Antigua & St Barth's 2013

1st-3rd January 2013

New Year’s day dawned a little damp and overcast in Antigua. Slowly the light drizzle gave way to the sun and we were greeted by a spectacular sight courtesy of mother nature. A beautiful rainbow took centre stage in the sky and not only was it beautiful, but so was it’s twin.Yep, a double rainbow. You sure don’t see that very often. What a great way to start the new year. 

                       

                  

The morning was spent enjoying a leisurely breakfast at the Inn over at Nelsons Dockyard with friends from Sundancer 2. Meanwhile the girls, Helen and Bridget, did a bit of exploring around the historic naval site and visited the museum, catching up on the history of Lord Horatio Nelson.

    

 

Being New Years day most places were closed so we opted not to go into the main town of St John’s and instead did some snorkeling. Sadly the coral was not very colourful and the fish life was only average, still it’s always nice to jump in and have a look around.

 

        

As we’d be heading off early next morning we once again said goodbye to Sundancer 2 and hoped that we’ll see them again next season when we head down towards Panama. So that was our first day of 2013, and the end of the day was as spectacular as the start with “you know who” giving us another awesome display of her magic.

 

Even with a good sailing angle and ENE wind of 20 kts it was a 90 mile run to St Maarten, which meant that we would be arriving in the dark. As dusk fell we were abeam of St Barth’s and as we had never stopped here, a mutual decision was made that this would be our spot for the night.

This island is another playground of the rich and famous and as we approached the place was lit up like a small city. It wasn’t until we were close to the anchorage outside the main town of Gustavia that  we realised that all the lights were coming from anchored superyachts, the likes of which we had never seen enmasse before. There had to be at least 40 of them all trying their best to out-do their neighbours with numerous deck lights and  underwater lights. It was quite the spectacle.

 

The town itself in the light of day wasn’t anything special, though it did have all the gucci shops including one that had a 24,000Euro fox jacket in the window! We wandered around for about an hour, had a very expensive coffee, dropped into a great supermarket and stocked up on a few yummy French specialties and that was the extent of our visit to St Barth’s.  Many of the super yachts had left the anchorage by the time we got back to GWTW but there were still enough to get some happy snaps.

 

Next stop for us would be the French / Dutch Island of St Maarten.

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Dominica, Guadeloupe, Antigua.

27th-31st December 2012

From Martinique we sailed to the lush Island of Dominica.This was just an overnight stop for us in the bay of Portsmouth and next morning we continued north to the Islands of Isle de Saints on the south side of Guadeloupe.

Isle Des Saintes

We have stopped at The Saints  group on previous occasions and really like them. Liam and I went to a very funky café for lunch while my sister and niece had a walk around town and checked out the shops.

 

As with all the French Islands, and the same in France, many business close between 2 & 4 pm for their siesta. Not a bad tradition if you ask me. Nothing like having an afternoon snooze to revitalize the system. The bay had changed slightly since our last visit and there seemed to be more mooring balls installed. Rather than anchoring we picked up a ball, something we rarely do. The cost was only 12 euros for the night, not bad really given the water was 62ft deep.The town is very pretty with brightly coloured houses and interesting wall murals.

                   

 

Even the local cemetery was brightened up with plastic flowers and colourful conch shells adorning some of the graves .By nine the following morning, after a quick run to the patisserie for baguettes and other French delicacies, we were on the road again.

Deshaies

This time we had a run of 22miles with 15 knots out of the ENE and a small chop on the waves. Once we got behind the Island of Guadeloupe just to the north, it was flat water and fast sailing to the town of Deshaies at the northern end of the island. Once the anchor was down and set the girls were in the dinghy and ready to explore this two street town, which didn’t take long.

There are a few restaurants, a patisserie and a couple of supermarkets and a gift shop and that’s about it. Although we never seem to arrive in the anchorage at the right time of day, apparently an enterprising guy trudels around the anchorage in his dinghy about 4pm taking orders for baguettes and croissants, which he delivers fresh and hot to your transom at 7 am the following morning.What a great service!

