Antigua to the BVIs

Around the world with the Aqualunies
Jonathan & Gabrielle Lyne
Mon 27 Mar 2017 04:01
29th March, 2017

Having said ‘goodbye’ to Sue and Peter O-P on Antigua we had three days before more friends arrived to sail with us up to the BVIs. Julien and Catey Bass joined us in Falmouth Harbour. They spent the following morning exploring English Harbour whilst Jonathan was checking out and then we set sail for Green Island and dropped anchor in the most beautiful setting for the evening. The following morning we went snorkelling off the reef near by hoping to find various types of Rays as friends had seen various types out there, but we did not see a single one but just a lot of damaged and dead coral which was sad. We then set sail for Barbuda arriving in the afternoon, it has to be the most beautiful destination with 11 miles of long soft sand beach and the bluest water you could find. We were at last lucky with the weather, it would not have been possible to go there the week before due to the strong storms, even though Jonathan knows his way through the reefs to get in the beach would have been far too exposed. Anchored in the bay were Carolyn and Andrew Bellamy who have their oyster ‘Askari’ and Fiona and Steve Bailey who have a Beneteau 57 called ‘Super Tramp’. We got together with the Baileys’ to go and see the Frigate Bird sanctuary and breeding grounds with George who was our guide to go there eight years ago. This time we went much later as the chicks had hatched and there were only a few males, unmated, left still displaying their inflated red throats. Last time we went 8 years ago, the males were still mating or looking for mates. I took some great photos of them so, when the internet is good, I will down load them.

We went over to ‘Super Tramp' that evening for drinks on board and then back to our boat for super. The following morning we up anchored and set sail for St. Martin the French Half where Jonathan needed to pick up some copper coat for the bottom of the yacht. We spent a fun afternoon there and met up with the Bailey’s again as they arrived just after us. The next morning we set sail at 6 am for the BVIs. It was exactly a 12 hour sail, goose winged averaging 7.5 - 8 knots in 15 knot winds. The sea was still quite big with a quarter wave hitting us every now and again on our aft port side causing us to twist around and backing the Genoa. Julien decided to hand steer so we didn’t twist as much, unfortunately as he was bring the backed genoa back again we got hit by a 20 knot wind shift which caused us to gibe and break the preventer, Jonathan, who was resting below decks rushed up. The only damage was a bent hook on the preventer fortunately. It was nobody’s fault just an unfortunate thing to happen. We took a reef down in the main and changed course to head to Drake’s passage instead of to Necker Passage this gave us an easier sail down. We arrived off Spanish Town on Virgin Gorda at 6.10 in the evening.

We took the dingy into Spanish Town the next morning, having been awoken at 7 am by an officious young man saying were anchored too near the mooring field which was rubbish and wanted us to move immediately, we didn’t, he wanted us to move to make sure we had not picked up up an anchor from the buoys. We asked him for his phone number so he could check when we were ready to move but he didn’t give it and gave up and went on his way. We got into the dingy dock and J went off to immigration to check us all in. Meanwhile a huge lady in security uniform said we had to pay $2US per person to dock the dingy, the notice was for boats dropping off passengers from large boats. We consequently ignored her much to her annoyance, she was just lining her pockets. Jonathan took for ever in immigration as they were over officious there as well with a long lecture given to the person in front of him about not smoking in the building despite the fact he was not smoking but just smelt of smoke. Non of it was the friendliest of welcomes, very different from our time there 15 months ago.

Once everything achieved we had a lovely sail up Drakes sound to ‘The Bitter End Yacht Club’ where we picked up a buoy. Had lunch on board and went ashore for a walk. Dinner in the evening at Saba Rock which was fun.
Photos to follow once downloaded.