Some unexpected events

We left Nelson’s Dockyard on 11/23 and headed to Deep Bay, on the western side of Antiqua. It was rolling a bit but a picturesque location off of a hotel that had waterside bungalows with their own swim deck. We settled in for an onboard dinner and early to bed since everyone needed some rest from the bouncy ride over. At 02:30, our guest woke us with an urgent need to get to a hospital. Andrew called the Antiguan Coast Guard and within 15-20 minutes, they arrived in stealth mode. We heard the boat approaching but couldn’t see anything until we got a glimpse of the blue camouflage uniforms. They took our friend off the boat to St. John’s hospital, where we would look in on him the next day. However, around 04:30 we heard a knock on the hull and woke to the Coast Guard asking to board our boat. Apparently, it was just paperwork but for some reason it needed to be done in the middle of the night!

Our friend decided to cut his visit short after he broke himself out of the hospital and we moved the boat to Parnham, another location on Antigua’s north end. It was billed as a quiet anchorage but we found it was surrounded by an industrial plant on one side, airport on the other and what sounded like a dog rescue in the middle. No need to go there if you are cruising Antigua.

My favorite anchorage so far was in southern Barbuda at Cocoa Point. We arrived on 11/25 around noon and there was one other boat there. Within an hour, there were 10 other Salty Dawg boats, some from this year’s rally and some from other years, who’s crew swam over to welcome us. I got my GILI stand-up paddle board out to join the floating welcoming committee. One of the boats that arrived that afternoon was Aladdin, from our rally, with our new friends Tom, Sara, Greg & Jody. The next day, Andrew and I went snorkeling off of the most beautiful beach that I’ve ever seen, and later joined the Dawgs playing on the beach. Supposedly, Robert De Niro owns this end of the island and will be developing a high end resort here. The islanders have been resistant but given the destruction from the 2017 hurricane that the island still hasn’t recovered from, it may be the best thing.

Nov. 27th was a difficult day. We moved the boat to the other end of Barbuda in order to visit the main town of Codrington. While underway, we heard about one of the Salty Dawg boats taking on water, but getting patched up by the sailing community that rallied around to help. Later that day, we heard another May Day call on the radio reporting a body in the water. Tragically, an elderly man drowned while snorkeling in fairly rough waters. It put a serious and sad overtone to being in such a beautiful place. Earlier that day, we had connected with George Jeffries, the man to know on the island for frigate bird sanctuary tours and generally getting around. He guided us in through the dangerous reefs to the town dock and then took us on a wonderous tour of the birds. Their bright red throats announce that it is mating season as hundreds, perhaps thousands of birds try to attract the opposite sex. It was an amazing sight for an otherwise somber day.

Thanksgiving Day we got a ride back to the dock in Codrington in order to check out for our sail to St. Barts. We walked around what’s left of the hurricane torn town to find the Customs behind a bar in a run down, overgrown little white house needing paint. The office was a small but nicely air conditioned room with three desks in it and two very nice and helpful customs officers. It was kind of depressing to see the destruction that remains on this beautiful island and the apparent lack of initiative to do much about it. We did enjoy the opportunity to meet some of the people who are making a difference, like Michelle who owns the only restaurant, Tim Buc One, Mathew, who manages the customs office and George, who seems to run the waterfront. That night, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal of lobster, squash and good old green bean casserole on board Aladdin and went to bed grateful for new friends and experiences, yet sadden by the events of the last few days.

Highlights from Nelson’s Dockyard

We are delayed here at Nelson’s Dockyard in Antigua, while we wait for a replacement water pump for our fresh water. Not a bad place to be waylaid so I’ll take the opportunity to provide you with some history and highlights of the area.

Starting in 1713, the Caribbean was the scene of struggle for naval supremacy between Britain, Spain, Portugal, France and the United Provinces. Britain’s strengths lay in her navy and the waters around the sugar and spice islands. Nelson’s Dockyard in English Harbor, Antigua was developed as Britain’s main naval base to protect these interests.

