Antigua

Flyer of Lorne
Dave Sturrock
Tue 23 Dec 2008 14:19
17:00.25N 61:65.63W
 
 Monday 22 December
 
We have visited 3 islands since the last blog entry, Isle des Saintes, Guadeloupe and Antigua. Flyer is now anchored in English Harbour, possibly one of the most photographed and iconic of Caribbean destinations. Skip and crew are all having a couple of days off here to catch up and take it easy with some beachtime in order once again.
 
Iles des Saintes was a beautiful stopover and this group of small islands is very European being French compared to the independent  Dominica only 20 NM to the South. The main town of Bourg was almost a miniature town due to the small sized and neat buildings. We explored Fort Napolean which was veryt interesting with detailed models of warships and old Naval battles fought in the area. The gardens were notable due to the many wild Iguana that would allow themselves to be photographed.
 
Sunday afternoon saw us take in some snorkelling before heading to Guadeloupe. The approaches from the South were very interestin g with lots of sandbanks and shallows as we made for Point a Pitre. We moored at teh Marina Bas du Fort where we took in an excellent dinner at the Pirates of the caribbean restaurant, very appropriate you might say!
 
We had planned to navigate the River Salee which bisects the island and only has depths of 2.0meters in places. There are 2 road bridges on this busy island which onlly open once a day at 05:00hrs so it was an early start at 04:00 to be ready bat teh first bridge. We were in a convoy of 3 yachts which duly progressed through the first bridge when disaster struck, Flyer went aground between the 2 bridges. I had visions of being stuck in the riverf all day as she would not clear in astern. However as it was mud I went ahead again and we cleared the bottom with some relief. The rest of the 1 hour passage was without event and as dawn broke we cleared to,seawrds and hoisted sail. We then had a fast reaching  45NM sail in F5-6 Easterly winds which brought us to Antigua at 12:40. A bit of a bumpy crossing for the family but the beautiful surroundings soon lifted spirits as we explored ashore.
 
Dave Sturrock