Crimson Kathryn and her crew

We made it – let’s just start with that!! Our sail down to Guadeloupe was an adventure. We knew the jump was going to be difficult because the predicted winds and waves were high (20 knots with 2.5 m swells) but we had some challenges that made it even harder. When we were leaving the dock on Wednesday (March 4th), I hurt my back trying to untangle a very heavy bow dock line (it wasn’t our line – it came from the boat beside us). So I was not in the best condition for this kind of hard crossing. To add to the pleasure of this trip, Mark had probably his worst bout of seasickness in a very long time. He was wearing the motion sickness watch device but it wasn’t working.

We got going nice and early on March 5th, pulling up anchor at 6:30am. The first part of our crossing was great – we had jib and mizzen up and we were sheltered by Antigua so the waves were tiny. It took a couple of hours until we were out of the protection of Antigua and into the full ocean wind and waves. The wind and waves were slightly ahead of the beam on the port side (on the beam means the wind or waves are 90° to the boat). We were expecting east wind but we were seeing wind slightly south of east (which gave us waves more on the bow then we would have liked). It was a rough, bouncy ride until we were about halfway across (the crossing distance between Antigua and Guadeloupe is about 40nm. Our trip was 60nm because we were going to Bouillante Harbour to meet up with Sharron and John). At that point, the waves changed to being on the beam and the wind was now east/northeast (going behind us!). By this time, Mark was starting to feel slightly better and I was trying to move around as much as I could. By mid afternoon the conditions were much improved and we were sailing along at 6 knots and higher. The wind and waves were behind us and the ride was much smoother. The last part of our trip was easy – we were behind Guadeloupe and protected from the waves. The island impacted the wind direction (more south) so we took sails down and motored the last 8 nm to our anchorage. We arrived around 5 pm and had trouble getting our anchor to hold. After 2 tries in one spot, we thought we were good but our friend John swam over and checked our anchor (super cool of him to do that for us). It turned out we were anchored on top of dead coral and not secure so we moved to a new spot in the anchorage. This time our anchor held – it was after 6 pm when we were finally settled!

Guadeloupe is a very mountainous island – also looks very lush. Our anchorage is well known for its hot springs. Hopefully we will get a chance to enjoy the hot springs but for today, we need to make some water and I need to rest my back!

We left the dock this morning (March 4th) around 11 am and are now anchored just outside the inner harbour at Jolly Harbour. Mark has been very busy the past 3 days doing a few boat projects. He painted more of the forward deck with the non-skid paint. He polished the dinghy davits (the stern being close to the dock sure made that job easier) and he replaced the ignition switch for the engine. The switch was acting up on our jump down from St. Martin so Mark was able to buy a new one from Budget Marina (which was right in the marina). I spent the past 3 days cleaning and putting the V-berth back to travel mode (basically the notch piece comes out and is stored). I also started crocheting another project!! We did a very little bit of grocery shopping and Mark got his hair cut!!

All in all we’ve had an amazing stay in Antigua but now it’s time to keep heading south. The plan is to jump down to Guadeloupe tomorrow (March 5th). We’re hoping to catch up with Sharron and John (Sundog) who have been in Guadeloupe just over a week now.

Here are some Antigua photos that didn’t make it into previous posts.

This has been one fast week! Evelyn and Liam have definitely seen all the highlights of Antigua and they had some excellent relaxation time too! Today February 28th is their last day – flying out tonight – and they’re spending some time on the beach and by the pool.

We’ve been strategic this week, pacing ourselves with a day on/day off strategy. Tuesday, Feb. 24th was a relaxation day. Evelyn and Liam spent the morning at the beach and we joined them for an hour or so in the afternoon. On February 25th we spent the day exploring St. John’s. We went to the museum and the cathedral. St. John’s Cathedral had been recently renovated with all new interior wood (they had major termite damage) – it was quite beautiful. After our exploration of downtown St. John’s, we drove out the Fort James (which is mostly ruins with a few cannons) and had lunch in this funky beach restaurant. It had good food and a cool atmosphere.

On Thursday we drove to Pearns Point (the beach with the blow holes) and had a lovely relaxed few hours in the shade! Evelyn and Liam wanted to snorkel in this area but it was too rough for that. We had an amazing pork tenderloin dinner that night. We also have been playing euchre after dinner this week which has been great fun.

