1 February 2012 Deshaies, Guadeloupe
I went into town to clear out, ready to leave tomorrow and it absolutely threw it down – fortunately I managed to hide under a shop awning until it died off. We were planning to go for a hike which follows a river upstream, but decided that the river might be a little bit too swollen for a safe walk, so we spent the day doing more admin, cruising the internet and lurking indoors as heavy rain showers with blustery wind came through.
Glenys made dinner using pasta tortellini filled with mushroom, but unusually for her it all went wrong and the meal was dry and tasteless. I made a negative comment about her meal and grabbed a jar of mayonnaise out of the fridge to “make it a bit better”. She had a sense of humour failure – I think (hope) that she was more annoyed with herself than me…
2 February 2012 Deshaies to Jolly Harbour, Antigua
We were up at six o'clock and motored out of the anchorage at half past six. Bizarrely, the wind was very light and we had to motor for an hour until the wind suddenly picked up enough to sail. We then had a cracking sail for six hours on a reach doing six to seven knots arriving at Jolly Harbour at half past two.
On the approaches to Antigua, I finally caught another fish – a nice Dorado. I was starting to despair because we've trolled two lines for 250 miles over the past three weeks and haven’t caught anything.
We cleared in at Jolly Harbour Marina where they insist that incoming yachts tie up alongside the customs dock. It was a bit of a faff having to get out the fenders and mooring lines, but in the end it was a fairly painless process and, half an hour later, we were anchored in the lovely blue, but cloudy waters outside the marina.
Glenys has managed to have a text conversation with her friend Julie, who is now on a cruise ship in the Virgin Islands and will be arriving in Antigua on the 5th January. We’ve arranged to meet them somewhere in St John’s at nine o'clock in the morning.
“Hurrah” arrived in the anchorage and invited us to join them at happy hour, which was enjoyable. Glenys then cooked Dorado in Creamy Mushroom Sauce for dinner – I was very complementary about her meal tonight.
3 February 2012 Jolly Harbour, Antigua
We went into St Johns to suss out where we could meet Julie and Graham. The bus that we caught was a normal small minibus and we were the only people on board. The driver decided that he wanted to get something to eat, so he took us off the main route and made us wait for ten minutes while he sauntered off and bought his breakfast. Typical – does this only happen to us?
St Johns is a strange place with the cruise ships dominating the town. There are two huge docks on the sea front which can take up to four of these massive floating cities - each one can unload 3,000 tourists into the town. We found a café on the sea front where we’ll meet Julie and there’s an anchorage just 50 metres away. I was a bit worried about coming into the harbour because there’s a local bye law forbidding other vessels to come within 150 metres of cruise ships, so we asked at customs and they said it would be OK.
We wandered around St Johns and eventually found the Botanical Gardens which were more like a run-down park. However, it was pleasant with hundreds of school kids running around in their brightly coloured uniforms, although I did feel sorry for the boys dressed in garish pink. Back in town, we had a lunch in a local establishment. Glenys had spare ribs and I had “Salt Fish with Provisions”. This turned out to be a ladle full of salt cod in a hot tomato sauce with a range of vegetables including sweet potato, green bananas, cassava, plantains and dasheen. I’m afraid that most of the green bananas and dasheen didn’t get eaten – too alien for my palette.
We called in at the market and caught the bus back to Jolly Harbour, where we picked up our laundry and chilled out for the rest of the afternoon.
4 February 2012 Jolly Harbour to Deep Bay, Antigua
We sailed around to Deep Bay, which is just around the corner from St Johns. We had good wind and managed to tack right into the entrance of Deep Bay, giving up as we passed the wreck which guards the entrance to the bay.
After lunch went snorkelling on the wreck, which is a three-masted iron barque that sank in 1905 after its cargo of pitch caught fire. It’s right in the centre of the bay and one of the masts sticks up about a foot above the water. It’s only in 8 metres of water and would be fantastic to snorkel on, but unfortunately the visibility was only 2 metres today.
Back on the boat, I saw fish jumping so I thought that I’d try my hand at fishing. To my amazement caught and landed a Remora – it must of weighed ten pounds, but I managed to catch it on my light spinning rod. I let it go by lowering it down into the water in the landing net and it swam off.
After that, I caught a nice little Jack, but nothing else – looks like fried fish sandwiches for lunch one day.
