20 December 2018 Falmouth Harbour, Antigua
I was at North Sails loft promptly at 08:00 to find that our sail was already stretched out on the floor. They’d already re-cut the luff of the sail and were just preparing to sew the luff tape back on.
Andrew spent ten minutes with me explaining all about sail design. He says that the luff curve was too deep and they’d straightened it as much as they dare - he reckons that the leech will become baggy if they take too much out of the luff. He seems to know what he’s doing, so i left them to it and arrange to pick the sail up later in the afternoon.
I picked Glenys up from the boat and, after dropping off a bag of laundry, we caught a minibus into St John’s. We wandered about town to get our bearings and marvelled at the three huge cruise ships dominating the waterfront. Hundreds of tourists were wandering around being accosted by touts trying to sell them trips to beautiful beaches and tours.
After 30 minutes, we split up to buy each other Christmas presents. Over the past few years, we’ve given up on buying each other expensive gifts and have set a small budget to buy some fun things. I wandered around various shops, but couldn’t seem to find anything suitable. Thirty minutes later, I bumped into Glenys wandering the streets and found that she was having the same problem, so we agreed to not bother and have no presents this year - it was a great relief to both of us.
St John’s is a strange place. The main town has traditional colonial buildings with small shops selling low cost items; and the waterfront is packed with up-market clothing and jewellery shops. There’s nothing that we want to buy. We gave up and went to the central market, where Glenys bought a load of vegetables to keep us going for the next week. We were very excited to spot some Ackee, which we’ve only ever seen in Jamaica - Glenys bought a dozen.
Back at Falmouth, we went for a roti and retired back to the boat. Later in the afternoon, we went to the supermarket to provision for Christmas and I picked up the sail. By 17:00, we had the sail fitted back in the mast. The sail looks much, much better when fully out and reefed. I’ll have to wait until we go sailing to be completely sure, but I’m a happy North Sail customer now.
I’ve been impressed by the amount of effort North Sails have put into sorting out a sail that is 2 years old and has done 12,000 miles. It’s taken 6 months, mostly because we’ve been moving about, but their customer service has been first class. Getting the sail adjusted and back on the boat in 24 hours has been extraordinary.
21 December 2018 Falmouth Harbour, Antigua
After three days of rushing around, we had a quiet morning catching up on internet stuff. In the afternoon, we went for a walk over to the fort at the entrance to English Harbour. As usual the anchorage in English Harbour is very crowded with boats swirling around, so we’re happy to be in Falmouth, which has loads of space.
On the way back, we called in at the supermarket and bought some last minute provisions. The selection of meat was pretty limited, so we ended up opting for a frozen chicken for our Christmas Dinner.
22 December 2018 Falmouth Harbour to Nonsuch Bay, Antigua
The weather has been glorious for the past week, so it was a bit of a shock to wake up to squally weather. We’d planned to go 8 miles up-wind to Green Island and lurked about waiting to see if the nasty clouds went away. Fortunately, by 11:00 we were able to pull up the anchor.
We motored out into 4-6 foot waves, directly on the nose, so it was a bit of a mission as we motor-sailed for 2½ hours pounding into the waves. Life was better as we came into the shelter of Green Island and we had good sunlight to be able to see the various reefs on the zig-zag approach channel in to Nonsuch Bay. This fabulous, 2 mile diameter bay is very well protected by a fringing reef.
We anchored at 17 04.62N 061 40.24 W in 6 metres depth. The sea bed was hard-packed white sand and patches of weed and even our Rocna dragged for 10 metres before digging into the sand. The trade winds blow all the way from Africa without crossing land until they hit this anchorage, so it is a mecca for Kite-surfers and there were dozens of them, reaching back and forth across the anchorage – very entertaining.
23 December 2018 Nonsuch Bay, Antigua
Mid-morning, we went snorkelling on the reef directly to the east of our anchorage. There’s a very shallow passage out to the windward side of the fringing reef, but the water was very cloudy with churned up sand. We went out over the reef, but it was still bad on the outside.
We decided to try somewhere else and went further north, skirting Bird Island and going a little way up the Spithead Channel, dropping our dinghy anchor at about 17°05.13N 061°40.32W. The visibility was a little better and the reef dropped off steeply down to 10 metres, so it was a better place to snorkel. However, the reef is covered with sediment and not very colourful – very reminiscent of the south coast of Grenada.
We were just about to give up, when I spotted 3 large lobsters hiding in a little cave. I stayed to keep an eye on the place, while Glenys went back to get a lobster snare from the dinghy. It’s one that I bodged up from an aluminium tube and a bit of electrical wire. I dived down and snared the first lobster, but it flapped around so much that it broke the electrical wire. I re-knotted it and managed to snare a second lobster, but couldn’t get any more.
We chilled out in the afternoon and had Caribbean Lobster Curry for dinner.
24 December 2018 Nonsuch Bay, Antigua
In the morning, we went out looking for a better place to snorkel. We tried in the approach to the bay, but everywhere we went was murky water. In desperation, we eventually stopped at a shallow sandbar/reef in the middle of the bay.
It wasn’t very interesting because it was mostly sand and broken coral with a smattering of small coral outcrops. However, I was excited to find a Spotted Cleaner Shrimp lurking in a Giant Anemone. I’ve been searching for this tiny one-inch long creature for months - ever since we came back to the Caribbean.
It was really difficult to photograph because the anemone’s arms were swirling around all the time. The shrimp was either not in focus; or hidden by an arm; or an arm put it into shadow. After 20 minutes of patiently diving down again and again, I managed to get a few reasonable shots.
