Five Islands, Antigua

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Sat 1 Feb 2014 02:35

17:05.1N 61:53.6W

 

Tues, Wed, Thurs & Fri - 28th, 29th, 30th & 31st Jan

 

We opted to stay on the buoy in Jolly Harbour and get a number of small and not so small jobs done and found the location in the entrance to the harbour rather fun as the steady procession of dinghies going past on their way in or out to the anchorage gave rise to any number of conversations and meetings.

 

On Tuesday evening several of the Ocean Cruising Club boats here had put together an impromptu gathering at an Italian restaurant (Al Porto) barely 50 metres from where we were moored, to take full advantage of their two for one pizza special offer.  Some 18 of us all arrived and had a great evening and as ever we met a number of new faces.

 

Wednesday was another general work day, largely spent dodging more rain showers, but we got everything we needed done and so on Thursday morning we visited Customs to extend our Cruising permit by another month and did some last minute shopping before heading off round to Hermitage Bay.

 

Another squally and blustery day and we took our time going round so that we could make water along the way.  Despite the stunning turquoise blue tinge to the sea here, the fact is that it is not all that clear as there is so much sand sediment being stirred up by the stronger winds right now.  This makes it hard to use our water-maker anywhere except offshore otherwise the pre-filters simply clog up within an hour.  They are easy to flush clean again in due course, but it does restrict our ability to make decent amounts of drinking water at any time.  So we managed to make some 60 litres before we arrived in the anchorage where we found a beautiful Spirit Yacht ‘Flight’ belonging originally to Sean Mcmillan, the owner of Spirit Yachts and someone I used to work with at the British Marine Federation.   We circled around her before dropping our anchor slightly astern of her, but in truth Flight was moored in the exact spot we had hoped to get, offering the best protection from the swell here, so we spent the next 24 hours hoping they might move on!

 

As usual the wifi here was wonderfully strong here and so we settled down to catch up with any amount of emails and other less fun things all needing a good super fast internet connection.

 

We had also rather hoped that Friday would be a nice sunny day and that we would get some respite from the unseasonal rain and high wind squalls, but this was not to be and we ended up spending most of the day rushing around Serafina, either opening all the hatches to let the much needed fresh breeze through the boat, or dashing back round to close them all again as torrential downpours threatened to flood us out!