Our last exploring day was Friday, February 27th and we decided to go to the Devil’s Bridge. One thing I haven’t mentioned much is the driving situation on Antigua – it’s crazy!!! Not only is it wrong side driving (i.e. England style) but the roads are terrible – narrow, no shoulders with huge pot holes and speed bumps. To add to the fun cars, buses and trucks literally stop and park anywhere. Traffic is constantly crossing into the opposite lane to pass stopped or parked vehicles. It’s absolutely insane!! And of course the locals drive fast!! Mark has done a great job driving around the island but it’s been a bit stressful!! Devil’s Bridge was worth the crazy drive. The area faces the east so it gets the full impact of the Atlantic Ocean. The “bridge” is a rock formation that has been eroded by waves. It was spectacular – waves crashing into the rocks over and over.

After the bridge, we drove to Betty’s Hope – Antigua’s first large scale sugar plantation. There’s not much left of the original plantation but you can see a few windmills and ruins of structures. Unfortunately we arrived after the on-site museum closed so we just looked around the grounds. We drove back to the marina via Fig Tree Drive which goes through the rainforest part of the island. We drove this way when we went to English Harbour but this time we stopped at a local art gallery which was super interesting.

Our last night together was spent celebrating at a local restaurant called Fat Urchin. Liam treated us to a wonderful dinner and when we got back to the boat, we had a little dessert I’d made. We’ve had the best visit and it’s hard to believe their week is over!! Way too fast! Mark and I will be hanging out in the marina until Wednesday morning and if the winds hold, we should be jumping down to Guadeloupe on Friday, March 6th.

We’ve had a great start to Evelyn and Liam’s Antigua visit and have already managed to do a lot of stuff!! It all started on Saturday February 21st with a road trip into St. John’s with Sharron and John. We all wanted to do some grocery shopping but first we made a visit to the downtown (waterfront) area of the capital city. We went to Redcliffe Quay which was very touristy and then we walked to their local market area. We were able to purchase local produce – bananas, plantain, squash, tomatoes and onions. After our shopping, we returned to the marina to put all our goodies away and rest before Mark and I headed back out to the airport. Evelyn and Liam’s WestJet flight arrived slightly early (at 6:05pm) and they were only slowed down by the 2 hour late Air Canada flight that arrived just before them. We were back at the boat for their first night by 8pm.

Their first full day (Sunday, February 22) on the island was spent getting into “island time”!! We had a leisurely pancake breakfast and then E & L went off to the beach (it’s an easy walk from the marina). We had a nice lunch in the cockpit and then rested for an hour or so before we launched the dinghy and took off to the dinghy disco party! I mentioned earlier about this electronic music festival being held here at the marina (organized by a few sailors). This event was the final one for the 4 day festival. The main organizers of the festival took their sailboat called Electric Passage out into the main harbour area and anchored it. They played DJ style electronic music from their boat to the audience in their dinghies. Some dinghies were tied to the sailboat and the rest just tied to each other. We went out around 3:30pm and joined our friends Sharron and John. We listened to the music and enjoyed ourselves! Evelyn and Liam even went for a swim!! We were back at the boat around 5:30pm and had a wonderful rib dinner!! We ended the first day with a few hands of monopoly card game! It was a great day.

Today, February 23rd we had a day away from the marina. We drove to English Harbour and explored the historical sight called Nelson’s Dockyard National Park. Antigua has done a very good job of keeping the old structures well maintained and preserved while having a functional marina on-site. We had a great time exploring the buildings, museum and the little fort area plus we had a very nice lunch overlooking the harbour.

After lunch we drove to the opposite side of English Harbour which is also a national park and home to Shirley Heights Lookout and Restaurant. We had an amazing view of the harbour. On our way back to the boat, we stopped at a local farm to buy black pineapples – you can only buy them on the island because they are a bit fragile (and they’re only black when unripe). Unfortunately they didn’t have any today but will have some on Thursday.

Our last stop of the day was dinner with Sharron and John at the pizza place near the marina. We got back to the boat around 4pm and Evelyn and Liam went for a quick swim at the beach. We met up with Sharron and John and had a nice dinner. Sharron and John are leaving in the morning to jump down to Guadeloupe so we’ll plan catch-up for a bit.

