VERY rocky anchorage this, but settles a bit overnight. When I went to bed it was almost difficult to stay there. Though the winds are calm, the seas are rocky.

Rains a lot in the morning so no impetus to go anywhere. I do decide to dive on the rudder and clean it off with the scraper. That should help steerage at least. Need gloves to hold off of the bottom as I’m scraping so I don’t cut myself on those barnacles. Get the rudder pretty nicely cleaned up and do a few feet of the waterline all around the boat too. Hard to believe how much stuff is growing on the bottom but at least it comes off pretty easily. The odd barnacle needs some persuasion.

A few times I feel a sting-like prick on my arms and legs and look to see what bit me but never see anything. No signs of wounds or anything so I assume it must be just sharp pieces of barnacle or something. More on that later.

It’s still pretty gloomy and I’m pretty waterlogged so we stay aboard and do stuff until it starts to clear up. Eventually, I take the dinghy down and we head into the pier by the popular beach. Lots of people around and very few parking spaces – busy for a Monday.

We walk across “town” to the Carre Four, stopping at a couple of restaurants to see the menu. The only recommended game in town that is open tonight has a good-looking menu and also a great view so we make a 7:00 pm reservation and head back to the pier. It’s about 3:00 pm so we’ll go quickly to Pigeon Island, do some snorkeling then relax and get ready for dinner.

That’s the plan. It doesn’t quite work out that way. On the pier I’m feeling in my pockets for the dinghy keys but they’re not there. This is not good. It’s very strange as they are a bulky package and not something that falls out of your pocket without you noticing. But I don’t have them. Christy doesn’t have them. They’re not in the backpack. We both go through the dinghy twice each at least and they are not there.

I could probably McGiver something to hold the Yamaha outboard auto-shutoff switch so the engine will run, but we have locked the dinghy to the pier with a cable. We do have spare keys on board, but they are a ways away. Have to walk back into town to be close enough to Milu to swim out, get the spares and something to McGiver the motor switch with, swim back. This sucks. I’m an idiot.

I check with the dive shop while Christy checks with the beach office to see if anyone has turned in some lost keys. No luck. Then Christy has the great idea to rent a kayak to go out to the boat. We go over to the kayak rental place who only rents by the demi-jour but when we explain our situation he volunteers his young employee to take us out to Milu in their runabout. This is a very kind gesture. I’ll go out with him on the launch while Christy retraces our steps to look for the keys. The young fella takes one of their kayaks out the 50 yards to where their launch is moored while I wait for him on the pier. Then I hear a shout “Perry” from the beach. Christy has found the keys. They were hanging on a fence by the entrance to the dive shop.

Divine Providence has entered our lives again. The amount of hassle this saves is monumental. We resolve to prepare a spare, ready-to-go set.

(Christy piping in here… Perry finally agrees to wear a fanny pack in future or something that will hold onto his “stuff” other than his pockets. This has been an ongoing debate between us for a while.)

I wave to the young guy circling to pick me up off the pier, he gives me the thumbs up. I go back to his boss and give him EU$10 to give to the kid. He is happy.

Whew. Where were we? Oh yeah, snorkeling.

We get on the dinghy and go back to Milu, load up our stuff and dinghy the couple of hundred yards out to Pigeon Island. It’s pretty good timing since it’s now 4 pm and almost all the tourists have gone. The snorkeling is pretty good, unfortunately our GoPro battery is dead so we didn’t acquire any evidence.

As I’m swimming along I feel 3 or 4 more of those pin-stick like stings. I don’t see anything in the water but I’m sure there’s something here stinging me, it’s not just dry skin. I’m wondering if Christy is feeling it too. I do see what looks like a jellyfish about the size of a golf ball but that’s all I see.

We swim around the outside of the island a bit, then head back to the dinghy which is tied to a mooring ball. It’s almost 5 pm so time to get going. As I’m approaching the dinghy I get stung right on the upper lip and boy does it smart. I flail around a bit at whatever did it but neither feel nor see anything. Climb aboard the dinghy where Christy shows me where she got stung (one of them looks like a black fly bite) and I show her my upper lip. It’s red, a bit swollen and sore, feels like the dentist did it. The other stings don’t show on me.

We shower off on Milu, I look up jellyfish in Guadeloupe. I reckon they were sea wasps, small 2-4″ jellyfish that sting but nothing too dangerous. Nice. I shave and by the time we go in for dinner there is no more evidence.

We dinghy into the beachside pier again. It’s a rocky spot but with no one else around we can get a spot against a couple of old tires so even with the swell, and using the rear anchor we won’t get banged around too much.

Walk up the half km to La Rocher de Malendure (rock of Malendure) for dinner. Fairly busy and we have a nice view though it is dark and overcast so not much to see. Christy has what looks like the best steak we have seen in the islands, I have the burger. Been a bit of a tough day so we entitle ourselves to some ice cream – I have what might be called a whipped cream sundae – 3 scoops of vanilla piled high with whip cream and chocolate sauce. Christy has her usual 2 scoops of mango and chocolate.

It would seem that not drinking has made ice cream palatable for me again. In the past, I wouldn’t have been able to have 3 scoops of ice cream and make it out of the restaurant without a bathroom visit, but these days the repercussions are much less severe.

Dinghy back to Milu in the full moonlight though it is a bit overcast. Apparently there is a lunar eclipse tonight but we will miss it.

The bay at Pigeon Island is VERY rolly. While the wind is not so bad, the boat is sideways to the swell so we are rolling so much it almost throws you out of bed. We hear that Deschaies, our next stop, is windier so a little concerned but this is about as bad as we’ve had it. Gosier was pretty bad and same with our first night in the Saints, although that one settled down over night. So does Pigeon Island but we’re both looking forward to leaving this anchorage.