Waking a few short hours later, the team travelled by car service to JFK airport where they boarded a flight south to Puerto Rico.  There they changed aircraft and continued on to French Guadeloupe, to complete Merryl’s detour.

Flyin’ ova da Caribbean mon

Guadeloupe is a special administrative department of France and is located in the Lesser Antilles approximately 2170km southeast of Miami.  The two islands that form Guadeloupe, Basse Terre and Grande Terre are connected by bridges.  The team’s challenge for this leg of the race was to hire a car and complete a survey of all of the beaches on both of the islands.

The vehicle of choice on Guadeloupe is the Peugeot, so naturally the team’s hired car was a 303 hatchback.  Angela remarked “Guadeloupe, the land of the Peugeot, where Peugeots outnumber humans” and Simon was also impressed with the sheer number of cars.   The next few days involved driving the circumference of the two islands, pulling into the various beaches along the way before returning to kind hosts Camile and Vivien’s home each evening.

Arggg Ang is a pirate (note the imported Australian & New Zealand birds)	Arrg Simon is also a pirate (what car hire place lets their birds climb on you?)

Beach at sunset	Ya mon, we be on da beach

Drinking proper Gwada rhum	Smashing some creole chicken

Waterfall in the middle of Basse Terre	The mighty Peugeot conquerors the Col des Mamelles

Over the 5 days, the team swam with Hawksbill and Leatherback turtles, walked along white, yellow, coral and black sand beaches. They were also able to determine the answer to the second part of Merryl’s challenge by working out that that Gwada is the Creole short form for Guadeloupe.

Cute beach dog!	The town of Basse Terre

Painted palms	Ang is a fan of white sandy beaches

Working out on a beach	Clear waters off Guadeloupe

What a beach	Another beach

Mightly Peugeot next to some Gwada houses	Just like a proper pirate

Gwada coastline	Ruin!

Coral coast	Off-road Peugeot

Red crab at a beach in Gwada	The view from our room – suburban Gwada

With all the two island’s beaches visited, the main task for this leg of the race was completed. The team returned the car and checked into the pit stop for this leg of the race.