A letter from the Caribbean

Press, 24 February 1987, Page 29

A letter from the Caribbean

The narrow, winding streets of Bourg are lined

By

SUSAN KUROSAWA

We are sitting on the terrace of La Saintoise hotel and restaurant sipping chilled chablis and waiting for our grilled lobster tails to arrive. The view is so mesmeric there’s no crumb of conversation or snippet of fresh gossip that could justify breaking our reverie.

To our right is an uninterrupted vista of the little port of Bourg. The fishing boats have been drawn up on to the beach; it’s midday and the temperature’s so high the air seems to crackle. The fishermen and shopkeepers are taking a siesta. It’s only the tourists who are out, wandering the streets, settling into waterfront cafes for a leisurely lunch, juggling their shopping bags stuffed with fine cotton T-shirts and pareos

delicately handprinted with boisterous designs of parrots and palm trees. If we did speak, it would be to comment on the colours of this place. First, there’s the sea. It’s more than green. Depending on your vantage point and the depth of the water, it’s lime, turquoise, aquamarine, apple and malachite.

Then there’s the sky. Has to be a better word than blue. Its intensity is such that it hurts to gaze upwards without the protection of gunglasses. Imagine a shade of blue so rich that it verges on lavender. Even the little puffs of cloud scudding through the sky are so dazzlingly white they appear to be newly bleached.

with little clapboard houses sprouting gingerbread porches .and balconies. The colours of buildings are of the pastel, gelati variety, but their gardens are a jumble of reds, pinks and purples. Bougainvillaea, poinciana, hibiscus, allamander and plumbago create a zany profusion of colour, and again the sunglasses are a necessity. The lobsters arrive, the dusky waitress smiles at our fractured French and reappears with another bottle of wine. It’s hours before we leave and the bill is the equivalent of $l6 for two. That’s a third of what we’d expected to pay so we leave an enormous tip and try,

fairly unsuccessfully, to explain to her that there should be a cover charge for the view. This sun-sbaked scenario is taking place on Terre de Haut, one of eight islands making up the French territory of Illes des Sainte, offshore from Gaudeloupe in the Caribbean. This is our fifth port of call on a cruise aboard Mermoz, an elegant liner operated by Paquet French Cruises. Terre de Haut is a tiny speckle of a place but we rather wish we could drop anchor here for at least a week. After a brief wander through town this morning, we took a tour by mini-bus to some of the island’s main sights

We stopped at Fort Napoleon, a ruined hilltop battlement which houses a good little art gallery. The elevated view from this spot is superb: the harbour gleams with trim motor cruises and swanky yachts, distant islets ride the glistening water like huge, humped whales, and the platinium blond beaches of Terre de Haut beckon invitingly. Before lunch we spent an hour or so at La Plage de Pomierre, one of the island’s best beaches. Again, descriptions almost fail me, but the warm water shone like crinkled turquoise cellophane The local goats are far bolder. A mother and two kids flopped beside us and nuzzled at our freshly oiled skin. They were wondering I suppose, why we smelt like large, ripe

coconuts. Little boys bearing baskets piled high with warm croissants and brioche wended their way between the sunworshippers; a longhaired artist from Marseilles was selling his watercolours body-to-body, and a shy little girl with enormous brown eyes tempted us to buy chunky bracelets and necklaces of pink shells and black coral. It’s about five in the afternoon now and we’re waiting for the launch to take us back to the Mermoz. I’ve just bought a fistful of picture postcards and I’ve decided to send you one of those instead. We’ve given it some thought and reckon it’s damned unfair to write and tell you everything you’ve been missing out on.