Antigua
Flyer of Lorne
Dave Sturrock
Tue 23 Dec 2008 14:19
17:00.25N 61:65.63W
Monday 22 December
We have visited 3 islands since the last
blog entry, Isle des Saintes, Guadeloupe and Antigua. Flyer is now
anchored in English Harbour, possibly one of the most photographed and
iconic of Caribbean destinations. Skip and crew are all having a couple of
days off here to catch up and take it easy with some beachtime in order
once again.
Iles des Saintes was a beautiful stopover
and this group of small islands is very European being French compared to
the independent Dominica only 20 NM to the South. The main town of
Bourg was almost a miniature town due to the small sized and neat
buildings. We explored Fort Napolean which was veryt interesting with
detailed models of warships and old Naval battles fought in the area. The
gardens were notable due to the many wild Iguana that would allow
themselves to be photographed.
Sunday afternoon saw us take in some
snorkelling before heading to Guadeloupe. The approaches from the South
were very interestin g with lots of sandbanks and shallows as we made for
Point a Pitre. We moored at teh Marina Bas du Fort where we took in an
excellent dinner at the Pirates of the caribbean restaurant, very
appropriate you might say!
We had planned to navigate the River
Salee which bisects the island and only has depths of 2.0meters in places.
There are 2 road bridges on this busy island which onlly open once a day
at 05:00hrs so it was an early start at 04:00 to be ready bat teh first
bridge. We were in a convoy of 3 yachts which duly progressed through the
first bridge when disaster struck, Flyer went aground between the 2
bridges. I had visions of being stuck in the riverf all day as she would
not clear in astern. However as it was mud I went ahead again and we
cleared the bottom with some relief. The rest of the 1 hour passage was
without event and as dawn broke we cleared to,seawrds and hoisted sail. We
then had a fast reaching 45NM sail in F5-6 Easterly winds which
brought us to Antigua at 12:40. A bit of a bumpy crossing for the family
but the beautiful surroundings soon lifted spirits as we explored
ashore.
Dave Sturrock