One of the highlights of this area is the Admirals Inn, formerly the sail loft headquarters for the British navy, which currently houses the excellent Pillars restaurant, and across the lagoon, the Gunpowder Suites, with the infinity pool:

Another highlight was the hike on Middle Ground Trail to Ft. Berkeley, which in the past was armed with canons to protect Nelson’s Dockyard. Followed by inquisitive goats, we were led to some gorgeous views of the harbor and ocean from this historical venue.

The best highlight of all, was the view from Shirley’s Heights, where in one direction we saw a full double rainbow over the ocean and in the other direction, English Harbor and neighboring Falmouth Harbor, as a driving rain and squall approached. It was quite dramatic!

Lance and the people of Antigua

So far, I’ve found the people of Antigua to be very friendly and resourceful. For instance, we met this fellow Lance (otherwise known as Sir Nelson) on our very first day, while the proprietor took lunch at the fuel dock. Lance is a tall, thin, handsome black fellow with a big smile and beautiful teeth. Wearing his signature aviator glasses, he sauntered up and sat himself on a piling next to our boat. He asked how we were doing, where we were from and soon we were engaged in a conversation about our sail from Hampton, Va.

Eventually, Lance got around to asking if we needed any boat work done and we learned that he could be a provider of all things including a boat wash, connections to electronics support, help fixing a broken water pump, etc. The last few days we have had Lance and/or his associates employed in one way or another. On Friday, his team cleaned our topside. On Saturday, his friend Erica, who runs Crab Hole Liquors & Grocery, also sells SIM cards and helped us with cellphone issues. On Sunday, Lance connected us with Cheryl, with her bright red hair and infectious smile, who made our boat sparkle below, while her husband Kevon, stuffed our cushions in his mini Kia so that his sister could clean them. Later that day, Kevon was back with his mini-

car to take Doug and three others (with luggage) to the airport. Today, Lance has us working with Ivan to fix and/or order parts for our broken water pump.

Aside from the aforementioned boat chores, we have been enjoying cold Wadadli beers & mahi mahi burgers at Skullduggery Bar & Restaurant, rum punch from the Galley Bar and a wonderful fish fry at at Copper & Lumber Restaurant, complements of the Antiguan government. Before Doug left, he rented a car to drive us to Jolly Harbor & St. John’s in search of toilet seat hinges (the only thing we broke on our offshore excursion) and a metal file for another boat. We had a nice lunch at Hemingway’s, a cute pub with green wood trim to match Doug and Andrew’s shirts.

St. John is a busy harbor town with not much to it other than street stands and duty free shopping. It was quite an adventure driving in this tiny car, trying to avoid the many potholes and deep trenches in the road, while noticing the number of missing side mirrors on most of the cars we passed. We got a little lost using the hand drawn map from the car rental agency, when one of the roads turned into mud. A nice Rastafarian fellow in an old beat up truck, advised us not to venture any further. “Turn around now” he said, with a slightly glazed look in his crystal blue eyes. I was personally thankful for this advice since I think Doug was having fun treating the rental car like a forerunner.

The trip to Antigua

On Saturday, November 2, 2019, Andrew, Hilary, Jon and Doug set off from Hampton, Va. on a ~ 1700 mile voyage to Antigua with the Salty Dawgs. We left the dock around 20:30 with our long underwear on, 10-15 knot winds out of the north and calm seas. We started watches with Jon on from 22:00 - 24:00, Hilary & Doug from 24:00 - 02:00 and Andrew from 02:00 - 04:00. We continued that way every two hours for the next 11+ days. Doug and I shared a watch because we had the additional responsibility of cooking and cleaning the galley. Jon and Andrew took primary responsibility for keeping the boat going efficiently. Our first full day we had choppy seas and I had a fairly tentative stomach but we made 170 nautical miles. By the next day, my stomach was better and Andrew caught a mahi mahi. We knocked him off with some cheap vodka purchased just for that purpose and Doug had it on the table for lunch within an hour. Andrew made ceviche with the leftovers and we enjoyed some of the freshest fish ever but it was a bloody affair!

