Gone Sailing for a Year

Where is Jacques Cousteau’s favorite dive spot? Pigeon Island Guadeloupe.

CousteauA man as cool as he is legendary, Mike & I had to stop over and check it out; the Jacques Cousteau National Underwater Park. We blared our soundtrack to Life Aquatic and made anchor just a few miles South of Deshaies in Pigeon Bay.

Mr. Cousteau is an accomplished man; famed for underwater exploration and research, he is also a renown oceanographer, naval officer, and filmmaker. As a kid growing up next to the Atlantic, I loved the water. You could barely pull me out of it for lunch. In his films and books, I, like so many others, was influenced by Jacques Cousteau and his amazing work to introduce the Ocean to the masses.
Upon entering the boundaries of the Underwater Park we were still in 200 feet of water. We spotted the largest turtle I’ve ever seen floating on the surface 30 feet starboard of us. It had a dark brown shell and couldn’t have been smaller than 3.5 feet long (head to tail). We didn’t see the head but I think it may have been the Loggerhead (status: Threatened and known to grow quit large) or the Hawksbill (status: endangered). We anchored and jumped into the clear water. We checked the anchor and Mike spotted a large turtle in front of us. We followed the turtle leisurely diving down to see there were two long thin white fish swimming directly under the shell of the turtle. It was surreal. We were chasing turtles in the Leeward Islands. As we sat and watched the sun dip down, I spotted turtle after turtle dipping its grumpy little head above the surface for only a moment of air before diving back down.

We dinghy-ed over to Pigeon Island and tied off to a mooring ball used for small dive boats & dinghies. We rolled over the side and plunged into the warm crystal clear water. The Underwater Park is famous for being untouched by fisheries and holding hundreds of species of coral and fishes. The entire time I kept giggling with happiness. We had drinks with a couple we met in Deshaies, Nills & Lisa on a C&C 36. Nills was once a dive master in Puerto Rico. We had seen him dive down in Deshaies and he moved effortlessly and stayed down what seemed like an eternity. It was really impressive. So, with me being barely able to free dive down to 17 feet, I asked for some tips. He was very encouraging to practice little by little and gave me the most helpful advice. People overwork themselves. Once you jackknife down into 5 feet, you don’t need your arms and you don’t need to work until you jackknife back up. I tried it. And wow. He’s right. If I don’t use my arms and legs while I’m below I can hold my breathe so much longer. You really need to calm your body and not exert yourself. Over those 3 days I went from diving 17 feet and gasping for air at the surface to about 28 feet (and gasping for air).cousteau-status. On the SouthEast side of Pigeon Island is the commemorating statue of Jacques Cousteau giving the okay diving sign. Unfortunately he’s missing his “OK” arm, must have been sacrificed to the sea god. Mike dove down the 38 feet and touched the beanie of Cousteau. I got about as close as Mike’s fin to touching the statue before I said nope, that’s all the air I got for this and surfaced. I was creeped out when my mask for a third time suctioned tighter onto my face. I had never felt that much pressure on my mask and didn’t want to push my limits too quickly. On our snorkeling trips and free dives we saw the most amazing corals brain, staghorn, elkhorn. We saw countless butterfly, angel, and parrot fish all gorgeous in their own way. And my big take-away was watching a barracuda about 2 feet long pass right past me (mind you, everything looks distorted and larger underwater… so this thing appeared to be about 3 feet long!).
I was torn between floating perfectly still and frantically swimming over to Mike to get his attention and warn him of the predator in our vicinity. I ended up waving my hands frantically trying to get Mike’s attention only to notice my gold wedding ring. Barracudas are notoriously attracted to shiny objects and me being me decided that was just too much shiny to be waving around in front of said barracuda. So I stuck my left hand above water and swam just behind the barracuda for a moment. There were also 3 black fish (shaped like an angle fish but rounder) swimming behind the barracuda like a posse. So that was cool, I swam with the barracuda posse.
In the end. I fell in love with the clear water perfect for novice or expert scuba divers novice or expert snorkelers. The amount of life and color which drenched the ocean floor was overwhelming. It also opened my eyes to how much we need to do to protect this environment. We’re not all accomplished oceanographers and marine explorers but we can change our daily lives bit by bit so we consume and waste less. We can find programs that aim to preserve and clean the ocean.Read more