Hello Let me begin we with saying sailing in the Caribbean is not a piece of cake as I informed you in my previous note. Sun shining calm blue seas and a pleasant wind to blow you up and down the islands. That’s what the book says and the last 12 months have been just like that. You get the odd day when you stay in the marina or anchorage but the weather soon improves and you are able to continue. Squalls come over, but here again they pass quickly and its fair again.

However the trip from St. Lucia to Antigua we have just completed was much like sailing in the Irish sea and as I informed Graham that’s why we left English waters. In January the trade winds are quite strong 20 - 25kt. is normal. You reef down to reduce sail area and its no problem. We planned to be in Antigua for the 25th January to meet friends. So having spent a brilliant boozy new year in St. Lucia we set of for Antigua on the 3rd Jan. Plenty of time to sail up and stop at anchorages we hadn’t stayed at before or anchorages we had liked. The weather forecast seem to be steady. So off we set first to Martinique where we stocked up with wine and other delights of french food. Graham got his water pump on the engine repaired. It had been leaking for a long while but now we were mopping out half a gallon of cooling water every four hours he decided to get it seen too. I think the engine must be running cooler as we now have a good gush of water from the exhaust. Had a couple of days on anchor off St Anne’s beach we had plenty of time. Along the coast of Martinique and on to Dominica planning to stop over night in St Rupert bay and then continue to Guadeloupe. But it got quite windy and squally on the anchorage . We checked the weather and found there was a high pressure system to the north of the Caribbean near Florida which were strengthening the normal strong trade winds. So we decide to stay a few days quite sure the ridge would move up and the winds return to normal.

We get internet weather on the boat and as there seemed to be a slight improvement we decided to continue. Between Dominica and Guadeloupe are a couple of island that are said to be worth visiting The Saintes and Marie Galante. We had stopped at the Saintes before so I really wanted to go to Marie Galante as we wouldn’t be passing by again. However as we got to the top of the island of Dominica we soon realized this would not be sensible. The winds had strengthen and it would had been on the nose. So we decided to continue to Guadeloupe. This wasn’t a pleasant sail even with two reefs in the main and a small jib we were over powered. Eventually having to drop the main altogether and continue on the reefed in jib which we ripped . Rain and gusty winds of 30+ didn’t make it a very enjoyable trip. We arrived to anchor in the shelter of Point a Pitre bay with a ripped jib, that Graham spent the whole of the next day repairing. We checked the weather again to find no change infact it had began to give gale warnings for the caribbean. Point a Pitre used to be the main city of Guadeloupe once and the streets are lined with wooden houses that may have been lovely 100 years ago but now quite scruffy. But among them were some really good upmarket retail clothing shops. They have a very colourful fruit and flower market in the square, but the cafe’s didn’t look good. The marina was fine with a number of charter companies based here. It also has the best laundry I have used for a while our white T shirts and tops came back white for a change. After a few days with no change in the weather we decide to sail up the coast of Guadeloupe where we would be fairly protected to Deshaies where we could anchor up until the weather improves. Only 45miles to Antigua. The weather of course didn’t improve and we spent 6 night on anchor with gale force winds and squally showers along with about 2 dozen other boats for company. Graham spoke to a man on a boat near by who said he had recorded 44kt during the night. All I know lying in your bunk with the wind tossing you about doesn’t encourage a good nights sleep.Though Graham was not concerned snoring and dead to it all. Thankfully the anchor held. During the day we would go into the town, which is very small a few shops and bars. Buy the bread and fresh food for the day and return if possible between squalls without getting wet. We had a bit of excitement one day when a local boat broke loose and went sailing through the bay among the yachts. We had a good hours show whilst the men on the cruisers Graham included went to the rescue. As most liveaboards have small outboards on their dinghies this turned out to be not an easy job. The boat was about 24ft and with the winds and seas seemed to be set on going to sea alone Luckily a yacht looking for shelter decided to come into anchorage, managed to get a line on the boat and tow it onto a mooring. After 6 days of getting the weather down via the internet and seeing no change we had began to think we would not be in Antigua to meet our friends. They were getting worried too. Then we noticed a slight fall in the wind strength 25-30 and the sea height had gone down a little so we or rather Graham decided to bite the bullet as he put it and make a dash to Antigua. I can’t say I was a happy bunny. At daybreak along with two other boat that had decided to chance it too we got our anchor up. Which took a bit of doing as it had dug well in and set off with two reefs in the main and a well furled in No.4 jib. We confined our large cruising Jib to the sail locker. The trip across was really not as bad as I expected. The winds were round 25-30 with gusts one I recorded at 38kts and the seas were high. Graham thought round 3 mtr but they were long rolling waves not choppy confused waves. The wind direction , East , gave us a good reaching angle to Antigua. We did get wet as waves hit the boat and came over but we didn’t get a squall and it never rained. In fact we had a beautiful sunny day with a few soft clouds. We recorded a maximum speed of 12.3kts which I think was wrong but we did see over 10kt a lot of the time. A fast passage. So we arrived in Jolly Harbour Antigua safely in the sun shine with 2 days to spare before our friends arrive. We had planned to take them to St. Martins stopping at the islands on the way but we shall have to see. However as they used to sail in the Irish sea and spend summers across the channel along the French coast they should feel at home.

Joy

Categories: Travels
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