It’s been a few days since my last post – where has the time gone!! Well we’ve been busy getting settled into the dock life!! It’s definitely a nice treat to be at the dock – it’s so easy to leave the boat (and we can run the air conditioning 😁)!!

We left Five Islands Bay around 10 am on February 18 and headed back to Jolly Harbour. Our friends Sharron and John arrived in Antigua the day before and they were anchored very close to the channel leading into Jolly Harbour. We gave them a big wave as we motored by.  This marina had one interesting challenge – it uses a system of docking that is called “med mooring”. In other words the boats are stern in to the dock. That’s not a big deal for most modern sailboats but our baby is old school. The stern is not an exit point!! Okay so we had to do a little adjusting to make this med mooring work. We’ve actually docked stern in once before – in Cuba (back in 2017), but at that time we didn’t have our solar panel above our dinghy davits. Of course, Mark had a plan!!

As we approached the marina, we moved the dinghy (which we had towed behind the boat from Five Islands Bay) from the stern up to the bow. This allowed us to back into our slip with the dinghy out front and not in the way. Mark radioed the marina and within minutes we had an escort to our slip. 2 marina workers helped us get into our slip – which was awesome. One guy was on the dock to receive our 2 stern lines and the other guys stayed in the dinghy to help me with our bow lines. It was a narrow fairway between the piers so it took some fancy maneuvering for Mark to get this (lovingly said) tub of a boat to back into our slip without hitting the catamaran in the slip in front of us or either boats beside us!! As we got close to the bow of our neighbour boat, the worker in the dinghy handed me a dock line from the bow of that boat. After I secured that line, I handed our bow line to him and he went around the one post and gave the line back to me to secure on our boat. While this was happening, Mark was passing our 2 stern lines to the worker on the dock! It all went off without a hitch and we were safely secured in our slip by noon.

So now we’re stern tied at the dock – how do we get off the boat?? The dinghy wasn’t an issue because it was at the bow but the solar panel was kind of in the way. After a bit of finessing with our dock lines, we were able to back the boat up close enough to get off with basically a big step. We put our solar panel in its tilted up position and just like that, we were able to get off the boat easily! It’s a good thing because plan b was to remove the solar panel all together.

We’ve had a bit of fun since being on the dock. Starting Thursday, a group of sailors were putting on a 4 night music festival. Mark and I went with Sharron and John to the first night of the “dinghy disco” festival. The venue was very close to our pier so we walked over while John and Sharron took their dinghy in. We had a fun evening chatting and having a meal out. The music was not live bands but djs. Not quite our style of music but still interesting to see lots of people out for the first night of the festival.

Today (February 20th) we went for a walk with John and Sharron over the hill to Pearns Point (which is the first bay you pass when heading into Five Islands Bay). It was a good walk up and down some very nice concrete roads that were obviously built for a new luxury home subdivision that really hasn’t gone anywhere (but the roads and some landscaping were super nice)! We found a great beach that had 2 blow holes on one side so we got some good photos!! It was really nice to spend the afternoon with Sharron and John and we got some major exercise points!!

In the morning (February 21) we pick up our rental car. Sharron and John are joining us for a wee shopping trip in the morning into St. John’s and then later that afternoon, Mark and I will head to the airport to pick up Evelyn and Liam!! We’re all ready for a fabulous visit with Evelyn and Liam – it’s Liam’s first time on the boat – exciting!!

We’re getting close to the end of our first week in Antigua and we’ve discovered that we really like Five Islands Bay (I think I called it harbour in my last post – same place)! The Bay is very calm, quiet and not crowded at all. After a few days resting here, we headed back to Jolly Harbour on Thursday and anchored in the main bay. The outer part of the harbour is very crowded so we were anchored a good ways out. We went ashore and checked out the marina, the little shops and the grocery store. I can tell you that Antigua is very expensive (Bahamas expensive). All prices are in ec (East Caribbean dollars) and the exchange is $ 1 EC = .50 CAD. I was looking for rye bread which they had but the price was $20EC 😳. Needless to say, I didn’t buy the bread! It’s a good thing we really don’t need to buy a lot of groceries!!