5 February 2012 Deep Bay, Antigua
We motored around to St Johns to pick up Julie and Graham. There were four cruise ships in the town and I was very nervous about breaking any Port Authority regulations about navigation near to these massive ships. The anchorage that we’d spotted a couple of days ago was very shallow, so I left Glenys slowly motoring around in deeper water, while I lowered the dinghy and went to pick up our guests from the dock.
Julie said that they had to be back by five o'clock at the latest, so we decided that it would be safer to drop them off at the hotel in Deep Bay at three o'clock and they could get a taxi back from there. They didn't want to miss the boat…
We sailed out of St Johns and south along the coast heading for Cades Reef to go snorkelling. Unfortunately the wind was light, causing us to turn back to anchor off a beach outside Jolly Harbour. I took them to the beach for a quick swim and while Glenys made lunch. We then had a nice sail back to Deep Bay and went for a beer or three with them at the bar before they caught a taxi. They had a nice day.
Glenys and I walked along the beach and up to the small fort on the headland where there is a great view. We staggered back to the boat and had a kip – remind me not to drink before six o'clock…
6 February 2012 Deep Bay to Falmouth Harbour, Antigua
We had a bit of a hangover today after continuing to drink more beer and wine after we had our afternoon nap yesterday.
We were going to spend the day chilling out in Deep Bay, but it became rolly with a large north swell which was hooking into the anchorage. We decided to go down to Jolly Harbour, but on the way, we changed our minds again and continued on to Falmouth. It was a nice sail to the south west corner of the island, but then we had to motor into the wind and the swell for a couple of hours to Falmouth Harbour.
It took us half an hour to find somewhere to anchor – the anchorage off Pigeon Beach looked far too rolly in the northerly swell and the first spot that we tried was poor holding.
We stayed on board and chilled out for the rest of the day. Falmouth is one of the premiere places in the Caribbean to park expensive yachts and power boats. There are loads of very impressive yachts in the marina in front of us with huge masts which they light up with spotlights all night indicating that they are “considerably richer than yow”.
7 February 2012 Falmouth Harbour, Antigua
It was a very grey morning with showers, so I did some administration. I'm still trying to sort out various bank accounts and transfer money about – it’s so frustrating. Glenys sorted through her provisions and decided which meals she’s going to prepare for Andy and his family when they arrive in four days time.
After lunch, we went ashore and booked a scuba dive trip for Andy, Jake and Tyler, a couple of days after they arrive. Tyler's been doing a PADI Open Water course in a quarry in the UK, but has only managed to do two of her four qualification dives, so she’ll have to finish her course over here. Andy acerbically told me by email that she couldn't finish the course because the gay-boy instructors refused to let her dive with “only” one inch of snow on the ground…
We had a quick stroll around to Nelsons Dockyard in English Harbour and walked along to the old fort overlooking the entrance to the anchorage. There are only twenty or so boats in the outer harbour, but it looks crowded. We've decided that we’re not going to bother trying to anchor in English Harbour – the wind swirls around and the holding is poor. A friend of ours (who shall remain nameless) anchored there a few weeks ago and, while they were out for the day, their boat dragged into an American catamaran. They ended up with a bill of over $2,000 US to pay for a dive company to re-anchor their boat and to repair minor damage to the American’s boat – what happened to cruisers helping each other out?
8 February 2012 Falmouth Harbour, Antigua
It was a jobs day today. We did a bit of admin and then tackled a few small jobs in the morning.
In the afternoon, I tried to get our automatic bilge pump to work. The switch that detects the water level is a clever design with a micro-switch that is actuated by the air pressure in a tube going down into the bilge. When the water level rises, the air pressure increases in the tube pushing out a diaphragm which activates the switch. The air pipe had cracked and wasn't holding the air pressure. Having repaired the switch, I still couldn't get the bilge pump to suck the water out of the bilge. I’ll have to finish off tomorrow – another day of stinking bilge water – lovely. Glenys spent the afternoon cleaning and sorting out the boat ready for our guests.
“Notre Vie” arrived from Guadeloupe, so we invited John and Sunny over for sun downers and caught up on what they've been doing.
9 February 2012 Falmouth Harbour, Antigua
We feel that we’re in limbo while we’re waiting for Andy to arrive and don’t want to start any big jobs in case it goes wrong. Well, that’s my excuse for not sorting out the bilge pump today. Instead, I wasted the day away reading and sorting out some administration.