Antigua

Antigua was our next objective and we were staying there three nights, one of which would see the new year in. English Harbour was the place to be and we found a snug spot up in the front row in a depth of 11ft. Being Sunday afternoon the big attraction is the Shirley Heights bbq and Steel Pan Band experience.

This was a must see for our visitors. So along with the crew of Sundancer 2 we piled into a taxi and headed up the hill to enjoy the music, bbq and watch the sun set over English harbour and  the distant island of Montserrat. Perfect.

            

We saw the New year in on the lawns of Nelson’s Dockyard in English Harbour along with the Sundancer 2  and had a great night.  A DJ belted out tunes through loud speakers, rum was the drink of choice, party animals danced the night away and fireworks lit the skies. For good or for bad 2013 had arrived. 

          

                 

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Northbound from Trinidad.

Grenada,Guadeloupe,& Antigua

26th March -1st April 2011

Sporting nice clean hulls and a new bottom paint job after our recent haul out we were all set to head out again. It would be more like a sprint than our usual slower pace as we wanted to get up north quick

new paint job and ready to go

.Our overnight sail from Trinidad to Grenada was ‘ a piece of cake ‘ compared with the reverse route  6 weeks earlier. Again, there were a few rain squalls, the odd trawler to dodge and a little motor sailing due to lack of wind, but the big plus had to be the lack of large swells that had knocked us around during our passage down. Arriving into Prickly Bay Grenada around 10am, we actually felt quite fresh and got on with tidying up the boat as well as ourselves. As we had planned on staying just one night here, the obvious choice for dinner was to visit our favorite Chinese restaurant, the Choo Light. Once again Mrs Choo and her husband did not disappoint our taste buds and we were well topped up on our favorite foods by the time we left. Luckily it was a good 15 min walk back to our dinghy, just enough time to let our dinner settle before climbing into bed that night.
Making a concentrated effort to get as many miles under our keels in a short space of time we opted for another overnight sail. When you are on a roll you might as well keep going so when 0800 came around  the next morning  and we hot-footed it out of bed and pointed GWTW  towards Deshai on the island of Guadeloupe, some 250 miles north. The first 24 hrs saw us sailing fast in flat seas as we  passed the islands of St Vincent, St Lucia and Martinique.

The Caribbean sailing season was quickly coming to a close and most of the charter boats had finished plying these warm southern  waters. Pretty much  it was only cruising boats who were still on the move now, and they too would be heading to a safe haven or, like us,  leaving the Caribbean for the approaching  hurricane season starting in June.  This was  plainly evident having seen only one other boat  sailing  between Grenada and Guadeloupe. As the last rays of sunlight faded that evening  we reflected on the days events, two lures lost and not a fish  in sight.. Liam reckons he  spotted the  elusive Green Flash, though that  remains in dispute as there was no photographic evidence of the event. Shortly after nightfall  the seas began to build and  the wind increased. Things looked to be  shaping up for an uncomfortable night’s sail.

Luckily the previous night’s  weather was not as bad as we’d thought it would be and by 9 am the next day things had calmed down again. We only had 50 miles left  to run and by 1600 were snug on the anchor in Deshai. Having  anchored in this bay  on two previous occasions we  had the check-in formalities down pat.

Not quite the customs office we are normally used to! but then it is French

 
 A quick trip into Le Pelican hand over our 3 euro clearance fee and it was all done in a few minutes. Whilst  in the small shop come-customs office, we bumped into another Aussie couple. Ray and Lea.Hearing Aussie accents always makes our ears prick up. They too    were  anchored out in  the bay,and told us that they  had just purchased their Leopard 38 cat “Equinox 2”  a few months earlier and were also heading north.This was their first sail boat and they were eager to have a chat about the cruising  life so we  found a small side walk bar to shoot the breeze, and get to know them. About an hour later as the necessity for sleep began to take over, we headed back to GWTW for an early dinner and  a soft pillow under our heads.