We had another reason for heading into Jolly Harbour on Thursday. Mark has been experiencing pain in his lower right jaw and figured it was a tooth issue. After a day (Wednesday Feb. 11) of phone calling frustration, Mark finally reached a person at our insurance company to confirm that a visit to a dentist was covered in our travel insurance. We stopped by the marina office and got a dentist recommendation from one of the office ladies. Mark was able to get a 10 am appointment on Friday (Feb. 13) so we were good to go. We headed back to the boat in the afternoon and that’s when the rolling started. It continued and actually got worse overnight so we decided that as soon as we were finished with the Dentist (who was in St. John – the capital city of Antigua), we’d move back to Five Islands.

St. John’s is the largest city on the island and it’s about 12 km from Jolly Harbour – we took a taxi to the dentist office. We had a really nice driver who gave us a bit of a tour on the way in and some advice about what to see. It took about 30 minutes to get to the dentist but we really didnt see much of the “downtown” area. The dentist saw Mark fairly quickly (a little after 10am) and did a full exam and X-rays of his teeth. The good news – Mark’s teeth were fine!! The not so good news was that the dentist believed the pain was actually coming from the joint of Mark’s jaw (muscle spasms causing nerve pain basically). The dentist recommended getting a night guard to help lessen the tension in that joint. Mark decided to wait until we get back home to see his own dentist. We left with a prescription for some pain medication and only a roughly $70 CAD bill! So not everything is expensive in Antigua!!

Today, February 14 (Happy Valentine’s Day!) we took the dinghy to shore and glued it up again!! We’re not having great luck with the do it yourself solutions so we’ll probably end up having a professional dinghy repair guy fix it in Trinidad. But for now – we hope the glue holds for a bit. On Wednesday we head into the marina for 2 weeks – one week of that time Evelyn and Liam will be visiting. We’ve decided to rent a car for the week so we can check out the whole island! Very excited to have Evelyn and Liam onboard!!

Sunday Feb. 8th was a very stress free day because we had lots of time to get “crossing ready” before the 4 pm outbound bridge opening. We had everything stowed, prepared and organized by 1 pm so we pulled up anchor and headed to the lagoon fuel dock to fill our starboard water tank. Unfortunately it wasn’t open so no water for us!! We still have water so it’s not a big deal. We dropped anchor again, close to the bridge and waited for the opening. We were last in line to exit but quickly made it into Simpson Bay.

All the weather models were predicting a north east wind, under 15 knots and 1-1.5 m waves from north. This was a good prediction for our 90 nm trip south east to Antigua. We put up all three sails and tried to sail away (south east) from Sint Maarten. We quickly discovered that the island was shadowing all our lovely wind so we ended up adding a bit of engine power to the sails to keep our speed up. We finally got away from the island’s influence after an hour or so but found out that the wind truly wasn’t there. By dusk we decided to take all the sails down and just motor. We motored alongside St. Bart’s and we were seeing east/south east wind 😳! Not what we wanted at all! At around 10pm the wind started to come around to north east so we pulled out the jib and motor sailed until about 3 am. It was definitely a strange wind night that beared little resemblance to the predictions. We had almost straight south wind at one point and a lot of east/south east (which meant it was on our nose). Fortunately the waves and swell did match the forecast and they helped us move along from mostly behind. By sunrise (around 6 am, Feb. 9th) we were within 2 hours of Jolly Harbour, Antigua. We had a bit of rain as we closed in on our destination but at least the wind didn’t pick up with the rain. We were entering the harbour channel around 9:30am. Tired but super happy to be in nice, calm water.

We’d both read a few stories about clearing in at Jolly Harbour – it can be a challenge. The Customs and Immigration office was easy to find but there was no room on their dock for us to tie up (they want all vessels to be on their dock to clear in). We decided to anchor right beside their dock and as we were setting our anchor this woman on a trawler told us we couldn’t anchor in that spot (we found out later from a fellow cruiser that she had no authority to make us move and we should have stayed there – live and learn). So we pulled up anchor and moved beside one of the Jolly Harbour marina mooring fields. We lowered the dinghy and off Mark went to clear us in. There were already 4 dinghies and a sailboat ahead of Mark so he knew it was going to take awhile. As he waited, he watched the sailboat captain (who was German) get in trouble for his docking – not 100% sure what went down here but the captain seemed to have angered the customs folks – they made him do a “time out” and wait to clear in. Very strange. Anyhow Mark got through the process relatively unscathed and he was back on the boat by lunch.

