Southbound at Last
Blue Sky's Voyage
George & Michael
Thu 17 May 2007 22:18
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Hello Friends
"16:18.51N
61:47.92W"
We've put quite a few miles under the keel
since the last blog.
Leaving Montserrat we had a great long day
(83 miles) down to Les Saintes, S of Guadeloupe and a look at Point a Pitre,
mainly for Marco's benefit. Then headed all the way back north again so Marco
could fly back from Antigua to Italy on the 10th. He's now found a good job
working on a new motor yacht for the summer, so Good Luck to Marco.
We collected our full deck awnings from
Antigua Sails (pics to follow when we next rig them) and these should be useful
during the Summer to keep off the worst of the midday heat.
Antigua quietens down very quickly after
Race Week and the place had very much the air of the end of term. Here is the
very beautiful Adele, looking very alone in Falmouth Harbour marina which had
previously been jammed solid with boats.
 Though the hurricane season does not
officially start until June, boats head off either back to Europe or down to
Trinidad and the islands get very quiet. the nautical areas of Antigua must be a
ghost town until December.
Yesterday we left Antigua for the last time
until next year and had a VERY brisk sail south to Deshaies on the NW corner of
Guadeloupe. The forecast moderate conditions were greatly exceeded by reality
and though we started with a reef fore and aft, we paused every hour to put a
couple more reefs in the genoa and another reef in the main. Ten miles N of
Guadeloupe we managed 10 knots boat speed with high 20's apparent on the beam !
The journey took only five and a half hours.
We're in Deshaies now and will probably
tootle S to the Saintes again tomorrow. Deshaies is a great little bay and town,
we had a terrific meal here last night - good French on a terrace overhanging
the beach, so we're not suffering too much.
Hope all's well back in Blighty (and around
the world). Do let us know if you're still reading the blog as we've only had
feedback from Barbara in the last month or so.
Best Wishes
George and Michael
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