On 11/6, the winds had lightened up and it started to get warm. We enjoyed VHF conversations with our new Salty Dawg friends on the seas (Gemeux and others) and got the asymmetrical spinnaker up going 7.5-8 knots in 13-14 knots of breeze. Andrew calls this champagne sailing (although there was no champagne). We were boarded by a small bird that Doug (the consummate chef), tried to feed. That evening, we faced the first squalls on our trip, which Jon adroitly dodged using the radar.

By 11/7, we lost our AIS, the Furuno couldn’t locate our GPS coordinates and we discovered that more than one person couldn’t e-mail at the same time. Electronics are so fun! The sailing was good though averaging 6.5 - 7 knots. At one point, we had a pretty heavy rain storm and Jon jumped on deck for his first shower. The next day, we had full sails up on starboard tack at 6am. I discovered that it is much harder to cook, and do just about anything, on that tack since you are leaning into the stove and out of the head. We kept careful track of our fuel usage since we were still 800 miles away from Antigua and the variable wind strength required us to motor from time to time.

On 11/9, three pelicans tried to board the boat. They flew behind us trying to keep up. When they decided that approach wouldn’t work, they flew on our port for a bit, angling closer and closer to see if they could make a landing. Next they tried flying ahead and finally flying off to starboard before they gave up and decided to wait for a bigger ship.

Nov. 11 brought light air and motor sailing until we hit the trade winds at 22:40. At that point, we were 425 miles off from Antigua and we felt like horses heading to the barn. The next day was kind of quiet, which is sometimes a welcome state of affairs offshore. The highlight was having dinner alfresco in the cockpit with my Captain.

On 11/13, we had a midnight sail change that got me soaked in a driving rain. It felt great! We were 170 miles out and averaging 160 miles a day, clearly getting excited about seeing landfall soon. The next morning, we all learned that Doug’s menu planning all week had been about preparing a leftovers frittata, which was the best I’d ever had. He had squirreled away leftover peas, pasta, ham, cheese, tomatoes, peppers, etc. and put it all in one pan. Yummy! Sorry, no food porn pics. I ate it too fast.

On 11/14, we saw Barbuda in the distance at about 08:00. After some nice reaching sailing, we finally arrived in English Harbor around 11:00. We had to lift our 80 lb anchor out of the forward hatch to prepare for med mooring (setting an anchor and backing into a dock) at Nelson’s Dockyard. Before pulling in, we stopped for fuel, only to find the attendant was going out for lunch. Welcome to island time! He permitted us to tie up on the dock and wait, which gave us the chance to watch a couple failed attempts at med mooring before we had to do it ourselves. After filling up on densely, Andrew masterfully swung the Billy around, set the hook and backed her in like he had done it 100 times before. We arrived and it felt great. We celebrated with chicken roti and beer for lunch!

Almost Lift Off

It’s been an eventful week in Hampton preparing with the Salty Dawgs for the 1600 nautical miles to Antigua. We’ve attended some awesome seminars like Tips for Safe Passage, Offshore Fishing, Provisioning & Pressure Cooking Offshore, Communications, etc. Caught up with Jeff & Gwynn, who will be coming down to Antigua later this winter. Ran to Walmart, Food Lion, West Marine and other stores repeatedly and received packages from the kid delivery system. Had a diver check out our zincs, propeller, and had two of the greatest friends one could have arrive to help with preparations. Scott & Svea, the former boat owners, came with frozen dinners and ready hands to help with store runs, defrosting and organizing the refrigerator and freezer, insulated the engine riser and helping to get the de-salinator working. On 10/31, we attended presentations by the U.S. Coast Guard, served the boating kids Halloween candy, had our second weather briefing, and enjoyed a pig roast with various Halloween clad creatures. By yesterday, our fearless crew, Doug and Jon arrived and today the weather briefing is suggesting we depart tonight at sunset. Not sure what the captain will decide, but either way, you may not hear from us for a couple weeks! We almost have lift off for our Bon Voyage!!