GEORGETOWN, BAHAMAS TO ANTIGUA 17:04.60N 61:54.00W
Restless of Auckland
Roland and Consie Lennox-King
Mon 29 Apr 2019 13:45
Some years there are 400 plus boats in this area, enjoying the turquoise waters and many of these boats stay here for years... and years.....and why not? It is an amazing spot! Ah! But hurricanes.....
There is a morning Cruisers Net, offering taxi rides to the airport, Pilates classes, volleyball games, bridge and poker games, dog walking and children socialising, 7ft inflatable flamingoes for sale, and more at the Chat and Chill Beach Bar. We were told that last year a boat came in, having been struck by lightning, and within 4 days they were up and running, with help from fellow cruisers!
Ashore in Georgetown there is a supermarket, free freshwater in a hose at the dinghy dock, Roland and Keir loaded 25 x jerry cans of 5 gallons of water, a good workout. Also laundries, banks and restaurants, including the famous Peace and Plenty Hotel, dating from around 1783, David took us there for lunch. Fuel you can only get in 500 gallon lots from a barge, there is a nearby airport for Crew changes.
We met up with our friend Lars and his wife Susanne on ‘Seawind’ plus other cruising friends, Nicky and Reg on ‘Blue Velvet of Sark’. They told us they had swum with a friendly dolphin the day before, and we were very excited when this dolphin came and visited us and swam around us until we were tired. Once we climbed out of the water she went away huff-huffing. Locals told us there are 3 friendly dolphins, a baby, Sassy, and her mother Nicky. These photos are from Seawind, with their underwater camera.
Strong headwinds were predicted, so we stayed another day, and another day, but if we did not get south we would not be in time to meet family arriving in Antigua, so on Easter Sunday, 21 April we set off north to the nearest fuel dock at Emerald Cove to fill up with diesel, and from there headed East, we stopped for the night in Rum Cay, set off next morning. Our projected course of nearly 1,000 nmiles meant we would need our fuel tanks full.
Phones only work for a distance of 15 miles offshore, so as we were about 150 miles offshore we were out of communication for the time, 7 days 10 hours. We stopped once and swam in 5,000 metres deep ocean indigo water. We had a fishing line out, but there was so much weed that our lures kept getting choked.
Keir reminded me that someone once said about 400 years ago “To Command the Weather, you must first Obey it”. The weather dictated our course, and we set off into a washing machine of waves and headwinds, East East and more East for 8 days. Consie was seasick, so David and Keir helped make meals. It has taken me 14 years to get these guys into my galley, now that they know their way, they will be able to do some of the cooking!
Eventually we got as far East as on our proposed course, and then we ran out of fuel, so set a jigger rig and set off south having a lovely 100 nmile sail to Barbuda and Antigua. We arrived Sunday evening at 8pm, having motorsailed 7 days 10 hours, 1,052nmiles from Georgetown to Antigua. We anchored in Jolly Harbour, had dinner, and will go into immigration in the morning.
