Back to Antigua! (Antigua)

 

As the sun begins it’s pre-dawn glow in the East we find ourselves gently motoring towards the lush outlined hills of Antigua...

Sounds nice doesn’t it?

Well it’s not...but I’m getting ahead of myself.

When I Iast left off we’d been enjoying the cricket - it turned out to be an evenly matched, if perhaps somewhat lacklustre game. Both sides will be kicking themselves for not taking the win. A draw - not a game to instill excitement in a first time spectator, but a good to and fro battle non the less. It fizzled out on day five with the pitch doing little to help the tired English bowlers finish the job. Happily the next test is due to start any day now, so the fun and games can begin again.

I spent days 4 and 5 listening to the radio commentary, and fishing from the back of the boat.

Day 4’s catch:

A Reef Cod

A Trevally

A Blue Striped Grunt

and a Squirrelfish.

All but the tasty little trevally were returned to the deep.

...day 5’s catch: absolutely nothing! Despite using the same bait (chicken skin) in the same spot (Hermitage Bay)- I suspect word must have got around the local fish population that an expert angler was in town!

We enjoyed a nice evening aboard Linda and Keith’s catamaran, Itiki. I think they must have a very different budget than ours: We took over some of the finest vintages from our cellar - 2 cartons of 2021 Spanish Supermarket own brand wine, a red and a white - or a Tinto and Blanco if you prefer. These cost .75c each and were all we had. Keith mentioned in passing that he likes a G&T and that the local supermarket has his favourite tonic water - of which he bought a crate costing over $100!

Linda made a lovely dinner, perfectly catering, without fuss, for Chez’s vegetarian requirements. They checked out the next day, and headed North to St. Barts.

We headed round to Jolly Harbour with a view to doing the same.

The customs/immigration building is accessible by tender, so we took ours in, getting soaked along the way. Chez expertly performed all the formalities required to secure a couple of passport stamps to allow us to officially leave the country. Having ticked that box, we bought a French courtesy flag from the Chandler, got a few bits from the supermarket then headed back to the boat to make ready for a 3am departure to St. Barts (which is reportedly very expensive), then on to St. Martin the next day.

The alarm beeped us awake just shy of 3, and we upped anchor and headed out shortly afterwards. Lit by a close to full moon we began our journey in the lee of the island, so fairly calm, not much wind. Once we get clear of land, both the wind and the swell pick up, allowing us to sail without engine, albeit a little rocky from the side on swell.

Still well short of dawn the sea state and the wind further pick up. Despite having both sails well reefed already, we’re overpowered. The helm becomes unresponsive as the forces acting on the sails and our hull become too much for the rudder to cope with. It seems funny writing this down, just a few hours later - the words struggling to convey the conditions we found ourselves in. Chez, sadly again suffering a nasty bout of seasickness was forced, between sobs and gags, to take the helm while I tried to put the sails away. A frantic, half hour followed with the wind howling, sails and lines whipping everywhere, and the boat throwing us around like a washing machine. Frantically cranking winches, using a wide variety of proper sailor swearing, panting, covered in sweat, I finally managed to take the sails out of the equation.

This was as close to being knocked down (the mast going in the water) as we’ve come. Evidence of this rolly ride was visible below; more than the normal amount of debris strewn across the floor, and a single broken glass rolling around. Once the sails were away, although the sea state remained angry, we could at least steer in the right direction - Both agreeing, that for now at least the ‘right direction’ is most definitely back to the safety of Antigua whose lights are still visible on the horizon.

...and that’s where we started this entry.

From here, given our last two trips North have not gone well, it seems that French speaking Guadeloupe to the South is likely to be tomorrow’s destination/adventure. This assumes Immigration here don’t find out we’ve returned to Antigua and decide to lock us up first!