Day Nine

This was a fairly lazy morning and most of us slept late. Then, David, Kaylynn, Alyssa, Pamela, and Jimi took a dinghy over to a snorkeling spot near the anchorage. It was a good spot with lots of fish and some caves. A huge school of small fish swam under Jimi and Kaylynn which was amazing to watch.

After breakfast and snorkeling we loaded up and went south to the town of Basse Tere to look for fresh water for showers and cooking. It was a very scenic sail and we got great pictures of the rain clouds coming through the mountains. Overall Guadeloupe was probably the most picturesque island we visited. However, the marina at Basse Tere was a ghost town on Sunday afternoon. We found someone who told us where to get water ('borrow' it actually since there was no one there to pay) but we couldn't do it because we didn't have a hose on board.

Having failed to find water at Basse Tere we sailed further south to the Saints. The Saints are a pretty little group of islands just off the southern coast of Guadeloupe which are quite popular with sailors. It was a fairly bouncy sail but it was a short passage (only about an hour) and we ended up at a very pretty harbor. In the harbor at the Saints we found a “water buoy” run by an enterprising guy named Jerome. It was a buoy with a hose attached that ran all the way to the shore. We payed 40 Euros for as much water as we wanted. The girls all showered while we filled up. It was expensive but solved our water problems. (We then had the problem of finding 40 Euros since Jerome didn't take dollars or credit cards but that's part of tomorrow's story.)

The anchorage was fairly large but only some parts of it were protected enough for quiet night's sleep. We finally anchored over near the main part of town. It was tricky to find a good spot and we ended up fairly close to shore. We dived on the anchor and it seemed to be well placed in sand (though there were rocks nearby).
Patti made steaks (and some chicken and rice for Jimi). We thought about going into town for drinks but decided we were all too tired. We did get some great pictures of the sunset. It was impressive enough that Jimi and Dave got into the dingy to get pictures of our boat with the sunset as background.

Day Ten

It was a rainy morning and everyone slept late. When we woke up it was still raining. Jimi made pancakes which were popular with everyone. After breakfast the wind kicked up to 35 knots – fairly high for a protected anchorage. We checked the weather and found that a 'tropical wave' was passing through. We watched the anchor closely but it held well. Once the rain was past David decided to move to a mooring, just in case.

We went to shore in search of cash in Euros to pay for the water and to get diesel oil. We found both at a hardware store where they very nicely gave us 1.3 dollars to the euro. Later, we changed some money officially at the 'post ' and they gave us a rate of 1.32 but charged us a 5 euro service charge.

There were lots of cool shops on shore. Most of the people were friendly, but the woman who ran the pizza place was frustrating because by the time we had the euros to pay they were closed for siesta. We ended up having lunch on board while David and Patti took the dingy back over to Jerome's place to pay for the water.

After lunch we motored across the harbor to Pain de Sucre for snorkeling. It was similar to Deshaies but the water was not as clear. Tracy, Jimi, and Alyssa all snorkeled together. In the late afternoon a shore party went off in search of groceries and to clear out of customs. They were mostly successful but the main store was closed so we could not get everything on the list. They did find some nice fresh-baked bread. We had pasta and the bread for dinner.

Day Eleven

This was a long day so we got an early start with David and Jimi up by about 6am. It was a easy sail up the lee side of Guadeloupe and then a rough but fast sail from Guadeloupe to Antigua. We were about 70 degrees off the wind and it was blowing 18-22 knots. At one point our speed peaked at 9 knots. We saw more random stuff in the water but managed not to catch any in the propellers.

Antigua was very polished compared to the other islands. A woman in uniform came up to our boat and asked what are plans were. She was very helpful, as was everyone else. Immigrations, customs, and the port authority were all next to each other. We tied up to a well restored dock at Nelson's Dock yard in the English Harbor. The harbor was Nelson's headquarters during basically the golden age of British sea power. It had nice showers for everyone. We even managed to do laundry before we left. All of this came at a price though – between immigration fees, port fees, dock fees, exit fees, and so on we were charged almost $200.

Most shops were closed because of a local holiday and because it was the low season. It was nice to have the place to ourselves but it was tricky to find an open place for dinner. We talked to various people and found that the best place still open was a restaurant called Trappas on the road into town. Following their directions Paula drove the dinghy way down the harbor to an older dinghy dock. Then we climbed through a hole in the fence and crossed the road to get to Trappas. Then we had to undo it all to get back to our boat before dark.

Day Twelve

Everyone slept fairly late and then woke up to the smell of Patti making french toast. Then some of the crew had a rough 100 ft walk to the bar, which was now open, for a morning rum punch. We found a great little museum with a presentation on the history of Nelson dock yard and the early 17th century naval history of the Caribbean. Tracy and Jimi also found a cool Antigua tile from the gift shop. Then we picked up the laundry and went looking for lunch. We found a French place called Cathrine's that was now open (it had been closed when we tried to go there for dinner). It was a really nice lunch, but it wasn't cheap. There was also a very interesting place that had a book exchange (where you could turn in novel you had finished and pick up 'new' ones) and showed movies most evenings. We were sorry we could not stay long enough to see a movie that night.

