Daisy’s Marie Galante and Les Saintes

These islands surrounding Guadeloupe have been my favourite place to visit so far. Although we have barely explored on land, we definitely have made up the miles under the sea!

MARIE-GALANTE

We stayed at one anchorage on this island while we explored the aquatic world below us. Ballyhoo (small fish with a needle under there mouths) were all over the place, weaving their way through the weed and darting at the first smell of Barracudas. A common site were also cushion star fish, the biggest being around 90cm. Obviously there were loads of smaller fish digging in the sand although I’m still unable to identify them. Other than snorkelling, Dora and I would mess around in the dinghy, attempting to catch fish and spot turtles.

LES SAINTES

Although the first anchorage in these islands was really just a base to explore on land the second anchorage has been one of my favourite experiences. The second anchorage had very clear water meaning that the corals would look amazing, so we decided to go and explore! Luckily for us, under the cliffs were shelves of coral all teaming with life from fish to squid we saw, almost, everything. Some of the fish would go around on their own eating at the coral and rocks around them while others stayed in schools lining the coral. The schools were made of tiny, confident fish not scared in the slightest to have a good look at you. As you can imagine it was really fun to swim through them! I thought I’d list some of the fish I saw and thought were my favourites:

Blue Tang- Blue, oval shaped with white or yellow circle on base of tale

Bar Jack- Silvery and with no pattern, a black dorsal thin.

Ballyhoo- A tiny fish with a needle on it’s head (below mouth)

Blue striped Grunt- Another tiny tropical fish with yellow scales and blue, vertical stripes

Rainbow Parrotfish- Very powerful, parrot like jaw and a colour-changing body

Blue Parrotfish- Powder blue overall and the ones we saw were a metre long!

Trumpet Fish- Weirdly long and slim with a trumpet shaped mouth

Yellow Goatfish- Yellow tail and mid body stripes as well as minuscule tusks below mouth

Of course there were even more fish that we saw although I couldn’t identify some of them! Coral was also in abundance but my coral naming skills aren’t great!

Daisy

PS. Missing you Bingo and Aubrey!