We were both very tired so we decided to just stay the night anchored by the mooring fields. It was a good spot and it was very calm. We had some lunch and then went to take a nap. We weren’t there for more than 2 hours when 2 men in a dinghy came by and knocked on our hull. We believe they were from the marina – they told us we couldn’t anchor where we were but could pick up a mooring ball (for $35 US/night). We decided to leave and find another place to anchor. Just as we started to raise our anchor, the skies opened up and it poured!! We slowly made our way out of Jolly Harbour. Visibly was bad so we put on our range (steaming) light to be more visible in the heavy rain. Slowly we made our way the 4 nm north to Five Island Harbour. We are now securely anchored in this very calm and relatively empty bay. We’re very happy to be here even if our first encounter with Jolly Harbour was not very “jolly”. It now time to relax!

Our month long stay in St. Martin/Sint Maarten has come to an end. We arrived here on January 2nd after a wonderful 90nm crossing (no wind but also no waves!) and anchored in Marigot Bay. We had the chance to explore part of the French coast with our boat but really explored the island by car with John and his family.

Over the last few days we’ve been very busy getting ready for our jump south. We did a good shopping trip to the Carrefour grocery store near Philisburg and we went to the Cost U Less (it’s like Costco) on the same trip. We picked up our new shade that we had made here and it works great (we can now keep the forward hatch open when it’s raining and still get a nice breeze coming in). We went out to the Super U grocery store to get a few more French food items and went to the ACE hardware store one last time.

The best part of the last few days has been the time we’ve spent with John (Sundog), Brian and Greta (Desert Loon). We had another fun happy hour at Lagoonies that turned into dinner out. On Saturday (Feb. 7th) we all went to the opening parade of St. Martin’s Carnaval! It took a bit of time for the parade to get starts but it finally appeared down the main street around 5:30pm. It was very impressive and super cool. The costumes were colourful and the musicians were really good. The parade highlighted the culture of the French side as well as celebrating their Caribbean history. After the parade, we had dinner down by the Port Louis Harbour and enjoyed a good meal, great conversation and the ongoing Carnaval celebrations that included the drum groups from the parade and a local band.

Today Sunday, Feb. 8th we’re getting ourselves ready to head out around 6pm. Mark has cleared us out of Sint Maarten and we’ll be pulling up anchor at 2:30pm to go to the fuel dock to fill our water tank. After that we’ll catch the 4pm Simpson Bay bridge outbound opening and either keep going or anchor for a bit. We’ll see what the wind and waves are like on the outside. We should arrive in Antigua by noon tomorrow – Monday, Feb. 9th.

That was a very fast week – John, Sadhana, Aidan and Sophie flew home on Tuesday, Feb. 3rd. They did manage to squeeze in some fun items during Sophie’s 4 days on the island, visiting several beaches and exploring the island by car. We met up with them for lunch and also spent a lovely afternoon at their Airbnb on Sunday, Feb. 1 – eating snacks and playing 2 rounds of Monopoly card game!

On Monday, Feb. 2 around 9 am, Mark and I had a surprise visit from a fellow cruiser anchored in Marigot Bay. Jim (whom we didn’t know) stopped by to warn us about impending  weather. As you are probably aware, there was a severe nor’easter that impacted Canada and all the way down to the Bahamas (very high winds and cold temps). Well that weather caused some major wave action to head our way. We were informed that waves measuring 3 – 6 ft would be rolling into Marigot Bay from the north west starting Monday night and potentially lasting into Thursday. We were anchored close to shore and apparently that was not a good spot for these kinds of conditions (waves could break around us – and that wouldn’t be good). We decided to pull up anchor and head into the Simpson Bay Lagoon on the Dutch side. That sounds simple enough but it wasn’t. We were going to enter a new country and Sint Maarten has different check in requirements. St. Martin’s check in and out was all done online and digital clearance forms were emailed to us. Sint Maarten wanted a printed copy of these forms so Mark quickly dinghied to a marine shop near the fuel dock and they printed everything for us. We then took off for Simpson Bay, hoping to catch the 11:30am bridge opening. Well the wind and wave gods didn’t help us that morning. All was good until we rounded the west point of the island and headed southeast. Wind and waves were right on the nose and that slowed us enough to miss the opening. We anchored in the rolly, bouncy Simpson Bay for a very long 2 hours until we could enter the lagoon at the 2 pm opening. We were anchored and checked in a little after 3 pm.