We had another quiet afternoon, playing Christmas songs. In the evening, we watched “Love Actually” to put us in the Christmas Mood.
25 December 2018 Nonsuch Bay, Antigua
Glenys made scrambled egg and smoked salmon on toast for our Christmas Day breakfast. We didn’t have any presents to open, which I suppose was a bit sad, but that was offset by the beautiful view of blue skies and turquoise seas as we ate our breakfast in the cockpit.
After breakfast, I switched on my laptop to check the weather and found to my horror that it wouldn’t boot up. Further investigation showed that the hard disk has failed and needs to be replaced. I hadn’t made a backup of my data since we went back to the UK in July, so I felt physically sick – I’d lost four months of photographs and other work.
After a cup of tea to calm down, I decided to try to get the data from the disk. I pulled an old USB disk drive to pieces and re-assembled it, inserting the hard disk drive removed from my laptop. Fortunately, we have a second, small notebook laptop, so with some trepidation, I plugged in the disk drive.
I was so relieved that I could see the data. I immediately copied off my photographs and the other work that I’ve done since July. By midday, I’d recovered everything and started to make a complete backup of the data from the defective disk in case it completely fails.
We cracked open a bottle of Champagne and started our Christmas Day. Christmas Carols were playing on the stereo; the boat was filled with the smell of chicken roasting in the oven; and life was grand again. We had a lovely Christmas Dinner with all the trimmings and a nice bottle of Bordeaux. Feeling suitably bloated, we then sat in front of the telly to watch a James Bond movie – a perfect Christmas afternoon.
26 December 2018 Nonsuch Bay to Falmouth Bay, Antigua
I had the urge to catch some more lobster, so we dinghied back out to Spithead Channel. After a couple of tries, we found the small cave where I’d caught the lobster the other day, but alas there was nobody home. I spotted another lobster in another hole in the reef, but it was too far back to catch, so we gave up.
One of our cooking gas bottle is about to run out, so we sailed back around to Falmouth with the intention of getting it filled tomorrow. It was a lovely downwind sail – hopefully, we won’t have to go upwind again until we get to the Bahamas.
We popped out to buy a few provisions and then chilled out for the rest of the day.
27 December 2018 Falmouth Bay to Jolly Harbour, Antigua
The forecast is for miserable weather for three days from tomorrow, with strong winds, a big swell from the north and lots of rain. Rather than staying in Falmouth, we decided to go around to Jolly Harbour and pick up a mooring in the shelter of the lagoon. We can get our cooking gas tank filled there and I can get into St John’s to get a replacement hard disk drive for my laptop.
It was a pleasant sail around to the west coast of Antigua, sailing inside Cades Reef. We arrived just before noon and picked up a mooring, which will cost an outrageous $25 US per night, but hey, it’s Christmas. After lunch, we walked around and refreshed our memories of Jolly Harbour. In the evening we treated ourselves to a tasty pizza in Melini’s Italian restaurant.
28 December 2018 Jolly Harbour, Antigua
The rain started overnight, but we managed to get to the mini-bus and into St Johns without getting drenched. It only took twenty minutes to buy a new 1 TB hard disk drive for my laptop – there were two stores, which had the exact replacement, which was amazing. I tried to get some spares for our dive regulators, but no joy. We bought a few vegetables and caught the bus back to Jolly harbour.
There’s a really good, modern supermarket at Jolly Harbour, so Glenys did an initial shop. We’ll be back to do a bigger provisioning in the next few days – we want to stock up with a month’s worth of food, so that we can be self-sufficient in the Bahamas.
I spent the afternoon fitting the hard disk and installing Windows 10. One of the reasons for coming into the marina was that I’d be able to get access to their Wi-fi, so that I can down load drivers, etc. However, the moorings are too far from the marina to pick up a decent signal, so I’m a bit frustrated and have to use our expensive mobile phone internet connection.
We invited Chris and Penny from “Crazy Daze” over for a few drinks. They drink as much as us, so we went through a few bottles of wine.
29 December 2018 Jolly Harbour, Antigua
Miserable day – squall after squall went through. I spent all day rebuilding my laptop and by mid-afternoon, I’d got it to a workable state. In a lull, I nipped out and picked up our cooking gas bottle, which has been filled, so we now have two full bottles, which should be enough to get us to the USA in May.
30 December 2018 Jolly Harbour, Antigua
We woke to grey skies again, but the forecast is for it to improve and the winds are settling down, so we plan to leave for the British Virgin Islands on New Year’s Day. It’s 175 miles to Virgin Gorda, so it’s just an overnight sail, if we leave early in the morning. Our plan is to re-fuel and check out tomorrow.
31 December 2018 Jolly Harbour, Antigua
For a change, it was a lovely sunny day. We nipped ashore to spend the last of our Caribbean ECs – it’s all US dollars from here onwards. After clearing out, which was painless, we went alongside the fuel dock and filled up our diesel tank.
We motored out to the anchorage outside the marina and dropped the anchor at 17°04.50N 061°53.81W in 4 metres depth over weed and sand. It took us two goes because we were a little too aggressive backing the anchor in and the anchor skipped over the weed.
Our friends on “Leyna”, who we met in Brazil, were in the anchorage, so we went over and a chat – they are heading up to the East coast of the USA so we might see them on the way. With our socialising done, we put the dinghy on deck and tidied up ready for an overnight sail – we finished just in time for our evening cold beer at 17:00.
We had a very quiet New Year’s Eve. Glenys rustled up a nice Cassuolet; we ripped opened a good bottle of wine; and watched a few episodes of Downton Abbey – no late night revelling for us, a sure sign that we’re getting old.
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