Back to Antigua 17:03.9N 61:53.087W

Serenity of Swanwick
Phil and Sarah Tadd
Sun 1 May 2016 13:08
The trip down from the BVI’s to St Martin was hard on the wind but we kept up a reasonable speed until midnight when the wind died and we had to motor the last four hours into Marigot. We spent a couple of days here so as to get Gas bottles refilled, shop for food in Super U (which has the best stock anywhere in the area and was worth coming to before making a passage as there is little available in the BVI’s and prices are high both there and Antigua). We also stocked up on antifouling for our summer refit at duty free prices.

The forecast on Wednesday morning was giving mainly east southeast winds veering southeast in the next day or so. This meant that if we stopped at Saba we would have the wind and current dead on the nose for Antigua, not a happy prospect, so we decided that Saba would have to wait until next year and we would aim straight for Antigua. As it was our best course took us down to Statia where we had to make the choice of going to windward or leeward of the Statia, St Kitts and Nevis chain of islands. We chose to go to leeward for possibly calmer water but this may have made the overall trip a bit longer. As we crossed from Nevis to Antigua the wind did veer southeast so allowing us some good long tacks in about the right direction. Eventually the wind died out at 03:00 and we motored two hours into the customs dock at Jolly Harbour. A total of 40 hours to cover a straight line distance of 90 miles!

Tern was still here when we arrived so we have managed to spend a couple of days with Larry and Manice before they set off back to Europe. There is almost an end of term feel here in the marina, with boats being prepared for hauling out or returning to Europe either under there own steam or, for a number, being shipped back to Southampton.

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