Antigua and Barbuda

Note: We are still catching up on posts, this one dates from Mid March to early April, should be up to date soon. It is a long one, we really enjoyed Antiqua and Barbuda!

Our last morning in St. Martin we went ashore for a wonderful breakfast at the   Cafe Atlantico, such a treat since we seldom have anything other than oatmeal (aka gruel). We have so very much enjoyed the French cuisine, maybe a bit too much… Said goodbyes to our Luperon friends then prepared Echo for an overnight passage, waited for the 4:00 pm opening of the Simpson Bay bridge, and set course to Antigua.

This was our first full moon night passage and it was beautiful! We sailed with a full genoa and main on a close reach maintaining between 4 to 6 knots for almost the entire ride.  Around 3:00 am I noticed a squall in the distance thanks to the moon light. We pulled in a bit of the Genny for the duration but never had any issues. We both got a fair amount of sleep and were treated to our first whale sighting as well as first glimpses of Montserrat just after sunrise.  Sweet Chariot, who we had met in Luperon and traveled to Puerto Rico with last June, hailed us on the radio.  They were in Jolly Harbor and we discussed plans to connect in the next day or so.

Flying Fish

We arrived in Falmouth about 1:00 pm and set anchor just off Pigeon beach, found a little hitchhiker on deck .  Jeff had read in our cruising guide that in Antigua only the ship’s “master” can go ashore for clearing so I remained “quarantined” on the boat and got things organized from the passage. We spent the rest of the day recuperating; those over nighters take a lot out of you.

Antigua is most often pronounced Ann tee ga and was first called Wadadili by the Arawaks.  Columbus sailed by in 1493 and apparently named it after a church in Spain.   Much of our information comes from our Lonely Planet “Caribbean Islands” book. We also frequently refer to “The Cruising Guide To The Leeward Islands”. Chris Doyle has a series of these guides for the Caribbean which we have on board.

Ruins in Nelson’s Dcokyard

The next day (Sunday March 16) we were well rested and started out early exploring Nelson’s Dock Yard.   Antigua’s history also includes plantations and the island was heavily protected by British military.  The dockyard was a royal naval base which has been restored and today houses an active dockyard, restaurants, inns, shops and marina.  The Lonely Planet reports the Dockyard Museum as a “must-stop”, we did and agree it’s well worth the time.

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View from Shirley Heights

We hiked up to Shirley Heights which is the ruin of a British fort and provides amazing views of Falmouth and English Harbor along with Montserrat in the distance.  We also got a glimpse of Eric Clapton’s Antiguan home, and stopped at Dow’s Hill museum where the multi-media presentation of island history is worthwhile.  After a long hot day of exploration we hiked back down, zoomed over to Echo for a quick shower then went back up to Shirley Heights for their Sunday evening sunset dinner.  Earlier in the day we had the place to ourselves, for dinner there were hundreds of people.  It was so crowded you could barely see the sunset for the people.  It was a good dinner and good conversation with some fellow Michiganders and a couple from Windsor.

We were anchored next to a Lagoon 440 catamaran with a for sale sign so we arranged for a visit.  It was a very nice boat and certainly helped us in our effort to educate ourselves about catamarans.  Tucannon has circumnavigated with it’s first owner and crossed the Atlantic twice with Phillip (current owner).  We enjoyed meeting Phillip and his friend Chris, two very nice British chaps.

Spirit of Roni

Sweet Chariot arrived in Falmouth on St. Patrick’s day and we combined resources for dinner aboard Echo that evening.  They had us over the next evening along with Tina and Johan of Spirit of Roni, a beautiful Spirit 60.

Echo and Sweet Chariot sailed to Nunsuch Bay for a few days. A beautiful, well protected bay with a few anchorage choices and several no-fee mooring balls. We visited, swam, snorkeled and watched amazing kite boarders.

After a few days the weather forecast looked good for Barbuda so off we went. Everything about the trip was incredible.  We were sailing across on a nice beam reach when we spotted a whale heading the opposite direction just 200 yards off out port side.  We were in awe ~ a beautiful sail alongside a whale. Almost immediately after the whale we had a fish on the line ~ a very good day!  We didn’t end up keeping it but very soon after we hooked something big.  It fought for quite a while and finally got loose before we could land it.  No fish for dinner but at least we were catching.

We first anchored off Coco Lodge and moved the next day to Low Bay.  Both beaches are incredible and empty. Our pictures can hardly portray how beautiful and magical this island is. Barbuda apparently means desert island which much of the island is but it has the most beautiful, unending beaches we have ever seen.

