Finally an update!

So I can’t remember what I said in my last blog, or even when it was and seeing as I’m typing this offline and then I’ll upload it when I get the internet I can’t check so I’ll just type and see what happens! I'll start with some photos


Sunset from the beach


The beach


Traditional music being played in a bar on the beach


My "office"


The view from my office


Me, Jess and Vanessa at Jess' birthday meal out

So I’ve been on a few dives now and started my level 2 diving certificate with the French Federation. This involves 12 dives and performing exercises such as assisted ascents from 20m to 3m using the BCD and not your flippers. So basically Cyril will simulate something being wrong and I have to grab him and use his BCD to get us up at a safe speed. It’s a lot harder than it sounds, especially when he “passes out” half way up and loses his breathing reg! I also have to lead the dives, which means finding the boat again! So far so good but I think it’s partly because I’m getting to know the diving sites! The first time I just set off and was like, I really hope the boat is in this direction! Luckily it was! I also have to do some theory, most of which I’ve already covered but it’s good revision and interesting to have the lessons in French.

We went on a night dive at some point last week, on le franjack, which is a ship wreck at 25m that I’ve already dived on during the day. During the day it was interesting because you get to go inside and at night we saw 3 enormous turtles, we saw them all separately and then all together at the end. We also saw a stone fish and some really big crabs. Life under the sea is very different at night, all the fish are sleeping. The first turtle we saw was not impressed at all, it looked at us as we were taking photos of it and you could just tell it was thinking “leave me alone, I’m trying to sleep!” Eventually it got really fed up and swam off in a huff!

At some point before Christmas I took a bus up to Deshais to the beach Grande Anse after a morning dive. It was a really nice beach and I just sun bathed and read for a couple of hours and swam in the waves; it’s one of those beaches that gets deep really quickly so the waves are fun (but slightly dangerous!) and there is a strong under current. The beach was really long with golden sand. One of the busses on the way there was driven by my neighbour so he called by to pick me up and take me home at the end of his shift, I got a door to door service!


The beach Grande Anse

I did some more exploring around Christmas time because they decided to shut the club for Christmas day so I hired a car for 3 days; Yohan was with his brother and Cyril and Jess had both taken off to les saintes (apparently beautiful islands south of mainland gwada) for Christmas (separately). I went out for a meal with the car hire guy on the 24th because that’s when it all happens here. He was really nice, we tried to go to the cinema but it was shut so we went to Gosier to a really nice beach and had a really good meal. On Christmas day I drove to Pointe des Chateaux, which is the bottom right hand tip of the right butterfly wing. There were some pretty spectacular waves there and a pretty little beach that I wouldn’t dare to swim in!


The beach at Gosier. Some guy was playing with a luminous frisbee. I didn't even notice when I took the picture but I like the effect!


The beach at Pointe des Chateaux


Waves!

I drove up and went to what the guidebooks described as some of the best beaches on Guadeloupe. Altho they were pretty I was mildly disappointed so I didn’t stay long. I drove back via somewhere called le Moule and stopped to watch some pretty good surfers catching some fantastic waves.

The next day I attempted to spend the afternoon shopping. I headed to Bass-Terre, the biggest town this side of the island and the second biggest town in Guadeloupe. I managed to buy a pair of flip flops and a coke before all the shops shut at 1pm for the day!! So I took the scenic route round to where I hoped there would be a commercial centre, I remembered that Isa had pointed one out to me on the way from the airport on my first day. I wasn’t wrong and spent the afternoon speed shopping. I bought a Guadeloupian sim card and managed to find out how to get my computer to agree with the internet in the place opposite my house. I also bought the last Harry Potter book in French (having bought all the others second hand in Paris I was mildly appalled at the price seeing as it was more than all of the first 6 put together! But I was too into the story to care and had forgotten the details about how it ended). I was tempted to buy Twilight in French too but this time the price put me off so I’m going to try and borrow it off someone! I also bought mosquito nets for the windows in the house, which have yet to be put up but mean that the mosquitoes might leave us in peace in the mornings and evenings. The next day I tested out the internet connection and then headed off to La Souffrière, Guadeloupe’s volcano. No one told me about the walk up, or that it wasn’t as touristy as I thought it would be. I had planned to buy lunch there but there was nothing there! The climb started in the woods for 40 mins or so before attacking the actual volcano for an hour hike uphill. Just before the top I was flaking and had to ask a random for food! The views on the way up were pretty special. When I got to the top the volcano was happily puffing away, which is apparently a good thing. It didn’t smell too much but there was a lot of white smoke/steam coming out of a hole. The vegetation was a little greener than normal. The hike down was a lot easier and I was in the company of the group of people I begged food off; two Guadeloupians and someone from La Reunion. At the bottom I had a swim in the hot water sources before heading home.