Glenys was similarly lethargic and read a book.
10 February 2012 Falmouth Harbour, Antigua
Glenys went off to do some shopping to provision for the arrival of our guests tomorrow. I did a few small jobs while she was out.
We spent the rest of the day tidying up and waiting for our guests to arrive. I'm looking forward to them being on board, but I'm not sure how they are going to cope with our slow lifestyle. Jake is 19 and at university and Tyler is 17 studying for her A-levels, so I hope that I can find enough to keep them occupied.
11 February 2012 Falmouth Harbour, Antigua
We hung about in the morning and then went to pick up Andy and his family. We caught a bus over to St Johns and had a walk around town for an hour before catching another bus out to the airport.
Our timing was about right because the plane was just taxiing into the terminal as we arrived. An hour later, we were all in a cab heading across the island, which took us on a scenic route across the island to drop off another couple at St James Club in Mamora Bay.
Back in Falmouth Harbour, I ferried everyone back to the boat with all their bags and we settled down with rum punches to catch up on the news. Not surprisingly, they were in bed early after their long flight.
12 February 2012 Falmouth Harbour, Antigua
We went for walk to Nelsons Dockyard, called in at the museum and then walked over the hill back to Falmouth Harbour. It was a bit of shock for Andy and Gill to come from snowy England and then go walking in the beating sun, but I think that it was interesting for them. We came across a goat that was balanced precariously up a tree, reaching for some tasty leaves, which gave us five minutes of entertainment.
After calling back at the boat for our swimming things, we went to Pigeon Beach and had lunch from a lady selling barbecued food with rice, plantains, etc. Then we went snorkelling on the reef, but the visibility was poor and there wasn’t not much coral or marine life.
In the evening, as we were chilling out with a beer, we were invaded by flying ants which seemed to be attracted by our cockpit light, so we had to beat a hasty retreat down into the saloon, where we had dinner.
13 February 2012 Falmouth Harbour, Antigua
First thing in the morning, I dropped Andy, Jake and Tyler off at the dive centre. Glenys and Gill then went off to a couple of supermarkets and bought provisions for the next five days because we’ll be in the middle of nowhere.
Andy brought a hard disk drive out with him that contains over 40 DVD films, so I spent the morning setting up my media player and copying 300 GB of films from the hard disk drive. Not that we ever bother to watch a film, but it’s nice to know that we've now got over 400 movies that we could watch if we want to.
The scuba divers returned at midday and we had a little bit of excitement when the dive boat came to drop them off on Alba. When they were about 10 metres from us, the driver discovered that he couldn't put his boat into reverse. There was some frantic shouting, but Glenys and a guy on the dive boat managed to fend them off, preventing a nasty crunch. They anchored while they sorted out the problem and I picked our visitors up in the dinghy.
They had a good time and Tyler completed her Open Water certification so she was pleased. Everyone chilled out after the morning’s exertions and then we went out for happy hour and dinner at Trappas Bar which was very busy – I’m glad that I booked a table.
14 February 2012 Falmouth Harbour to Nonsuch Bay, Antigua
I dragged everyone out of bed at seven o'clock to get ready to go around to Deep Bay on the North West side of the island. Then I looked at the weather forecast and found that we’re going to have a 3 metre swell coming in from NNW. This will make Deep Bay very rolly and maybe untenable, so we changed plans and motored east along the south coast to Nonsuch Bay. On the way, Andy spotted a whale, which surprisingly, was in only 10 metres of water. We think that it was a Humpback whale.
We anchored close to the reef where the colour of the water is spectacular. I was surprised that there are another fifteen yachts in this anchorage – I was hoping to be here in splendid isolation. We all went snorkelling on the reef which surrounds the anchorage. It was okay, but the fine white sand is suspended in the water making for poor visibility. The reef looks to have a lot of storm damage and there aren’t many fish – I was disappointed.
After lunch, Andy and I went through a very narrow cut to the outside of the reef to go snorkelling. Andy’s bought a second hand camera and strobe very similar to mine, so we had a little underwater photography competition. We were both rubbish – I won because Andy’s photos were marginally worse than mine. I still haven’t got the hang of my new strobe and everything is over exposed.