We spent the rest of the afternoon with the family aboard CK. It was a lovely way to spend the late afternoon – chatting and relaxing in the cockpit. It was super calm in the lagoon with very little breeze so it got quite hot. We decided to head to Lagoonies for dinner. We all piled into the dinghy and headed over for 6pm. It was a great meal and I think we all enjoyed ourselves.

Our friends on Sundog and Desert Loon decided to stay in Simpson Bay to ride out the overnight waves. There was a lot of concern about what these conditions would bring – big swell can easily dislodge your anchor and send you dragging into shore or other boats. I’m sure there were some tense folks onboard but in the end, it wasn’t much of an issue. The waves did arrive but there was no wind so most boats just moved with the waves and it wasn’t much. It was actually less rolly than in the afternoon when we were anchored out there. 

Tuesday Feb. 3 was a rainy, overcast day. John and family had a 4:30pm flight so they took their time leaving their Airbnb and had one last lunch at Grand Case. We were going to meet them at the airport to say goodbye but the weather was not our friend. Their plane flew over our boat around 4:35pm and we waved to them as they passed overhead. Later that night we had a happy hour / dinner with Sundog – John, Sharron and Sharron’s friend Katherine and Desert Loon – Greta and Brian onboard CK. We’ve never sat 7 people around our table but it was nice and cozy. We had a great night – good food and excellent conversation.

Now we’re making a plan for our jump to Antigua. Evelyn and Liam arrive on Feb. 21st so we have time to get there. Our original plan was to do a shorter trip down to St. Kitts (about 60nm) but the wind looks good for a direct crossing to Antigua this coming weekend. It’s about a 90nm trip so we’ll do any overnight passage. 

We’ve had a whirlwind couple of days touring and exploring both sides of St. Martin/Sint Maarten with John, Sadhana and Aidan. We explored Marigot and had lunch at a lovely little cafe called “So Benedict”. We drove along the north west and east side of the island and rested on a few beaches. We spent 2 days exploring the island and saw many parts most boaters wouldn’t see (unless they rented a car). As things always seem to go, many elements collided at the same time and on Friday, January 30th all those elements all came together.

The day started with a rendezvous at Soggy Dollar – a great dinghy dock for us with an easy pick-up point for John. We had coffee at this nice little spot and then headed to Red Beach (Bay). We were keeping to that side of the island because John and Sadhana’s daughter Sophie was arriving that afternoon (we were close to the airport) around 4 pm.

All the rendezvous happened within hours of each other!! Sophie arrived on a WestJet flight around 3:30pm. Our friends’ Sharron and John had a friend arriving on an Air Canada flight at 4 pm and we had sailing friends, Greta and Brian on Desert Loon arriving that afternoon. So many reunions!!

We met Greta and Brian (Desert Loon) at Ocean World (back in the DR) last February and haven’t seen them since they sailed on to Grenada to store their boat last season. They are now on their way back to Florida so it’s super cool that we could meet up with them here!!

Mark and I did something we haven’t done yet this season – we took the dinghy to Lagoonies (a restaurant on the Dutch side) at night to meet up with our sailing friends!! It was an awesome night!! We got caught up with Brian and Greta (and heard about their adventures south last season and north this season). We met Sharron and John’s friend Katherine and we saw Sharron’s friends Lisa and Lionel again. It was a great night of catching up, exchanging stories and eating some good food!!

Today (January 31) we met up with John, Sadhana, Aidan and Sophie and had lunch in Marigot. They had spent the morning on the beach and it was great to meet up with them and share a meal together. Only a few more days remain before John, Sadhana, Aidan and Sophie head home and we head south!!