English Harbour Antigua

We arrived here, one of the most famous harbours for British cruisers, yesterday after a rather rough but very fast passage from Deshaies. We knew it would be a bit lively with the GRIB files showing an easterly force 5 all the way. GRIB files always under estimate the wind so we had around thirty knots of wind all the way which equates to a good solid force 7 on the beaufort scale. Still, we did complete 40 miles in something like seven hours which is something of a speed record for us.

It is fascinating to be here in English Harbour though it is not quite the paradise that people make it out to be. It is actually quite small and very popular so it is quite cramped and everything is quite expensive being geared to the yottie rather than cruiser bracket. Still, as it is the classics regatta at the moment, there are a plethora of beautiful yachts to admire. They were out racing as we were approaching no less so we were priveliged to see acres of billowing sail passing reasonably close to us. We are now anchored next to Chaos with whom we had several rather lethal rum cocktails last night.

Clearing in was a pleasant affair and we have collected another stamp in our passports – something we have been missing in the French islands. They do however collect a bit of money from you and apprently you have to pay $EC75 when we leave.. Also, English Harbour is a national park so you have to pay various fees to anchor here which amounted to $EC101 for two days. There are approximately $EC4.50 to one pound!

We have quite a long list of things to achieve while here. As dedicated followers of these ramblings will know, we need to give some serious attention to our batteries. We also need to get some charts, though we do need to decide where we are going first of course. Finally, we need to start planning our return to Blighty.

This is a rather strange time in that sense though as we are now in the closing stages of the cruise and are having to start planning a return to shore based life, at least temporarily. We are definitely in the last stages of the Caribbean stage of the cruise. We still have the Azores to look forward to and will be spending a couple of months there before the final stage. This inevitably has led us to do some reflecting.

As ever, we feel that we have had to move too quickly and skate over too much to feel that we have done justice to this beautiful cruising ground. The next time (we have pencilled in 2019 as a departure year) we will take two years to do the whole thing and spend the hurricane season in somewhere like Trinidad or even northern South America. This would give us a combined total of nearly twelve months down here. Still, we have to get back the to the UK, find jobs and then complete a refit list as long as my arm.

While here, we have managed to see a couple of the Antigua Classics races. The first was taking place as we arrived and we watched a bit of the second from the entrance to English Harbour. There are some truly beautiful wooden boats including two we know. First, Grayhound is here though we have missed our option to crew on her. Secondly, Meriva is here, who we last saw in Tazacorte in La Palma before departing for the Cabo Verde islands. We also had a big surprise when Coromandel turned up having been 22 days out of Tazacorte.

Proof that we actually did make it here I suppose! Dreadful looking person though.

The wifi here is rather flaky so there are not many pictures but I will attempt to redress the balance as soon as possible.

Deshaies Events

We have had a bit of excitement here today. Most importantly of course was a very nice lunch ashore but there was also the thrill of a cycle race coming through the town. The first inkling of it was the local ocpper we saw blowing his whistle all the time and waving a high visibility vest to redirect the traffic. It may not be the Tour de France but was quite dramatic in it's way.

There are lots of pelicans here. The weather has been rather grey and wet and I will try and get a better picture of them before we leave.

Then, once we were back aboard, this beast came up and dropped anchor! I don't think that we will consider one of these for our next boat though.

Guadaloupe and Inverters

We are still in Guadaloupe. We had of course planned to be in Antigua by now for the classics regatta but various things stopped us. We had a long beat up from Les Saintes to Pointe a Pitre only to find out that the Riviere Salee was closed and we would have to sail the long way round one or other of the butterly wings that make up the two halves of this large island. We were feeling very bad tempered about this as it had been a real beat hard on the wind to get there and now th ewind had changed direction which was going to force us to beat back out of the bay.

In addition, our inverter which allows us to charge up the laptop from the 12V system had finally given up the ghost. As it only cost £25 from Halfords nearly four years ago it doesn't exactly owe us anything but we did come to realise how much we depend on having access to the laptop. We have therefore splashed out on a posh one made by a company called Victron. It is a lot better than the old one but cost nearly four times as much. Audrey celebrated buying it by cutting my hair as it was getting a bit long and the mad professor look doesn't really suit me!

Still, we now had to make a decision about how to get north of this island. There were two options really, one was to go down to the smaller island of Marie Galante and then sail round the eastern tip of the island. Alternatively, we could sail back round the southern tip of Basse Terre and up the west coast. This would take us back past the Saintes. Owing to a disinclination to go back on our tracks we decided to try for Marie Galante. Of course, the trade winds now have a southerly element in them which put Grand Bourg on Marie Galante dead to windward. There was also not a lot of wind but too much slop to motor through. So, we headed off for Basse Terre and had a long slow sail round past Les Saintes and we eventually dropped anchor off the town of Basse Terre just round the point at the southern extremity.