Goldilocks

Another boater had made a recommendation to see the Frigate Bird rookery so we contacted “Goldilocks” (aka Vernon) to arrange a visit.  He picked us up in the lagoon and motored over to the nesting area where he explained the life of Frigate birds.  Goldilocks is a great tour guide and a colorful narrator of all the bird activities including that of finding a mate.  The birds with a big red neck and males who are still hoping to be chosen, only the females can make the choice of who they mate with for the season.

Goldilocks also arranged a driver and guide to take us to the Darby Sink Hole and caves.  Denny was our driver and Elvis our guide, Elvis is the man wearing the MSU Spartans shirt.  The island is British and it’s history includes a sugar plantation established by the Codrington family in the 1600’s.  We started at the ruins of the Codrington Highland House estate where during the 18th century crops and live stock to feed the slaves on Antigua were grown.  Elvis told us the Codrington family also bred humans in order to have strong healthy slaves.  In addition, they placed a false navigation light on the east side of the island to lure ships in to the reef and wreak them in order to steal their cargo.  The Codrington’s did not sound like very nice people.  Although there were many sad aspects, Elvis talked of the history of his island with pride.

We hiked in to the Sink Hole which is about 100 yards in diameter and 100 feet deep (Cruising Guide To The Leeward Islands). Unlike most of the island which is dry and scrubby, this area is lush trees, vines and vegetation along with some pretty amazing stalactites and stalagmites too. We then went to Two Foot Bay and explored some caves, there were more to see but by this time we were hungry and tired. Goldilocks had arranged a wonderful lunch for us at the Roti Queen in Codrington.

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We headed back to Antigua in anticipation of meeting up with Joel and Lisa who would join us on Echo after spending a few days on land. Our sail back was another good one and included another whale sighting and we landed a tuna.  We anchored for the night in Deep Bay and enjoyed a wonderful tuna dinner.  We explored the area in the morning; a hike up to the ruins of a fort provide beautiful views of the bay; shallow ruins of a sunken ship allow for good snorkeling and there is a nice beach for hanging out.  As we watched the sun setting, we saw that we happened to be in a position where the sun sets directly behind the island of Nevis about 40 miles to the west of us.  We caught this photo of the sun behind the island making an incredible island shadow in the sky.

We moved over to Jolly Harbor in the afternoon for provisioning and met up with several boaters from “Coconut Telegraph” in the evening.  This network continues to be a great resource and way to meet people in new places.

The following day we sailed back to Falmouth and met up with Joel and Lisa for a nice dinner ashore (Falmouth has many good restaurant choices).  In the morning we joined Joel and Lisa for a road trip which is always an adventure on these islands.  They had already seen a fair amount of the island and hoped to get to a really remote beach in Rendezvous Bay. The adventure proved successful and we hauled beach chairs, snorkel gear and coolers down and enjoyed a few hours with the Beach almost all to ourselves.  On Thursday evenings Shirley Heights has steel drum music so we went up for sunset, it was much less crowded than our last visit here and was a beautiful spot for watching the sunset.

Joel and Lisa moved aboard the following morning and got settled in on Echo. We had a quiet evening then headed out for a nice sail the next morning. Weather forecasts predicted strong winds and a persistent north swell and we considered possible sailing and anchoring options. After spending a night anchored in Five Islands Harbor we decided to head back to Barbuda the next day.

Again the sailing was great and we did have a few fish on the line but nothing to keep, we kept an eye out for whale sightings too but no luck this time. Joel and Lisa were as in awe of Barbuda as we were and just spent time enjoying it’s beauty.  Of course now we were deciding the best way to get them back to Antigua for their flight home Tuesday.  They decided to fly back which they later described as priceless; seeing Barbuda from above was beautiful.

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It was necessary to arrange a water taxi ride for them which we scheduled with Goldilocks.  We also asked about getting lobster and Goldilocks took care to do that for us too. Joel and Lisa prepared our lobster feast and it was delicious.  It was March 31st, Jeff’s mom’s birthday.  He was having a bit of a though day but took comfort in remembering how very much his mom loved lobster.  She spent many summers in Nova Scotia as a child where she developed a passion for lobster, she ate every single bit of a whole lobster.

19 Lobsters

Amazing lobster dinner

saying goodbye to Joel and Lisa

We said good bye to Joel and Lisa the next morning, it had been great to have them visit and we were so happy they had come to see us!