We last updated this diary in early April, from
(Dutch) St Maarten, where Roland
spent many hours at the top of the mast, checking the gear at 62 feet. Being at
the end of a runway was unnerving when several 747s passed close overhead. We
were waiting for favourable winds to sail to Antigua in time for Classic Race Week. Friends Helen and
Alan from Anguilla planned to join us in Antigua for a few days aboard, and had invited us to join
them for a helicopter ride over Montserrat Volcano, active at the moment. Also,
on 5 May our friends, June and Pat from NZ, who have sold their business,
planned to join us for 2 months.
On the 15th April at 0900 the bridge out
of St Maarten lagoon opened, and we set off for Antigua, with a dozen
superyachts. We motorsailed through the day and night, catching 3 tunafish, and
arrived in Falmouth Harbour at 0300 to clear Customs & Immigration on Easter
Sunday! We rushed back to Falmouth
Harbour to wave goodbye to an old HK
friend, David who was sailing to Palma on superyacht Victoria of Strathearn. We
met his partner, Eve, and it was fun to let go the ropes, Victoria blew a farewell blast and other superyachts in
Falmouth
Harbour blew their horns in
a friendly farewell. A lot of yachts that we have met over the past year
were in Antigua, and we spent time catching up and asking for advice on sailing
to Trinidad and Venezuela for the hurricane season, eventually deciding that we
would sail back north to the States. The Trinidad ‘adventures’ sounded good enough to miss. It
seemed we would be living in a marina for the 6 months of the hurricane season,
and we decided we would rather cruise the Chesapeake, and maybe go up some of the
American rivers and waterways. We caught up with A Capella, Lalize, Nyaminyami,
Lorrigray, Sunday’s Child, Oriole, Sutton Hoo, and at a potluck lunch ashore,
Bagheera, whom we had met in Sri Lanka 17 years earlier! Also saw NZ friends Rhonda and David who
were sailing through the Panama to Galapagos on superyacht
Sassafrass, and other HK friends, Peter and Vanessa. Roland crewed on Victoria
of Duxbury, for part of Classic Race Week, and we went to the very English Tea
party at English Harbour’s Admiralty Inn, where Eve was helping to dish out
home-made scones and jam, while we watched the Gig races: 9 dinghies and the
Carib canoe Gli-Gli, racing around a short course in the harbour, all good fun.
Antigua Race Week is a sailor’s dream, and we were lucky to be there two years
in a row.
We motored round to Jolly Harbour, where we found a great
supermarket, docking at Eve’s dock, where she gave us the run of her laundry,
and we watched about twenty hummingbirds eating from her sugar-feeders. Helen
and Alan arrived from Anguilla for a few days aboard, and Roland went with them
by helicopter to see Montserrat. We sailed out
to watch some of the racing with Eve, and she had a BBQ at her home for us.
On 1 May we set off at 0600 with Helen and Alan, to
sail to Barbuda, 30 miles away. We
caught 3 king mackerels on the way, went ashore and walked along the powder
beaches, and then sailed back to Antigua the next day. Alan
had another king mackerel on the line, but it was a real fight to bring it in,
and when we got it aboard we saw half of its stomach had been eaten by another
bigger fish! That afternoon Alan waded ashore and taxi’d to the airport to
fly to London!
Helen flew back to Anguilla the next day. We
had a lovely few days together and it was great that they could fit it into
their busy schedules.
We returned to Falmouth Harbour, and Eve loaned us her car for the
day, to collect June and Pat from the airport, and to do a bit of sightseeing.
We bought mangoes, papayas,
pineapple and bananas at a roadside stall before settling June and Pat into
their new home, and then going for an evening walk around English Harbour. The next day another walk up the
ridge of the hills, through all the ruined forts, and down to English Harbour
and yet another evening walk to watch the police beating the retreat, and the
prize giving. We had dinner at the Admiral’s Inn, with a live steel band and walked back to the boat
through dense crowds of people dancing in the streets. On 7th May we
motored round to English Harbour to check out from Customs &
Immigration, bought fresh bread from the Georgian bakery, and used up the last
of our EC money buying souvenirs. Then we set sail for Barbuda, stopped at a small
reef island for the night and arrived the next morning. A lobsterman came over
to us, and sold us 5 spotted guinea fowl lobsters. We snorkeled on the reef all
afternoon, and then cooked up the lobsters and had a superb dinner. The next day
we made an expedition into Codrington, dragging the dinghy over the sandbar into
the lagoon, and dinghying into 'town' where we saw more lizards than people. We
set off at 1700 with a following wind, the 70 miles to Anguilla, catching a large tuna on
daybreak.