Everyone chilled out for the rest of the afternoon. It’s very noticeable that our guests have finally relaxed into life afloat and are now content to sit & read or just sit & stare. When they first came onto the boat they were hyper-active coming from the fast pace of life in the UK. It’s a blessed relief that they've calmed down.
15 February 2012 Nonsuch Bay, Antigua
We had chilled morning. I managed to get an Internet connection, so I took the opportunity to send a letter to the HM Revenue and Customs following an enquiry that they’re doing into my 2009/10 tax return. There’s no escape from the tax-man even anchored on the edge of a reef in a tropical paradise.
I then took Andy and Gill out to the reef next to the Spithead Channel, which was better snorkelling than the two places that we tried yesterday. After lunch, Andy took his family to the beach while Glenys and I chilled out and had a rest from the close proximity of people.
16 February 2012 Nonsuch Bay to Carlisle Bay, Antigua
We managed to get everyone up and fed by eight o'clock. Andy had a go at navigating us to Carlisle Bay and did okay apart from having a tendency to go too close to the rocky coast line. The wind was very light, so we had to motor all the way. Andy managed to catch a small tuna as we passed English Harbour, which was a welcome relief from the rather boring trip.
We poked our noses into Carlisle Bay and found that it was protected from the swell, and then continued out to Cades Reef for lunch. It's two parallel reefs with a deeper area between where it's possible to anchor in settled conditions. I was hoping to be able to find a passage through the inner reef, but the sun went behind a huge bank of clouds and without good light, we couldn’t see the location of the coral and shallows, so we had to go the long way around. Just as we were anchoring, the sun decided to come out – typical...
After a lunch of pan-fried tuna, we spent an hour snorkelling. I’m still playing with my underwater camera and had very disappointing results with every photograph being ruined by “backscatter” where the flash gun illuminates the particles in the water – it’s very frustrating.
As we motored back to Carlisle Bay, I spotted a dive boat anchored on the North side of Cades reef, so I made a note of the GPS coordinates. Carlisle Bay is a lovely anchorage with a long white beach and an exclusive hotel.
17 February 2012 Carlisle Bay to Jolly Harbour, Antigua
After breakfast, we headed back to where we saw the dive boat yesterday and managed to find a sandy area with 5 metres depth. Andy and Tyler went for a dive then, after I refilled the tanks, Jake and I did the same dive.
The dive was only 12 metres deep, but there were lots of Southern Stingrays and we all spotted a Lionfish which is an invader from the Indian Ocean. These are beautiful fish, but voracious hunters that are killing many reef fish and unfortunately have no natural predators in the Caribbean. We’re supposed to kill them on sight or report them, but they have very poisonous spines and I didn’t have anything to kill it with. I’ll have to report it to the Fisheries Agency.
After lunch, everyone chilled out while I refilled the dive tanks and then we motored around to Jolly Harbour, anchoring outside the marina harbour. We dinghied into the marina for happy hour and then went to an Italian restaurant, where we had a great pizza.
18 February 2012 Jolly Harbour to Deep Bay , Antigua
Glenys and Gill shot off in the dinghy to the big supermarket in the marina. We've been getting through a prodigious amount of beer, coke and other soft drinks as well as finishing off most of our fresh food.
We had a good sail around to Deep Bay and managed to tack into the mouth of the bay. After lunch, we went snorkelling on the wreck, but again the visibility was very poor. Everyone else soon became bored and swam back to Alba leaving me alone playing with my camera and strobe. I’m starting to get the hang of it now and I concentrated on taking close-up pictures to get the settings correct and try to minimise the backscatter. My subjects were boring bits of coral, but it was good practise.
Andy and family went to the beach and chilled out for an hour, while we ran the watermaker – we’ve had to run it for an hour a day, which means that we’re using 45 gallons every day – a lot more than we normally use. We joined them on the beach and walked up to the small fort on the headland, where we rewarded ourselves with a nice cold beer while watching the sun go down. Deep Bay is a lovely anchorage.
19 February 2012 Deep Bay to Great Bird Island, Antigua
We lounged around until ten o'clock waiting for the sun to get higher in the sky, so that we could have better light to navigate through the reefs on the north east corner of the island.
We motor-sailed up the west coast and then headed east into Boon Channel, which goes between an outer reef and a shallow, rocky coast line. After going through the inner channel past Prickly Pear Island, we headed past Maiden Island and across an area of shoals to Great Bird Island. It’s very similar to Nonsuch Bay, but with a more islands.