A gusty 15-20 knot easterly wind greeted us the next morning as we rounded the headland and pushed north toward Antigua. Our GPS told us that the 52 mile sail, in rather lively conditions, would take us just on 6hrs. Along the way we caught up with “Equinox 2”  and took a few pictures of her as she romped along in the big swells. They were headed into English Harbour where as  our course would take us along the eastern shore of the island to some quiet bays which would be new territory for us.As we bid them fair winds and safe sailing over the radio we watched them disappear behind us and  it wasn’t long until they were just a speck on the ocean.
A few hours later we arrived at our destination. Negotiating the outer reefs surrounding Nonsuch Bay was fairly straight forward, however the sad sight of  a yacht lying high and dry on the reef was a stark reminder that one can never be too careful when there are reefs around.



After a small dog leg into the bay, the beautiful calm anchorage sprawled ahead of us. Once again  aqua blue water was lapping on our bows.Lovely new and apparently free  mooring balls were dotted around  the bay. The signage on each buoy specified that they were for use by vessels 60ft and under. We presumed that these had been installed by the  Antigua National Park Trust. With only three other boats for company we spent a relaxing night listening to the waves crash on the distant reefs.
 
Before leaving Antigua we made two more stops ,Jumby bay and Bird Island in North Sound. The later having more free mooring balls and some ok snorkeling. From here we had a 30 mile sail north  to  Antigua’s sister island, the reef strewn  Barbuda .


                                             


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ANTIGUA

Antigua : Old friends and steel pan bands

18^th – 29^th January 2011

While we were in Barbados we’d pretty much mapped out this years cruising season. The plan was to leave Barbados mid January and mooch over to Bequia, turn left, dawdle down through all the postcard type islands and hit Trinidad for the carnival in March.

Then we’d head back up the chain and cruise up and down the east coast USA till the end of the hurricane season in December.

Sounds like a good plan we thought, yep that will work we said BUT, and there is always a but when you are cruising, we forgot the old cruisers adage, “you write your plans in the sand and then the waves come and wash them all away”.

Receiving an email from our good friends Gordon and Ginny (Ascension) asking us to “pop on up to Antigua” for a visit, aka a 300ml sail in the opposite direction to where we were planning to go, saw us dismissing the idea at first. Then after chewing it over for about a week  it dawned on us that if we didn’t  “pop on up” we may not see them again ‘till who knows when, as they would be transiting the panama canal later this year and heading back to the greener pastures of Canada. The last time we’d seen them was in the small Greek anchorage of Trizonia in June 2009 and it sure would be terrible if we let this opportunity slip by. So there went our plans. It was time to bid Barbados goodbye.

With a careful look at the weather forecast we decided the best time to leave would be the afternoon of the 15^th January. We would sail through the night and aim for the southern tip of St Lucia 90mls away, then sail up in the lee of the island and stop the following arvo at Anse de Grand on the island of Martinique and the night after in Friendship bay at Isle de Saints, the south end of Guadeloupe .

The lovely anchorage of Anse de Grand

The whole trip once we rounded St Lucia would be lovely day sails until we reached Antigua. Another good plan, or so we thought.

 In years gone by all the articles we’d  read on sailing the Caribbean   spoke of  flat water, fast sailing, blue skies and steady breezes. Well we think that all the authors must have had way too much rum when they put pen to paper. Our introduction to Caribbean sailing was far from the pictures painted in those glossy magazines. In fact at one stage we began to question our own sanity!

The night passage from Barbados was pretty good and as a bonus there was a full moon, but as we approached St Lucia it was a whole different ball game. The sea state became very confused making for a lumpy, salty and uncomfortable ride. The heavens opened and the rain came pouring down, not just drizzle but heavy, can’t see the land anymore type rain. What had happened to our sunny Caribbean sea?

Rain, rain and more rain !

After rounding the southern point and once in the lee of the island the waters were much calmer, and at last the sun began to shine. The hills of St Lucia looked extremely lush and were dotted with homes that reminded us of Queensland, many of the houses perched up on stilts. The high hills and deep valleys allow “bullets” of wind to come racing down and out over the flat sea. As we would soon learn, the standard sail configuration here in the Caribbean is 2 reefs in the mainsail and a jib as the trade wind blows at 20 to 25 knots most of the time.



Sailing up the leeward side of the islands was exhilarating to say the least, but the passes between the islands, usually around 20 miles or so of open water were unbelievably rough.


