We sailed into the bay of Terre Haut, the largest of the inhabited islands in the tiny archipelago called Iles des Saints (The Saints), at 6:45 a.m. These gem like islands were discovered and named by Columbus because he first saw them on November 1, the feast of All Saints – hence their name. They are part of the much larger Department of Guadalupe, which has the same relationship to France as the Hawaiian Islands have to the US. We are actually in France and the currency is the Euro and everything is French including language, the tri-color flying overhead and cuisine. We went ashore at 8:30 a.m. Forty of us went on a visit to the very historic Fort Napoleon sitting on a bluff overlooking the city. The views from Fort Napoleon are spectacular and the Sea Cloud rode majestically in the middle of the bay. This gracious old fort is now a museum and a botanical garden featuring a wide variety of cacti and euphorbia. The grounds surrounding the fort are also home to a resident community of quite large marine iguana. As we arrived at 9AM, and the sun not yet too strong, the iguanas were still sluggish and quite approachable. Of course not that approachable, as one does not easily walk up to a 5’ long dinosaur-looking lizard. The museum holds local ethnographic materials. Of particular interest is the very good diorama of the famous “Battle of the Saints,” which took place two miles directly south of here. The British and French fought a fierce sea battle with the British ultimately the victors. The great innovation of the battle was English’s opportunity to complete a “crossing of the T.” 18th century sea battles were fought with the opposing ships aligned parallel to one another firing cannons at each other until one side succumbed. “Crossing the T” allowed the English to break through the French line and thus fire on the French from both port and starboard sides. It turned into a route.
The main town on the island of Terre Haut (the high ground) is called quite simply the “city” (Bourg). It is a gem. I saw many of our guests avidly visiting the many lovely shops seeking some souvenirs to bring home. All the shops and homes are painted a riot of vivid yellows, pinks, sea-blue and brilliant whites. Another group of our intrepid explorers went snorkeling and discovered an underwater paradise with a variety of fish, different corals, sea urchins and moray eels.
We returned to Sea Cloud for a great lunch of fresh grilled marlin and a wide variety of other delights. Mike Greenfelder gave a smashing talk on Reef Fish at 3:00 p.m.
Tonight we had our “open house” which provided us all the opportunity to visit the original staterooms built by Mr. Hutton and Ms. Post. It is a tad difficult to imagine that this 325’ floating palace was built for a family of three and a few select guests. Those were very different times and Tom O’Brien reminded us of that vividly in a most interesting lecture on the history of the Sea Cloud. Tom was able to bring us the 1930s and the political and social forces at work when Hutton and Post were the doyens of world society.