Andy, Gill and I went snorkelling to the north of Great Bird Island which had clear water, but not many fish. We then went to the beach for a walk. There were a surprising number of small power boats on the two beaches on the island – not the isolated, idyllic paradise that we expected. Perhaps it’s just busy because it’s a Sunday. The walk on the island is pleasant, following a 50 foot high cliff with Frigate Birds and Tropic Birds flying along in the updraft.
In the evening, I was surprised by the number of lights from the mainland – it’s certainly a more populated area than Nonsuch Bay.
20 February 2012 Great Bird Island to Davis Bay, Antigua
The others went for a walk on Great Bird Island while I ran the water maker and tidied up. When they arrived back, a nasty looking bank of cloud came over and it rained, so we waited until eleven o'clock for it to clear enough to navigate through the shallow waters to Parnham Harbour. I’m glad we waited because there was some pretty shallow water - dropping down to 2.5 metres in some places.
The anchorage in Parnham Harbour is surrounded by mangroves. We anchored off a wrecked ship in a depth of three metres. It’s not a very attractive anchorage because there's a large desalination plant making a lot of noise and a rough looking dock with a few boats which look like they’re slowly rotting away.
After lunch, we went ashore to have a look around Parnham which used to be the second most important town in Antigua - apparently the Governor used to have his residence here. Parnham’s glory days have long gone and now it’s a sleepy little place with a busy fishing dock, but little else. I bought some fish from the fishing dock and we found a couple of small grocery stores where we managed to buy some bread and more soft drinks. We found a large church which looked derelict with broken windows, but on closer investigation was very nice inside with an impressive wooden framed roof. On the way back to the boat, we poked our heads into the mangroves and dinghied down a small inlet. Not much to see apart from a few Herons and some mangrove oysters.
We motored over to Davis Bay and anchored off the beach outside the small port. It’s a lovely little bay with a white sand beach and palm trees. Andy and family went to the beach while Glenys and I tidied up and worried about where we were going to take them next. It’s becoming harder and harder to come up with new things for them to do – I can’t find anywhere else to take them diving and the snorkelling is not very good anywhere that we’ve found.
21 February 2012 Davis Bay to Dickenson Bay, Antigua
We decided to go to Dickenson Bay, so that Andy, Jake and Tyler can pay to do a scuba dive tomorrow. On the way, we poked our noses into Jumby Bay which is the main beach for the massive resort on Long Island. It’s a nice looking beach, but the bay is very shallow and we’d have to anchor a long way from the shore – we turned around and left.
The wind was light and behind us, so we had a very nice gentle sail to Dickenson Bay. We anchored at the northern end of the beach in three metres depth. The beach is lovely, but has two massive hotel resorts, so it’s packed with tourists and large numbers of locals touting jet skis, pedallos, tshirts, hobie cats, etc. It’s chaos on the water as well, with people zooming by on hobie cats and jet skis. We were an obvious turning point for the jet skis, which we had to endure all afternoon. Andy tried to book a two tank dive, but the instructor said that the diving that they do is beginner stuff and that Andy and Jake would be bored. He said they would be better off with a dive centre in Jolly Harbour.
As the sun went down, the tourists disappeared inside their holiday complexes. So we went ashore and strolled along the now empty beach to a small bar run by some locals where we had a few beers before going to a small restaurant specialising in Mexican food – very good and very filling.
22 February 2012 Dickenson Bay to Jolly Harbour, Antigua
We escaped just before the jet skis started to whizz by and sailed downwind to Deep Bay. Unfortunately, all of the tourist catamarans from the big hotels seemed to have picked today to visit Deep Bay, so it was chaotic with boats coming past booming out reggae music, with rum-punch sodden people dancing on deck. We tried to keep out of the way.
Andy and I went snorkelling on the wreck which was a little clearer today. I spotted a couple more lionfish and we spent a happy ten minutes photographing them. My technique is improving - I’m still getting some backscatter from the strobe light, but that’s to be expected in these murky waters.
Later in the afternoon, we sailed down to Jolly Harbour and anchored outside the lagoon. Andy rang the dive centre and they said that they had no advanced dives planned, so Andy has given up on the diving which is a shame. We ate on board and had a heavy session - polishing off at least four litres of red wine.
