Jolly Harbour, Antigua

It is Monday 31^st March at 0945. We are anchored in Jolly Harbour, Antigua and the monster of all squalls has just gone through. The wind went from a steady 20 or so knots (it’s rarely less than that) to over 35 knots within, I kid you not, a second. Even the mate couldn’t get all the hatches closed in time. Me, I was in the rear heads, on the centre line of the boat and kept falling around, staring helplessly at the helmsman’s shade thrashing on its frame.

We are in for a windy old week and after anchoring here in 3.5m of water with about 20 or so metres of chain out, I let out nearly another 10! I can hear my old mate Les now “30m of chain in 3.5m of water – what are you doing??” But the tidal range is only 0.3m, the wash from local powerboats is worse, and I do like at least a metre under the keel. No one is very close to us and later this week gusts of 35 knots are forecast, plus squalls. At least with that much chain out we can [hopefully] sleep easily…

Anyway, let’s go back. Before we got here we had the Martinique carnival to see (and I keep repeating this, I know – but the mate loves carnivals). We dutifully got on the ferry at Anse Mitan opposite Fort de France everyday but one of the carnival, and walked about wondering what was going on. I couldn’t make head nor tail of it, even the mate was bewildered. There seemed to be no processions, very little else other than some strangely dressed locals and few silly cars being driven around. I was ready to call it a day early in proceedings, but the mate was having none of it. So we had to battle it out, day after day, until the mate sussed out what the game was. Apparently the silly cars were driving around and around encouraging locals to follow them until a merry band was walking around the streets. The main theme though, was, the carnival king. The king reigned only for the duration of the carnival (he was cremated at the end of the carnival) and was based on an important or political leader. This year, his majesty King Vaval was a rat. If based on a political leader I’ll leave it to your imagination as to which one – there is no shortage of options…

St Louis Cathedral, Fort de France

Colourful rue, Fort de France

Old town hall, Fort de France

The Carnival

Not 100% sure what these are supposed to be…

Mmm…

French cockerel!

“Avert your gaze” said the mate!

“I won’t tell you again” – Mate!

His Majesty King Rat Vaval

The King’s cremation

After the carnival we were so fed up with powerboats speeding around Anse Mitan causing endless rolling (even starting before dawn) that we headed over to the Marina Z’Abricot moorings near the container port. A Canadian couple we’d met were over there and reported in that the moorings were €6 per night and there was a decent Carrefour over there. Just before leaving though, my old friend Trevor showed up with Sarah his wife. I’d met Trevor 10 years previously when he showed up to do a Competent Crew course and announced he’d like to sail the world. Here he was doing just that! Eventually we all went over to Z’Abricot and (apart from the weekend!) it was pretty peaceful. We walked the 50 mins to a massive Carrefour, where the mate managed to spend over €600 – ouch! [A rather significant chunk of this was spent by Skip who had been doing some panic buying in the wine aisle!! – Mate] A taxi back was the final nail in the coffin, a run of only 4 miles resulted in a fare of €40, say no more…

So, stocked up and ready, we said goodbye to Martinique on 20^th March with the intention of sailing all the way, overnight, to Antigua. However, as soon as we left the mooring something didn’t feel right. I felt a slight change in the engine note and a change in the feel of the rudder. It was only slight, but it was there. We went astern and then ahead a couple of times and then convinced ourselves that all was well. It was slow going to the Northern tip of Martinique, with little wind and some current against us, but we sailed across the Martinique channel to Dominica, did our night watches (where we are pleased to report that all shipping of concern called us on the VHF and did all the right things if there was a possibility of being too close). It was very slow going up the leeward coast of Dominica – something, somewhere wasn’t right. Inside the boat we heard a strange noise from the propshaft area and we both agreed it sounded like something was wrapped around the shaft. At the same time the wheel started squeaking, but we traced that to the autopilot linear drive arm. After emptying out the entire lazarette it was an easy fix with a bit of PTFE spray. At the top end of Dominica we sailed pretty well across the Dominica channel to Guadeloupe. It was when we were off the lee coast of Guadeloupe that the going was so slow (significant current against us and wind on the nose), even with the engine on we couldn’t make the main harbour at Deshaies (where they filmed Death in Paradise) so turned around and headed south again to anchor in Malendure. Holding here was OK and our friends Trevor and Sarah showed up, giving us a lift ashore in their rough, tough dinghy where the mate found another Carrefour. I tried to remind her that we’d just spent over €600 before we left, but my claims were dismissed as apparently we needed more things… [Apparently we needed more wine boxes! Please see previous note re: Skip’s panic wine buying! – Mate].

Whilst in Malendure a blue hulled German boat was anchored ahead of us, sufficiently far away – until – it started to drag closer. We moved further away. A day or so latter it dragged much closer just off our starboard bow. The crew were all on deck and I went forward to tell them that we thought they were dragging. With hands on hips and puffed up chest one of them said “we are not dragging”. I replied by saying that we had moved once already (which surprised them) and said “well we aren’t dragging upwind towards you are we?!” That had them scuffling about snorkelling on their anchor etc. The mate and I shrugged and went to re-anchor well away from them (when we finally left Malendure we estimated that they were currently ‘anchored’ in the spot where we first anchored!).

Anchorage at Malendure

Whilst in Malendure the mate performed the miracle of all tasks. In she went with snorkel, fins and mask and cleaned the entire hull, prop shaft and prop in less than a day. She could also clearly see where we had had something around the prop shaft (which we think removed itself when we turned around south of Deshaies). I managed to put a mask on and have a quick look, which was all my current snorkelling skills allow [Malendure is a picturesque anchorage but not very well protected and experiences some very strange currents, and strong winds tumbling down off the hills. I had to fin so hard to stay in place whilst I was cleaning the hull that my fins fell apart. Skip kindly repaired them with Gorilla tape so I could finish the job!! – Mate].

That all done, the weather gave us a window of two days to choose from to head up to Antigua (neither of which was terribly good). This was 57 NM to Jolly Harbour and setting off at 0730 on 27^th March we pulled into Jolly Harbour about 1600. An average speed of 6.7 knots. The passage was a bit ‘sloppy’ whilst in the lee of Guadeloupe but after that we had a superb sail, one of the best we’ve had over here. I think we’ve said before that Stargazer is a fast boat and our speed would have been even higher had we shaken a reef out of the mainsail but confronted by 4m+ seas at times and being beam on, I decided to play it safe. Nevertheless we had a thoroughly good romp over to Antigua.

The wind and ‘chop’ is so great at anchor here that our friend Steve (who luckily for us arrived from St Kitts the same day) gave us a lift ashore to check in with Customs and Immigration. That experience I won’t describe in full – if you want to know you can probably read reviews online somewhere.

So, here we are, in Jolly Harbour. The wind this week is forecast to be very strong, so we won’t (can’t) go anywhere. It looks like we’ll be able to head for Falmouth Harbour sometime over next weekend or early the following week. We like Falmouth Harbour and have the additional pleasure of being there for Antigua Classics. We volunteered as dinghy wranglers last year (an American term – which means driving around in a RIB and helping out all the old classic yachts as they come to berth). We enjoyed it and we must have done something right as we’ve been invited back…