Caribbean Adventures Aboard Kalalau: Pigeon Island, Guadeloupe

Monday, January 28

We sailed down to Pigeon Island in the morning on Monday, arriving there around 11 am. Pigeon Island is a small uninhibited island about a mile off the west coast of Guadeloupe where there is a Jacques Cousteau Underwater Park and one of the world's top dive sites. Gene and I were excited to go diving since we hadn't dove since St. Kitts. We anchored in the bay off the Plage de la Malendure across from Pigeon island, and took the dingy over to the dive spots on Pigeon Island. Diving from the dingy is a bit of a challenge, but we managed it alright. The dive was awesome with a huge coral wall that dropped straight down. We stayed at around 50 ft for the majority of the dive, and made our way almost completely around Pigeon Island underwater.

After our dive, we went back to the boat, showered, and went into the little beach village for lunch at Le Rocher de Malendure which is a beautiful restaurant up on the highest hill at the rocky point of the village. Again, we had some challenges with the language barrier, but we had a really great meal, and even tried the local drink called Ti Punch which is a small glass (a little larger than a shot glass) half filled with the local Guadeloupe rum, raw sugar, and lime. We tried the local cuisine as well while we were here – the creole octopus and the smoked fish with avocado. The smoked fish is served everywhere in southern Guadeloupe and the Saints. It's really delicious although we still aren't sure what type of fish it is!

Octopus creole, smoked fish salad, goat cheese on toast, and Ti Punch