We arrived to Antigua after a 48 hour, wind on the nose, sail in only 3 tacks. It was a bit of a rough trip, but short. We had to get ourselves back in the groove of things, as we’d been lazing about in BVI for nearly 3 months. Admittedly, if we didn’t have friends to meet, we may have spent our entire season in the BVI.
We checked in at Jolly Harbour, a pleasant little bay with mooring balls and the option to anchor outside of the bay in plenty of sand. It hosts a few restaurants, a full sized grocery store, and a Budget Marine store for boating supplies. We ran into friends from our Christmas pot luck, Tony and Jill, at the Budget Marine store. They were docking their boat for 3 weeks to fly home. We spent one night here and headed around to Falmouth Harbour to await the arrival of our friends from White Rock, Laurie & Joe.
As we were walking around the town of Falmouth, we ran into another couple at the Budget Marine outlet, Ann and John. They also joined our Xmas pot luck. What are the chances of running into two couples within two days. Ann invited us for G&T’s (gin and tonics) aboard Folie a’deux for happy hour. We headed back to our boat, to find that the anchor had dragged and we were 180 feet from where we left her. Luckily we had plenty of room, but we turned on the motors and reset it good and proper before heading for our happy hour. Note to self, test the anchor at 1500+ rpm every time.
Friends arrived from the airport on Saturday the 22nd of March. We invited Ann and John and their friend Stephanie to join us for dinner. I made Dahl which everyone enjoyed with rice. Simple food with good friends. A most enjoyable evening was had by all. These are the times we really enjoy having the large cockpit of a catamaran.
The following day we walked over to English Harbour and enjoyed looking in the shops and checking out all the boats that would be starting in the RORC Caribbean 600 race to start on Monday. Sunday evening after dinner, Laurie brought out a portable piano. You see they are the keepers of our piano while we cruise. Laurie thought we might be missing it. We had good fun playing around with it.
Monday morning at 10 am the RORC Caribbean 600 race boats were leaving the harbour. Paul and Joe took lots of pictures. They all had to pass the jury boat in Falmouth Harbour not far from where we were anchored so we even saw the boats that came out of English Harbour when they came into Falmouth to pass the jury boat. There were 53 boats in the race which went 600 nautical miles around several Caribbean Islands. The fastest one finished in 2 days and 5 minutes (unbelievable).
Over the course of the next week we circumnavigated the island of Antigua, beginning with a return to Jolly Harbour to provision for the week. This followed with a 2 day stay in Deep Bay on the north west side of the island. Here P & I snorkeled over the sunken ship the Andes. All of us hiked up the hill to the old fort and we all enjoyed the wide expansive beach (especially Charlie).
Next we had a pleasant sail around to the north to Long Island. This island is mainly private, with a security guard who arrived to the one bit of beach that was not in front of any homes. He wanted to be sure I knew not to go anywhere near the homes on the island. I told him I would only need this small amount of beach in order to exercise my dog. Charlie was very good and didn’t even bark at the guard, which is rare for him not to react to someone approaching me. No one else came ashore, as it was pleasant enough to swim and enjoy the sunset from the boat.
The next morning we chose to do a longer sail and make our way over to Nonesuch Bay. We’d heard good things about the bay. For the first time, Laurie and Joe got to experience heading into the wind while under sail. Not as pleasant as previous trips. We tried to go in through a very narrow channel on the east side of the bay, but our charts appeared to be inaccurate and we found ourselves uncomfortably close to the rocks on the reef. We did a U-turn and went in the larger channel on the south west of the island.
We picked up a mooring ball right next to the beach of Green Island (free mooring). We wanted to show L & J how we use a mooring ball. Only problem was there was no line attached, so it was more challenging to get attached to it. P figured it out and we backed up to it and tied on, then walked the ball forward to tie on. The second line was handed up from the paddleboard. We spend one night on the mooring ball, then moved to anchor in Brown Bay next to a pleasant place called Harmony Hill. To get to the restaurant and art gallery located in an old plantation house, you walk through a winding path with hummingbirds (at least a dozen or more) flitting around you. Aloe plants were in bloom along the path. The bar of the restaurant is located in the old stone sugar mill tower. We took the steps up the outside to find nice benches at the top where one could enjoy a cocktail.
The first night we were alone in the bay. We all swam, paddled and snorkeled for two days here. On the Saturday evening we were treated to a lovely dinner at the Harmony Hill restaurant. On Sunday, L&J arranged for a taxi to the airport at 12:30. We can’t believe how quickly the week flew by with our first house guests.
After our guests left, P & I felt a little lost. We were getting used to having friends around and enjoyed it so much. Laurie had left us a Seinfeld DVD set, so we watched the first 4 episodes. Given we haven’t had any movies and we don’t download it is very nice to watch a little TV. Neither of us had seen many episodes of Seinfeld, so it’s great entertainment for us.
We’ve decided to stay in Nonsuch Bay for about a week. So more on that later.