 After a few days of this type of sailing we really were beginning to think that heading north to Antigua was not a smart idea. Still we petsisted. 

Knowing that we could take our time coming back down the chain at a later time we fast tracked to Antigua , stopping only once more before our arrival.    

We made landfall in Falmouth Harbour, and were greeted by the smiling faces of Gordon and Ginny (Ascension) and Sarah and GB (Djarrka). Bob and Becky (Stardust) were also there so it was just like old times again and we were glad that we’d made the effort to sail up. Over the days that followed we caught up with our old friends over many a meal, shared many a joke and generally had a wow of a time.

Gordon & Ginny



Sarah & GB



 We strolled around the historical grounds of Nelson’s Dockyard with its immaculate lawns, gardens and restored buildings, hiked up the hill to Shirley Heights where we enjoyed a Sunday evening BBQ and listened to a fabulous Steel Pan Band while we took in the sunset and views over English and Falmouth Harbours and the distant island of Montserrat.



         Above (L) Nelson's Dockyard & above (R) Shirely Heights bands and views over  the harbours 

During our stay we also made a couple of trips into the main town of St John’s for shopping etc and we also took the bus over to the resort area of Jolly Harbour but saved the lion’s share of the islands sightseeing until our next visit later in the year.

 Boat chores as always swallow up a lot of time and energy and Liam spent a lot of time up our mast fixing our jib furler that decided to come apart when we tried to pull our sail down for some minor repairs. A quick little job turned into a major headache that took 4 days to fix, and he managed to jam one of his fingers in the foil  during the process  and ouch was definitely not the first word that sprung into his mind when that happened!.

Falmouth Harbour is home to the Antigua Yacht Club and attracts some of the largest yachts on the planet. The marina is quite small but the combined wealth of the yachts tied up there was just mind blowing The fact that you could just stroll the docks and get up close and personal with the likes of The Maltese Falcon and Mirabella V, THE biggest sloop in the world with a rig that stands 84 m tall, then of course there were the smaller ones coming in at 120ft – 180 + ft like Twizzle, Salperton, Tiara, and Lady B just to name a few.

                 The size of the masts were incredible..Maltese Falcon  left & Mirabella V on the right

 

There were also a goodly number of big power boats as well including Eric Clapton’s Vabana. Sadly whilst we were in the anchorage we watched the beautiful “Salperton” limp back to port as a motor boat after she was dismasted in a gentle 12knot breeze when her carbon fibre rig failed.

Apparently it will take 6 months to build her a new rig in New Zealand so for the owner and crew this seasons racing and cruising plans are now sitting on the sea floor just off the coast of Antigua.

Clearly Antigua is a hangout of the rich and famous and as Liam likes to put it “we fitted in well”!

Australia Day saw the majority of the Aussies from the cruising boats at anchor as well as some of the younger ones working on the super yachts gather at the popular watering hole “The Mad Mongoose” bar for drinks and a little socializing. The Mongoose was also running an appeal for the relief fund for the Queensland flood victims, so we were all very happy to be patrons at the bar that evening.

A few days later it was time to think about heading south again. The farewells were sad, as they always are but we know that our paths will cross again somewhere in the future.

                                                                                                                                                                           

On the 29^th January we pulled up the anchor, pushed out into the open water and pointed our bows towards Guadeloupe and places beyond.

Above (R), the unassuming Antigua Yacht Club

(L) Maltese Falcon , there's a guy hanging just above the second spreader , now that's a BIG mast!

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CRUISER INFO:

WI-FI. We bought a prepaid $ 50US one month subscription to “Hot, Hot , Hot” which                                      

  is a network available throughout a lot of the Caribbean Islands and it has worked well for us.

                                       

SUPERMARKETS: “Epicurean” a short bus ride from St John’s and was very good                                 there is also one at Jolly Harbour.  There is also quite a good one for daily needs at the dock at Falmouth Harbour.

WATERMAKER FILTERS: “The Watershed” with its red door and dinghy dock at Falmouth Hbr sells the paper filters for $7 us each, cheapest around by far.

VHF: CH 68, English and Falmouth Hbrs for any type of service from taxis to riggers to laundry.