Pointe des Châteaux

Coasts & CliffsGrande-Terre,Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe's wind-hammered eastern tip, where the Atlantic has cut old reef limestone into stacks and turrets with a flat lagoon on the other side.

September·Quiet month

Aug–Oct

Hivernage at full pitch: hottest, most humid, wettest months, with the June–November storm season most active now. Nothing here shuts — the trail and point stay open — but the seabirds have gone and heavy showers and swell are likely. Sea peaks near 29°C.

Year-round The castle-like limestone stacks, the split of turquoise lagoon against Atlantic spray, and the ten-minute walk to the cross on Morne Pavillon stand every day; the seabirds and the saline closure are seasonal.

The Pointe des Châteaux is the wind-hammered eastern tip of Grande-Terre in Guadeloupe, in the French Caribbean, where the Atlantic has cut old reef limestone into stacks and turrets that look like castles from the sea, with a flat lagoon on the other side, and it is walked out to a cross on the point in ten to fifteen minutes with the wind rising the whole way and the island of La Désirade on the horizon. Guadeloupe is two islands fused into a butterfly, volcanic Basse-Terre, wet and mountainous, and Grande-Terre, a slab of raised coral reef, flat, dry and quarried into towers by the sea at this point; the path climbs from the car park over the dunes to the cross raised on the highest rock in 1951, with the surf breaking on the stacks below, the pitted limestone drilled full of tide pools that fill and drain with the swell, and the beaches on either side, Anse des Salines on the calm lagoon side for swimming and the Atlantic beaches for the wind. The point is the most visited natural site in Guadeloupe, and the stalls at the car park sell coconut sorbet and rum. Behind the dunes lie six shallow salt ponds, the largest, the Grande Saline, covering some fifteen hectares, where least terns and Wilson's plovers nest on the banks, and offshore the bare islets of La Roche and L'Éperon hold the largest seabird colony in Guadeloupe, some 1,500 to 2,000 pairs of sooty terns with bridled terns, noddies and tropicbirds, seen from the point through binoculars in the breeding season. The path is walked at sunrise for the light on the stacks and the sea on both sides, and the morning is calmer before the trade wind builds. The village of Saint-François with its marina is a few kilometres back along the road. The Pointe des Châteaux is where the flat half of the butterfly ends, and the sea has carved the end into castles.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Go at sunrise — the point faces due east, so the sun comes up straight out of the Atlantic behind La Désirade, and you will have the path almost to yourself.
The tour buses land mid-morning — this is Guadeloupe's busiest natural site and the car park fills early. The crowd thins fast on the trail; most people never leave the beach.
Do not swim on the ocean side — the Atlantic breaks straight onto the rock and nothing here is lifeguarded. Use the sheltered coves back towards the car park instead.
The saline banks are closed from 1 April to 15 August for the nesting season, and dogs are banned year-round, even on a lead. Stay on the marked trail.

Things to do

1
Walk out to the cross at the point
The walk out takes ten to fifteen minutes and the wind rises the whole way. Watch both sides of the path: one holds a lagoon the trade wind presses flat against the reef, the other takes the open Atlantic straight onto bare rock. The cross waiting at the end is about ten metres tall and was raised in 2002, after salt and wind wore out the one before it; it is lit and maintained because ships still steer by it.
2
Find the tide pools in the pitted limestone
Off the main path, the old reef-rock is drilled full of shallow pools that fill and drain with the swell. The limestone is sharp enough to shred flip-flops, so wear proper shoes, and give the seaward pools a wide berth — a bigger set can sweep across them without warning.
3
Scan the Grande Saline for nesting waders
Six shallow salt ponds lie behind the dunes; the largest, the Grande Saline, covers some fifteen hectares. Least terns, Wilson's plovers and stilts nest on its banks, which is why the banks are fenced off each spring. An observation platform on the trail lets you watch the birds without walking in on them.

Watch

Nearby

55 km