les saintes

Tuesday morning we were up before the sun (3:36 AM to be exact). We pulled up our anchor and were on our way out of Martinique before 4:00 AM.

We had hoped the girls would sleep later, but they were too excited about our middle of the night travel start.

We've seen a lot of sunsets, but this was our first sunrise on the boat.

Emma ended up taking a nap, but Olivia would not.

It is 70 miles from Martinique to Guadeloupe (about 12 to 14 hours by boat depending how fast you go). Some people stop in Dominica, which is in between the two islands, but we decided to pass it by.

Dominica

About an hour before we arrived in Guadeloupe we were greeted by the most amazing welcoming committee - a pod of 7 dolphins. I've always wanted to see dolphins. In all the years we sailed around Florida (and trips back and forth to the Bahamas) we never saw dolphins. The girls may have been a little more excited than me watching them swim along with the boat for a couple minutes before disappearing.

We're spending a few days in Les Saints ( Îles des Saintes), which is a small group of islands that are part of Guadeloupe. We spent our first day snorkeling, shopping, climbing trees, playing at the playground and scootering.

octopus
school of smallmouth grunt
lobster
longspine squirrelfish
bluestriped angelfish
anemone