Position: 17:04:35N 61:53:29W

The weather forecast warned of big northerly swells coming though, which meant that we needed to plan to be somewhere which wasn’t affected.  Many anchorages are west-facing, and can be very rolly when there is a northerly swell.  Whilst Green Island was fine, we felt we wanted to get round to the West side of Antigua, to be ready to jump off to another island when the forecast looked right.

Nutmeg sailing round the south side of Antigua

We sailed round the south coast of Antigua, past English & Falmouth Harbours, and on up to Jolly Harbour, a Rodney Bay-style lagoon with housing and a marina – all very swish but a bit lacking in character.  These places are always hot, airless and mosquito-infested – traits that can never be attached to your average trade wind anchorage.  We met up with our friends on “Yara” who we had been sailing with on & off since St Lucia.  They planned to sail to Nevis and we tentatively agreed to follow them.

Montserrat blowing smoke in the distance

There is an anchorage outside the lagoon at Jolly Harbour, but the depths leave you with no more than about a foot under the keel, and as we motored round we realised that there was a big swell rolling through the anchorage, leaving us in serious danger of hitting the bottom in the troughs between the waves.  We decided against anchoring and went inside, where we found a spare mooring.

A quick explore found us in the consumer cathedral of Epicurean, a western-style supermarket with everything one could wish for when re-provisioning your boat.  Even Branston pickle, which we were about one day away from running out of!  So after spending a small fortune on food and vegetables, we took it all back to the boat and squirreled it away.

En route to and from the shops, we decided it was time to train the girls in using the dinghy and outboard, so after a few tantrums about whose turn it was, we got going.  Emilia is reading (or is being read) “Swallows and Amazons” at the moment and has re-named herself Able Seaman Millie, so it was with great earnestness that she took the helm.  However, getting her to steer in a straight line was a bit of a struggle (to be fair, it isn’t easy in the dinghy), and I think she secretly enjoyed going round corners more than going in a straight line!

Emilia enjoying the turns

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it already, but a few weeks ago, Jemima suddenly started talking in a Northern accent.  Words such as party were pronounced “parteh”!  I don’t know where she got it from (it certainly wasn’t me) but it wound Sarah up brilliantly!  I taught her to say “Eh up chuck” which really got on Sarah’s nerves!  Jemima’s sense of irony is well-developed, however – she insists on correcting me if I ever say “glass” instead of “glarrs” – cheeky monkey.

Unfortunately, the uveitis in my right eye had deteriorated, and I had to admit defeat and recognise that I needed to get back to the ophthalmologist. On my own initiative, I had doubled the frequency of my steroid drops but the pain was increasing, so we had to change plans and check back in with Customs (we had cleared out, thinking we would be sailing to Nevis) and it was yet another trip on the bus into St John’s to see the doc.  He decided to put me on steroid and anti-inflammatory drops, alternating every half hour, to try to bring the inflammation under control.  It is quite a nightmare having to remember to take drops every 30 minutes, not made easier when my watch was broken by the watch repair shop when fitting new batteries.

My eye condition knocked my confidence quite a lot and we decided that it wasn’t sensible to rush off to another island whilst the uveitis wasn’t under control.  So we committed to another week in Antigua – hardly a hardship and more of a relief for me.  When it is like this, you just don’t want to go anywhere new.

Whilst we were at Jolly Harbour, we checked out the facilities here, one of which involved a day at the pool, another of which was a traipse round the dockyard and chandlery to recce the facilities for when I haul Nutmeg out in a couple of weeks – I am pulling her out prior to sailing home in order to slap some more paint on her bottom in order to stop the incredible marine growth that proliferates within a few days out here.

Jemima the butterfly