Happy New Year!
Catacaos
Graham Shaw
Thu 6 Jan 2011 19:28
|
17:00.2N
061:45.6W
How time flies when you're having fun?! Today
(properly early this morning) Gareth has left us after nearly six weeks on
board. So here we are, the three of us, wondering what to do.
What should you do when you have nothing to do? Write a blog of
course.
The last edition had us in the BVI just before
Christmas. We have covered quite a bit of ground since then, departing
from Virgin Gorda after saying goodbye to Sandy and Bill on Dragonfly, whose
paths we have crossed many times since last year. They have been great
company and we shall miss them lots. From there we headed for the islands
of Saba and Sint Eustatius (Statia as it is known to everyone), which are part
of the Dutch West Indies or Netherland Antilles. Most readers will have
likely never heard of them, but Oranjestad - the only port in Statia - was at
one time the busiest port in the world. This partly due to the Dutch
neutrality in all the 18th century European squabbles, and also the lack of
Customs, and therefore lack of duty on goods being traded. Oranjestad is
still busy - mostly as a bunkering port: there were over a dozen ships waiting
when we were there. The island itself though, as with neighbouring Saba,
is very quiet. In Saba we walked a long way up a very steep hill to one of
the two towns, curiously called "The Bottom", which is absolutely not where it
is.
  The walk up to The
Bottom The
Bottom
 The busy Oranjestad anchorage, with Catacaos in the
foreground.
One thing Saba is famous for is its scuba
diving. Rated by many as having some of the finest diving in the world,
Lorraine and Gareth took advantage of this on Christmas Day and Boxing Day in
the mornings. Christmas afternoon was spent cooking the Turkey on the
barbecue, and everything else in the oven. This worked very well, having
had previous experience with Xmas barbecuing back in the Canary Islands. I
feel ought to mention that the turkey was a frozen one which had originated
in the US; on the packaging there were instructions for various methods of
cooking, including deep frying. Yes, really.
Anyway, a good time was had by all, particularly
Lucas, who had the biggest pile of presents.
 The day after Boxing Day saw us motoring up to
the French island of St.Barthelemy, or St.Barts as it is known.
We have been here several times before, and like it a lot, as do the rich
and famous who seem to have made it the place to go for New Year's
Eve. This must have been one of the largest concentrations of megasize
superyachts ever. We were anchored just across from
"A", possibly the mega-est mega yacht ever. It belongs to a
Russian oil man, and is about the size of some of the cross-Channel ferries
in Europe. Fortunatley there are some parts of St.Barts which
are willing accept to us mere mortals, and we had a very pleasant New
Year's Eve at Le Select, followed by fireworks. Which Lucas slept
through! We also made a visit to St.Barts' airport, which our cruising
guide describes as being "restricted to highly skilled pilots and passengers who
like thrills and spills"! This just about sums it up, for there is a large
hill at the end of the runway which has to be flown over, obviously, before the
plane can begin a nose-dive type descent towards the ground. I didn't
fancy it much myself!
 "A"
St.Barts'
Airport
We left St.Barts late on New Year's Day, and
sailed overnight towards Antigua. The initial plan had been to go
to the island of Montserrat first, but the weather would have been very
unfriendly for the trip back up to Antigua, so unfortunately that idea had
to be scrapped. So here we are, back in
English Harbour, Antigua, where we have spent a few days relaxing after what
seems to have been a fairly hectic period of travelling from place to
place.
 Looking down over English Harbour, Antigua, from Shirley Heights. Anyway, you can probably tell Gareth's been, as he showed us how to put the
blog into the format you see here, which a bit better than usual I hope.
It has been a fun packed six weeks, and we shall all miss him, especially Lucas
who now has no one but his boring parents to play with! Actually that's
not true at all - back in Antigua, he has met up again with Marlin and all the
other boat kids who live at English Harbour, so he is having a great time.
We have barely 24 hours to ourselves now, and then Bronwen (Lorraine's mum)
arrives, so the spare cabin is not empty for long! When the weather is
right we plan to start heading south once more, down to Guadeloupe, Les Saintes
and on to Martinique. Watch this space...
All that remains is to wish all our readers a very happy 2011!
Graham, Lorraine and Lucas.
|
