft, and in any case Doyle writes that boats drawing as much as 7’ have scraped through. This was also a lovely part of the passage. Pottering along in the remains of the night it was very quiet and still. There was a lot of bioluminescence in the water. Not on the dramatic scale of places like Vieques, but enough for the wake from the props to leave a bright green glow of turbulent water shimmering for several feet behind the boat.
Jinking through the reefsGetting to the end of the channel, you still have to pick your way among 5 miles of reef through a deep water channel. Doyle gives a series of waypoints for this which make it all immeasurably easier if you have GPS. You can’t relax completely as some of the waypoints appeared just a tiny bit off, but at least you know where to point and what to look for in the soft light of the emerging dawn. Another bit of good news is that for some reason this is a pot buoy free zone. Unlike most other French islands which seem to get liberally strewn with minefields of water bottles in critical approaches, the fishermen here have yet to cotton on to the sport to be had. We didn’t see a single glint of plastic waiting to snag an uwary prop. We finally arrived at the outer channel buoys at 0645 with 40 miles to run to Antigua. You are still in fairly sheltered water here and there’s plenty of room to hoist sail and set off for your destination. For us that was Falmouth Harbour, where we pulled in for a late lunch after an easy and comfortable passage motor sailing in light winds. One trick I only thought of later, when it was too late, would be to put tight tracking on the chart plotter, if you have one, then turn the track into a route. This would have given us a handy set of accurate waypoints for doing the passage again in either direction, even in poor visibility.
A repeat performance?Would I do it again? Yes, absolutely – it’s a no-brainer now if the routing makes sense. Would I go south through the passage? That’s a bit harder to decide. One advantage of the northbound route is that you can clear out in Pointe à Pitre at the marina, whereas the Customs and Immigration offices at Deshaies, the west coast jump-off point, are well known to have variable opening hours. Coming south you could stop in Deshaies but clear in later in Basse-Terre or Pointe à Pitre without being given the third degree. Making landfall on the west coast could give you 20 degrees more Westing which you might well want. And you can have the pleasure of snorkelling or diving in the marine park around Pigeon Island. To go south through the Salée you have little choice but to take one of the mozzie-infested moorings by the north bridge before nightfall, as you really would not want to pick your way through in the dark to arrive at 4:30am. You do however get to enjoy the scenery and Doyle suggests some anchorages in among the reefs which sound lovely and are probably very little visited. I suspect it’s fairly typical, though, that while I saw five boats go north the day before, and four came with us, each time I only saw one boat going south. All in all, this is an unusual passage as well as a very useful ‘short cut’ and if, like us, you’ve harboured doubts about doing it do think again – it’s really not that hard and a lot of fun.
Top tips for the passage
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