11th May we arrived in Anguilla, and
cleared customs and immigration, and finding that Customs officer Anita was a
cross-stitcher and patchworker, we gave her some patterns and fabrics. Helen
came and picked us up and took us to Government House for a lovely lunch, and
the use of her laundry. We went to Roy’s beach restaurant for dinner. Roland and I
had 3 lovely nights ashore at Government House, and Helen loaned us her car to
go sightseeing, and to get provisions. I made Chinese fish and rice for dinner
at Government House, with the tuna we had caught, and we took Helen, Alan and
their houseguests sailing for the day, Antonella had never been sailing in her
life!!! (Hard for us to imagine.) We watched Anguilla Race Week and the Mix-Up
regatta, and then left Anguilla, sailing overnight to British Virgin Islands, arrived at
Necker
Island at 1030 hours on the
15th for a snorkel, then went round to Bitter End YC where we had pina coladas
ashore and anchored for the night. The next day we motored on to Virgin Gorda
Baths, walked the track, then went round to Norman Island, where we snorkeled at the cliff
face of Treasure Point, and stopped at the Bight, for the night.
On the 17th we motored round to Cruz Bay,
St Johns, U.S. Virgin Islands, where we went to
customs & immigration and walked round the village of colourful shops,
provisioned at the supermarket and a fruit vendor, and motored round to
Hawksnest bay for the night, leaving our US$15 in an honesty box, the daily
charge for cruising in the US Virgins National Park. 18.5 We motored to
Francis
Bay, then walked to
Waterlemon Cay, where we snorkeled around a small island, seeing all the fish
and coral you could wish for, watched 2 turtles feeding, and a large eagle ray
swim majestically past. The next afternoon we motored across the bay, and walked
ashore to see the ruins of an old sugar plantation from 1800s. It must have been
a huge plantation, big walls made of stone and
coral-heads.
On the 20th May we motorsailed to St Thomas, where we refueled,
provisioned, cleared out of the US Virgins, went to the market, and left at
1600, motored round to Honeymoon bay for the night, prepared to leave in the
morning for the Bahamas. The next day was June’s birthday, and we left St Thomas at 0730, a great sail out past Culebra, and past
the Puerto Rico coast the first night, and later past the Dominican
Republic in the distance. One morning we lost a
huge marlin, which danced on the water before letting go the lure. The wind was
right for the mizzen staysail with the main and mizzen butterflied out. We
averaged 5 knots, quite calm seas, no moon. Roland enjoyed having Pat along so
they could play around with the sail combinations. We did about 650 miles in 5
days; with 4 of us aboard it was easy doing watches, only 3 x 2 hour watches in
24 hours and we all had at least 1 swim and shower every day, hanging off the
stern with a rope with knots tied in it - shark baiting. We stayed a couple of
nights at Rum Cay and snorkeled in the shallow reefs, before motorsailing across
to Georgetown, where we cleared
into Bahamas customs
& immigration, and caught up with laundry and provisions for the next few
days up the Exuma
Islands.
On 30th May, we motorsailed from Georgetown to Little
Farmers Cay, Consie caught a beautiful mahi mahi on the way, which Pat made into
sushi, and then we also had it for dinner. A Great Barracuda stayed near us that
evening, and only Roland was brave enough to jump in the water. On
31st we sailed to Staniel’s Cay, where we had snorkeled again into
the Thunderball Grotto (from James Bond movie) where we had snorkeled together
with Gilbert and Olivia in January. Most of the day’s sail had been in about 3
metres of pale green water, and Pat and Consie took cameras in the dinghy to
bring you photos of Restless sailing in the swimming pool of the
Bahamas. We have snorkeled with
colourful fish, corals, rays, turtles, and today a shark! So we do feel as if we
have seen the best of the Caribbean, and we
will be very sorry to leave.
From here we plan to sail up to Cape Hatteras and on
to the Chesapeake area, where we will decide on where to cruise for the summer
and hurricane months, possibly north and out to Nantucket, or up the Hudson and
into Lake Ontario –we shall see!!!.