After lunch, we sailed up to deep bay – a harbor on the north end of the island. We wanted to get as far north as possible to shorten the sail the next day. The starboard engine started to overheat during the trip so we tacked into the bay. This was slightly tricky because right in the middle of Deep Bay is the wreck of the 'Andes' – a freighter from Trinidad that sunk over 100 years ago when it's cargo of pitch caught fire. The wreck is in relatively shallow water and the top few inches of its smoke stack still sticks above the water. It was easy to spot as we came into the bay because a bird was sitting on it.

After anchoring, David, Pamela, and Jimi took the dingy over to the wreck and tied off to the top of the smoke stack. It was a very cool place to snorkel but would have been better if there was more sun – they finished the dive right at sunset. There were lots of jelly fish to dodge (no one got stung) and Jimi saw a big barracuda. The rest of the crew climbed the hill to the ruins of Fort Barrington on the ridge top. Kaylynn took Jimi up quickly after the dive. The ruins were amazing, and it was easy to imagine why the fort was built there to protect the entrance to Deep Bay and St. John's (an important town in the next bay over). There were great views into Deep Bay and over to St. Johns.

Day Thirteen

We left Deep Bay around 6am for our last long sail. We tried to avoid using the starboard engine too much but it still overheated and we had to shut it off. David diagnosed the problem as a broken fan belt. Fortunately the course was a nice broad reach so we didn't really need engines. As we were leaving Antigua we crossed paths with a huge cruise ship coming into St. Johns. It towered many stories above the water – we got some nice pictures of them while they were taking pictures of us. We had to temporarily alter our course by about 20 degrees to safely miss it.

Our speed was fairly low at first due to the wind shadow of Antigua – 5 knots average for the first hour. Then it picked up and we got up to the 8-9 knots range.

We made it up to St. Barts earlier than we had expected and Patti wanted a good beach to walk on. So instead of stopping in Gustavia we anchored in Anse de Columbia (which slightly annoyed some of the girls since they liked the showers in Gustavia). We picked up a mooring within swimming distance of shore. Tracy and Jimi went snorkeling and the others went to walk on the beach. David replaced the fan belt on the engine while everyone was getting ready (fortunately there was a spare and he was able to improvise the tools he needed). Snorkeling was nice and it was an easy swim to the rocks and then into shore. Tracy and Jimi saw a large manta ray gliding above the sand.

The anchorage was fairly crowded by sunset with mostly French boats. After dinner David played guitar and we all sang – no doubt amusing the French.

Day Fourteen

Since we had skipped Gustavia we never actually checked into St. Barts. This was not necessarily completely legal but we left pretty early the next morning so it's not clear we were ever in St. Barts when the customs office was open.

Tracy was, in fact, ready to go at about 7am – she knew we were planning to go to Orient Beach on St. Martin and it is one of her favorite beaches. However, most of the rest of the boat wanted to snorkel so we stayed at Anse de Columbia for a few hours. We finally left late in the morning for the short sail over to St. Martin. About halfway across we got hit by a squall line. The wind kicked up and our speed peaked briefly at over 10 knots (our record for the trip). We cleared into St. Martin at Orient Pond (Moorings headquarters). The Mooring's refilled our fuel tanks but their water lines at the gas dock were broken so we could not take on water.

We then motored around St. Martin and dropped anchor at Orient Beach behind Green Cay. It was very shallow – the depth gauge showed less than a foot of water below the keel (we checked by snorkel and verified that we had about 2 feet). There was a lot of current so it was not a great place for swimming.

We took the dinghy in to the beach – which was a little exciting due to the surf. There was too much surf to pull the dingy onto the beach so Jimi tied it to a mooring and swam back to the beach. We had rum punch in the beach chairs that line the beach and did a little shopping. It was very relaxing.

We wanted to avoid bringing the dingy back through the surf but most of the shore party didn't think much of the idea of swimming out the mooring (and we some clothes and other items that we didn't want to get soaked). We finally decided to bring the dingy in at the far end of the beach where there was much less swell because of the offshore islands. This required walking past the 'clothing optional' part of the beach. Jimi, Kaylynn and Pamela swam out to the dinghy and rode down, while the rest of the crew walked down the beach.

Once we got back to the boat we moved across the harbor and re-anchored behind Isle Pinel. This gave us somewhat deeper water and less swell. It was an improvement but still rougher than most anchorages.

Day Fifteen

This was our last morning on the boat. Kaylynn and Jimi woke up early and went to explore Isle Pinel. They tried to row in to avoid waking everyone with the sound of the dingy engine. They discovered that it is very hard to row an 8 person dingy against the wind. On shore they found a kind of hermit crab that lived on land, and great views of the boat and Orient Beach from the top of the hills.



Later, Tracy found a huge fish under the dinghy. It was about three feet long, with very sharp teeth. David jumped in the water and took some pictures with the underwater camera.

From the pictures it looks a lot like a Barracuda (though at the time we remarked that it seemed to be pretty fat and slow moving for a Barracuda).

Then we did a short but choppy sail back into Oyster Pond to turn the boat back in. We plugged into shore power and turned on the AC (for the first time in the trip). Packing and checking out was uneventful – they didn't even charge for the missing wind sock that had blown away during one particularly windy night.

Then the taxi came, and we were off to the Flamingo again (cue "Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone...."). At the Flamingo we discovered some fantastic flavored rum (we still don't know why they don't import them into the states). We bought a few bottles and packed them carefully in our suit cases (they made it back fine but seemed to evaporate from their bottles once we were back home...). We had dinner the last night back at Ciao - the same place we had met Tracy on the first day of sailing.