Gulliver
Fri 20 Feb 2009 00:11
63:05:61W (St Maarten)
Catherine my neighbour from Cowes joined us in Antigua on 28th Jan in
Falmouth harbour having missed Sunday at Shirley Heights and on 29th with
Falbala we had a lumpy sail up the coast to Green Island where we enjoyed a
couple of nights at anchor behind Nanny Island off the Mill Reef Club -
drinks and a great meal at Harmony Hall kept us amused. We returned to
English Harbour on Sunday to get our very smart awning fitted by A & F
Sails - a great success - and to meet up with Ed (Monkey Boy) Cook who
re-joined after a month away.
Our planned early departure on the 3rd was delayed by Customs not opening
until 1000 and by a delay in the return of our laundry by 80 year old Ms
Beatrice Baltimore as her car had broken down... We eventually set off at
1130 meeting up with Falbala outside Falmouth and heading round to anchor
for the night at Five Islands where Mark and Ed decided to swim ashore just
as the sun set but their return was delayed by a quick social visit to
Falbala, causing concern to Catherine and Nick.
Departing together at 0730 on the 4th we enjoyed a good sail to Nevis
arriving just in time to clear customs and relocate to moorings off the
beach before dark. Setting off in the dark we headed ashore to meet up for
supper only to get rather wet whilst landing at the wrong beach restaurant -
the dinghy was tipped up to get the water out, losing the outboard
'kill-cord' safety line in the process - we eventually found the others and
had an interesting evening in a very colourful beach bar.....
Next stop was St Kitts - only a short distance so Gulliver sailed across on
Genoa leaving the main awning rigged which worked well - on the way we
circled the anchored Charter yacht Lazy Z to say hello to the Chief who used
to work on a Burgess boat.
In St Kitts we spent two nights in their new yacht marina taking a complete
tour of the island in a rented car - highlights were a visit to the
Brimstone Hill Fort (see photo) and lunch at the Rawlins Plantation which
gave us all a taste of the Colonial past - we also saw a horse in the sea
(not a white one - see photo)
On the 7th we had a very good sail mainly on the wind across to Gustavia on
St Barts where we spent the night on fore and aft mooring buoys at the top
of the very tight harbour - we crossed the Island to have a very swanky
lunch at their equivalent of St Tropez's Club 55 and then set off to St
Maarten, motor sailing at 8.5kts to make the 1730 lift bridge into the
Simpson Bay Lagoon.
We had contaced B & G and their local agent about our electronics issues but
were told thatThursday 12th was the first time for a visit so using the
excellent local chandleries we have carried out various repairs (Catherine
even now has lights in her cabin...) we also met up with several of our
managed yachts including Big D - Altitude - Paloma and Mikado and as a bonus
my colleague Will Dallimore has been here and it has been good to catch up.
The B & G man arrived a day early and diagnosed our problems fast - even
taking the whole CPU ashore to test and the problem is caused by a faulty
pilot display - we are now waiting to see if he has a spare as hopefully we
can sail away on the 13th (tomorrow) to the BVI's with everything fixed -
watch this space...
All the best
Mark, Ed, Catherine and Nick