23 February 2012 Jolly Harbour, Antigua
Everyone was a little dull this morning, so we had a late start. We went inside the marina harbour, picked up a mooring and then caught a bus into St John’s. We split up and spent a couple of hours walking around town.
I tried to find the Fisheries Agency to report the sightings of the Lionfish on Cades Reef and in Deep Bay. The tourist information people were hopeless and didn’t know where the Fisheries office would be. They had no idea what I was talking about. In most of the other islands there are notices with a picture of a Lionfish, telling you how to report a sighting, but this doesn’t seem to have been implemented here in Antigua. I wandered down to the customs office and they seemed a bit more switched on and rang the Fisheries Agency for me. The guy I spoke to didn’t seem too interested, but at least I’ve now got an email address to send details of the sightings.
We met up for lunch at a local restaurant, away from the cruise ship area and had a pleasant lunch before wandering slowly back to the bus station. Back at Jolly Harbour, I dropped Andy and family off at the beach, while Glenys went to the supermarket. Glenys and I then spent a couple of hours chilling out on the boat and running the water maker.
Just as we were getting ready to meet Andy at the beach bar, I started to walk down the steps into the saloon, when the opening window on our windshield suddenly shattered with a loud bang, spraying small pieces of toughened glass everywhere. There was glass on the front deck, glass in the cockpit, glass in the galley and glass all over the carpet in the saloon – nightmare. I took the remains of the window out and laid it on the front deck, while Glenys started the laborious process of sweeping up the broken glass. I have no idea why the window suddenly shattered, it must have been getting stressed with heat of the sun and perhaps a small flaw started a crack.
I left Glenys cleaning up the mess while I went to pick Andy and family up from the beach. Glenys gave me instructions to stay away for an hour, so by the time we got back, she’d vacuumed the carpet and we had a semblance of order restored. No doubt we’ll be picking bits of glass up for months. I fixed a bin liner over the window opening with duct tape as a temporary measure until I can sort it all out tomorrow.
24 February 2012 Jolly Harbour, Antigua
I made a paper template of the shape of the broken window and set out with Andy to try to find a replacement. I decided that it will be better to make the window from UV resistant Perspex rather than toughened glass - it will probably become crazed over time, but will not shatter. It would have been a total disaster if the window had burst while we were at sea.
We tried to get some ¼” Perspex at a local sign maker, but they didn’t have anything suitable, so I was forced to buy a 2 foot by 4 foot sheet from Budget Marine which cost £150. It’s so frustrating to pay so much for something that would cost a quarter of the price in the UK. I had a woodworking shop cut the sheet to the correct size and shape for me.
After lunch, we dropped Andy and family off at the beach while I started the repair of the window by sticking the Perspex onto the hinge with 5200 marine adhesive.
Our guests go home tomorrow, so we went to a beach restaurant, where we consumed copious amounts of beer and 31 rum punches between us. It was a karaoke night, so there was lots of dodgy singing and rum-induced dancing on the bar. Somehow we managed to survive the trip home in the dinghy.
25 February 2012 Jolly Harbour, Antigua
We had a very subdued start to the morning, with everyone nursing hangovers. Andy and Gill packed their bags while Glenys and I sat with a book in the cockpit trying to keep out of the way.
We went for lunch in the marina and then saw them into a taxi bound for the airport and home. Glenys and I went back to the boat, motored out to the anchorage and collapsed. It’s been great to have them here, but even though they’re our close family, it’s very tiring looking after four guests confined on a small 42 foot boat. I could never be a charter skipper – I can’t imagine anything worse than doing this with compete strangers and then having the next guests arrive the next day.
Unfortunately, it was very windy in the afternoon and the only place that we could anchor is ¼ mile from the shore in 3 metres depth, so it was a little wild and exposed. To make matters worse, we had a bit of difficulty getting the anchor to hold in the gusty winds, so I was unable to relax for a couple of hours until the wind calmed down in the evening.
We had left-over chilli and rice for dinner and went to bed early.
26 February 2012 Jolly Harbour to Deep Bay, Antigua
We didn’t manage to drag ourselves out of bed until nine o’clock. The weather forecast for the next three or four days is for big swell and 25 to 30 knot winds, so we’re going to hang around Antigua for a few more days before going off to Nevis.