View on the scenic route round to some open shops!


The walk through the forest on the way up La Souffriere


La Souffrière


View on the way up La souffrière


More views


More views in the clouds


At the top


The puffy bit puffing away


The top


The hot water source at the bottom

Jess and I spent New Year at someone’s house, a girl who works for CIP, the dive centre next door and our direct competition. It was a good night although I didn’t really know people well and the music wasn’t really my type of music. They had good food and loads of champagne so Jess and I arrived home pretty merry and fairly stuffed.

The next day we only opened for the 2 afternoon dive trips at 1 and 3pm. At 3pm a whole family of English people had booked in so I got to go out on the boat as the official translator. Turns out 2 of the girls are assistants and so are basically doing the same as me out here, we exchanged numbers and I’ll hopefully get in touch with them soon to meet up.

One evening the other week we went and ate Galette des Rois at le nid tropical, a group of bungalows near where I live that works closely with the dive centre. We ate with a group of divers who had come on a diving holiday and had dived with us almost every day at least once a day during their trip. Galette des Rois is a French Christian tradition and is a large pie thing made out of franjipan. Hidden inside it is la fève, a small figurine and whoever gets it is the king or queen for the evening. We made it so that Robin got it, Jaco and Isa’s 6 year old son, so he was happy.

Since then I haven’t really been up to much in the evenings. I’ve been on the internet a couple of times. I seem to spend a lot of time chatting with Jess and Cyril and the evenings just disappear. This week I have an eye and an ear infection so haven’t really been in the mood to do anything but it also means I won’t be able to dive this weekend ☹ I’m hoping to get at least one dive in so I can finish my level 2 next weekend, but that depends on whether or not my infection has cleared up by Sunday.

Works been ok, pretty calm now the season is over and to be honest there wasn’t much of a season. The way tourism is linked to france here is almost worrying. As soon as France came to a standstill with snow and strikes, tourists couldn’t get here and so we had a delayed start to a season that never really took off. I can feel my French getting better tho; I don’t have to ask people to repeat things so much and I’m getting faster at speaking and find it easier to understand the young language.

There’s talks of more strikes like they had last year kicking off towards the end of January. Altho it would give me something interesting to write about for my intercalary project (something I have to do for uni about current affairs) I’m hoping it doesn’t actually happen. Last year apparently it got pretty nasty and it became impossible to do anything, as well as the fact that there were no tourists to dive.

The mosquitoes have started to leave me alone, or they have started to effect me differently so I don’t notice as much, which can only be a good thing!

Next week a new stagiaire is arriving so I am going to lose my room to him and have to share with jess seeing as there will be another stagiaire who arrives at the end of jan, and so we’ll be 5 people in the house, 2 girls and 3 guys, with 3 bedrooms. So us girls will have to share. I’m moving into Jess’ room which is smaller than mine but she has a shower in it.

Anyway, this has hit essay lengths so I’m going to say good bye! I’ll try and update sooner next time but no promises. Even tho I have internet in the place opposite now it’s not always easy because it shuts at 6 and I don’t finish work until somewhere between 5 and 6 pm normally.

I’m off to tidy my room now so that I have my things in a reasonable order before I move into Jess’ room!