Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe is where the Lesser Antilles get serious about being French. The island is large by Caribbean standards (650 square miles), green, and split by a sea channel into two halves — Grande-Terre to the east (low, dry, beach-driven) and Basse-Terre to the west (high, wet, rainforest, an active volcano). For a charter guest the variety is the point: a day on a flat reef-protected beach, the next on a hike up to a 100-foot waterfall.

We sail to Guadeloupe as a long day from Antigua — 40 nautical miles south on a starboard reach — or as the southern anchor of a longer Leeward route. Most charters use Deshaies on the west coast as the first stop: a small fishing village made famous by the BBC's *Death in Paradise*, with a sheltered bay and direct access to the Cousteau Marine Reserve at Pigeon Island.

The Saintes archipelago, just south of the main island, is one of the great undiscovered cruising grounds of the Caribbean. Eight tiny islands, 3,000 people, white-sand bays, and Bourg des Saintes — a working French village with fishing boats and bakeries. Guests often ask why no one talks about it. We don't have a good answer.