This isn’t a pleasant anchorage in strong winds, so we decided to go around to Deep Bay, which is more sheltered. Glenys zipped into the marina to drop off our laundry and buy some food while I finished off the window.
I spent ages trying to work out where to drill the three holes for the window supports and locking catches. I drilled the holes and then, when I fitted the whole thing together, discovered that the holes were in the wrong place – the locking catches only just lock in place. I’ll have to now make three aluminium plates to make it work better – bummer…
We sailed around to Deep Bay. Unfortunately, we left just as a squall approached. I thought that it would pass us by, but it didn't... Just as we were approaching a reef outside Five Island Bay, we were hit by over 30 knots of wind. The autopilot couldn't cope with the weather helm and we rounded up, heading directly for the reef, so I had to stand in the lashing rain and steer us through the squall – nice.
It was a relief to arrive in Deep Bay, which is my favourite anchorage in Antigua - the holding is good, the bay is protected and it’s very pretty.
27 February 2012 Deep Bay, Antigua
It was very blustery last night, but we both slept like logs. The wind picked up in the morning and we had some nasty squalls coming through – one gave us 38 knots of wind. I’m glad that it’s a good anchorage.
I did some administration in the morning, revising my "To Do List" and created a preventative maintenance list of jobs that should be done regularly. Unfortunately, this increased the number of jobs on my current list. Glenys pottered around all day, cleaning up now that Andy and family have gone.
I did a few small jobs in the afternoon and we had another early night.
28 February 2012 Deep Bay to Jolly Harbour, Antigua
It was another blustery night with very strong winds in the morning.
Glenys received a text message from her brother, Gareth, saying that her Mum, Ceris, has had a stroke and has been rushed into hospital. We had a traumatic half an hour trying to get in touch with Gareth. He rang us on Glenys’s mobile which has a UK SIM card and it gobbled up all of her £8 pay-as-you-go credit in two minutes because we’re roaming in Antigua. We then couldn’t get in touch again because we couldn’t top up Glenys’s phone because we didn’t have an Internet connection. Catch 22…
We sailed back to Jolly Harbour where we would be able to get an internet connection and be able to communicate again. It was a bouncy ride for an hour in the 30 knot gusts, but we picked up a mooring in the harbour before lunch. We had a few texts from Gareth saying that Ceris is stable, which allowed us to relax a bit.
I couldn’t concentrate on any jobs, so I spent the rest of the afternoon reading and updating our website.
29 February 2012 Jolly Harbour, Antigua
When we got up this morning, there was an email from Gareth saying that Ceris has been moved into the local Lymington hospital and is stable. She was completely paralysed yesterday, but is now getting back the use of her right side; she’s still on a drip but seems to be getting a bit better. Glenys is so relieved.
We spent most of the day getting ready to sail to Nevis tomorrow. Our first mission was to get fuel. Back in the UK, I used to hate going to a garage because it would add five or ten minutes onto my car journey, but getting fuel for a yacht is much, much worse than that. We put the fenders and mooring ropes in position, started the engine and then I noticed a catamaran drop another mooring close to us. They had all their fenders in place, so I shouted over to them and they confirmed that they were going to get fuel. Bummer! There's only space for one boat on the fuel dock so we waited.
Forty frustrating minutes later, they came back past us and shouted that the dock was clear. We dropped our mooring and hurried towards the fuel dock, but then saw another yacht shoot out of the marina and start their approach to the fuel dock. Double bummer!! They must have been watching and waiting. We had to spend fifteen minutes hovering around the fuel dock waiting for a space. It then took a further twenty minutes to moor, fill, pay and get back to the mooring. Goodbye to a couple of hours of my life – thank goodness that we only have to do this every two months.
I went to clear out of Antigua, which was relatively quick – go to the Port Authority and fill in a form; Go to Customs and fill in a form; Go to Immigration, wait ten minutes for someone else to be cleared in and then wait another ten minutes while they have an old fridge removed and a new fridge put in position, then fill in a form, lots of rubber stamping; Go to Customs with both forms, lots of rubber stamping; Take a copy of a form back to Immigration, receive clearance document – breathe a sigh of relief.
After lunch, we went to the supermarket and bought enough food to last a week. Then we took the outboard off the dinghy, pulled the dinghy up on the davits, prepared the fishing lures, tidied up the boat, ensured that nothing is going to crash around, checked the engine and collapsed with a cold beer.