Now we are in a delightful bay called Deshaies which is full of boats including several we have met with before. Pampero will be over for drinks later on no less!

We now have to work out when we can clear into Antigua as this weekend is the Easter one and we are not sure if offices will be open or not. The intertubes are quite good here so we will keep everyone up to date and I will see about getting plenty of photos up.

For now, here area couple.

Our anchorage at Pointe a Pitre. No! The wreck is not us!

This is where we are now - Deshaies

A Long Walk

Well, a long walk for us. Dominica is one of the most unusual islands in the Caribbean as it is still very much a wilderness. This is mostly due to the fact that it is very mountainous. It doesn't have endless white sand beaches which means it has been bypassed by the large scale tourist developments. Although this has reduced the amount of tourist money coming into the island to date they have now recognised the potential of eco-tourism and are setting up lots of walks to the numerous waterfalls and springs in the mountains some of which are quite spectacular. Sadly, we will not have time to explore these properly this time round.

However, with Stewart and Karen from Pampero we did walk up to the Syndicate Falls. These are reasonably close and the walk was not supposed to be too difficult. The only real problem was that we all misread the map and underestimated the distance from Portsmouth to the turning off the main road. Thus, we were all very footsore and tired but it was a lovely setting!

We were not allowed to swim in it as the river forms a water supply for several villages but we did drink some of it which was very refreshing. A lot of the islands are very dry and only get water from desalination so it was nice to have very fresh water!

We will be moving on to Guadaloupe in the next few days though we have already pushed back our departure by a day as always seems to happen with us!

Indian River

We have now been two days here in Dominica and are really enjoying it. Although we really liked Martinique, it is great to be somewhere else after a longer than planned stop there.

Today we took an excursion up the Indian River here with Karen and Stewart from Pampero. This is one of the well known highlights of the island and was excellent value. It is quite a small river but is now a national park and the guides will row you about a mile up the river where there is a bar. It is a narrow heavily forested marsh river with lots of local trees, herons, egrets, humming birds, iquanas, land crabs and various fish.

These are a few pictures I took.

The river has a more tacky claim to fame as being used in the Pirates of the Caribbean films as well. We are going to have to rewatch those when we get back.

As a side to this, the traditional boat boys have become very professional here and have organised themselves into a thing called Portsmouth Association of Yacht Security or PAYS. They will deal with a lot of issues for you such as laundry or water as well as organising tours such as up the Indian River. They have fixed prices and this is an excellent way of having hassle free help while afloat which benefits both the cruisers and the local economy.

St. Pierre And On To Dominica

After much longer than planned in the Fort de France area we were finally ready to move on. This would also be a good acid test of how well our propeller was holding up. We planned to head up the island to a place called St. Pierre which is right under Mont. Pelee.

We managed a great sail with perfect conditions and got there in three hours. We did motor a bit more than we would normally when entering the bay but we did want to see how the prop was holding up. Fine as it turns out!

First off, a bit of vanity with a beautiful boat anchored in the shadow of Mont Pelee.

St. Pierre has an interesting history. It was the first settlement on Martinique by Europeans. As ever, they wiped out the local Carib population of course. Over the centuries, it changed from being a privateer community to one for merchants and farmers. Sugar grew very well in the fertile volcanic soil and the town prospered. Disaster however struck in 1902 when the mountain erupted with great violence. According to the cruising guide, the local population were very loth to evacuate the town both because of an incomplete understanding of what a volcano could do and also because they did not want to give up their profitable plantations. As a result, nearly thirty thousand people were killed and only two people survived, one an inmate of the prison.

The town has now been rebuilt but it is not the capital any more which has moved to Fort de France. It is however, a delightful small town with spectacular scenery and a nice atmosphere. The anchorage is a little tricky as the bottom slopes steeply but we didn't have too much trouble with the anchor.

We could easily have spent a lot longer but time is pressing and we need to get further north ready for the return passage across the Atlantic. Therefore, after three nights we got up at the ungodly hour of 0400 to head to Dominica. We had a great reach across the straits between the two islands but then lost the wind behind Dominica. The best anchorage is Prince Rupert Bay right at the northern end which made for a longer sail - 53 miles which is why we had such an early start.

We are now in the process of settling into a new island and will of course be boring all our readers with our experiences here soon.