Leg 21 – Caribbean – Antigua and Barbuda

We crossed Guadeloupe Channel from Deshaies on February 18 and anchored in Falmouth Harbour, adjacent to the famous English Harbour. As we were a bit faster than expected in the passage, we arrived in time to visit the customs and immigration on the same day prior to closure and complete the check in procedure. Once back on the boat we removed the yellow pest flag to raise the beautiful flag of Antigua and Barbuda instead.

English Harbour was from mid 18th century to mid 19th century the most important and best protected harbour of the British Empire in the Caribbean. Falmouth Harbour and English Harbour by the geography of the terrain were used first as shelters by the British navy in case of hurricanes and saved ships at a few occasions. Then the British decided to build a boatyard to repair their fleet in the Caribbean.

The development of naval technology, the arrival of steam powered ships that could not enter and manouver in the narrow channel of English harbor and the decline of French naval dominance in the Caribbean led the British to abandon the boatyard in 1889. From that date, the boatyard slowly started to fall into ruins until the British recognized the necessity to restore this piece of history. Today, English Harbor and its boatyard is an historical site classified as UNESCO World Heritage and also there is also a modern marina that hosts many super yachts. English Harbor is a major piece of history and an unmissable stop in Antigua.

We spent most of our first day on land in the old restored Nelson’s dockyard. We had not seen buildings made of stones since we left Cape Verde so we found those in the old dockyard fascinating. We visited the museum that retraces the history of the boatyard that the British built with the blood of slavery.

We dedicated our second day to hike up to Shirley Heights then down again to Freemans Bay. Shirley Heights used to be a strategic military fortification built to protect English Harbour from a possible French invasion. Its locaction offered us an amazing view over Freemans bay, English Harbour and Falmouth Harbour. As we walked up there on a bright day, we could even see the hills of Guadeloupe standing 40Nm away.

We remained three days on anchor in Falmouth Harbour prior to leaving towards Jolly Harbour on the west coast of Antigua on February 21.

Jolly Harbour itself was quite under our expectations. First because we couldn’t see the anchor in just 4m depth. The visibity was not more than 1m actually while just outside the anchorage we could see the bottom in 15m depth. Then because it felt like a bubble. A paradise sand beach crowded with foreigners, surrounded by hotels and shops to serve these foreigners and a marina full of foreign boats. The atmosphere was definitely less inviting than any of the other places in the Caribbean we visited prior to that, including those with these nasty no-see-ums that bit us in Mayreau and Catham Bay. Yes, after 2 months cruising the Caribbean we definitely became very spoiled.

Our dearest moment in Jolly Harbour is for sure our evening onboard S/Y Alba playing board game Alfapet with a glass of rhum punch followed by finger food with moscato wine and all that surrounded by a friendly atmosphere.

We finally left Jolly Harbour on February 23 to sail towards Barbuda just 30Nm north. We left Jolly Harbour with very little fresh water left in the tank so we ran the watermaker all the way to Barbuda which we reached after 5 hours of sailing. When we arrived, the fresh water tank was nearly full. That watetmaker onboard is such a luxury !

On the way, we crossed the route of a humpback whale. Maria was at the steering wheel and she spotted it as it was right in front of us, rolling, flapping its fins in the water and exhaling air with water spray high up. She said “either there was a big wave breaking, or we have a whale on front of us”. And a whale it was ! We gave some space to our new friend and adjusted our course but we still passed only 20-30m away.

We sailed nearly the entire way to Barbuda without seeing the coastline. The island of Barbuda is very low and flat with most of the land just a few meters above sea level, so it appeared in the horizon only when we were just a few nautical miles away. What we saw first was two very thin white and green stripes squeezed between the blue of the sea and the blue of the sky.

We chose to drop the anchor in Cocoa Bay in front of Princess Diana Beach. The Beach used to be called Cocoa Point Beach but it was renamed in 2011 in honor of the Princess of Wales on the day she would have celebrated her 50th birthday. She used to spend time there to escape from the eyes of the public. And what a wonderful and quiet place she chose for her retreat.

Since there are quite a lot of coral reefs and stones around the anchorage, on our approach, one of us remained at bow of the boat to watch for any potential hazard and also to make sure we were not going to run over a turtle as there were incredibly many swimming in the anchorage.

We were only a few boats on anchor and that was a big change compared with our previous anchorages. Turquoise water, thin white sand beach, a few low constructions, guest houses along the beach and very few people. Walking along the waterfront was marvelous, feeling the cool waves and smooth sand on the feet and being amazed at the beauty of the place.

During our stay on the island, we spent our time swimming, walking along the beach and working on the boat. We brushed the hull under water as much as we could to remove the algae that were starting to grow since last cleaning we made in Grand Anse d’Arlet about a month earlier. We polished and waxed part of the sides of the boat the best we could to give Lovisa some protection against UV and salt water again. We also replaced the oil of the outboard engine.

While working, some turtles came swimming very close to the boat.

On our third day, we also had a great grilled lobster evening at Enoch’s bar on the beach with our friends sailing S/Y Alba. Unfortunately, on that day, going to the beach with a dinghy was a real adventure. While the water had been very flat the first two days, big long waves entered the anchorage since early morning of the third day. They were not rocking the boat on anchor since they were very long but some were breaking quite hard on the beach. Long story short, on our attempt to go onshore, we ended up surfing a wave that was breaking close to the shore and the dinghy nearly flipped over. For some miracle, we managed to stay on the dinghy and we didn’t damage it. We only ended up beging completely wet. What wouldn’t you do for a grilled lobster on the beach? Luck played in our favor on the way back and we managed to get he dinghy in the water and get away during a short period with smaller waves.

On our fourth day, we took a guided tour of the island. We made a first stop to an old fortified tower called Martello Tower used to protect the island from a French invasion.

We continued toward the main town of Codrington where we took a small boat to get to the frigate bird sanctuary in the lagoon’s mangroves. It is the biggest attraction of the island during that period of the year and beautiful to see. We have seen frigate birds a bit everywhere we’ve been in the Caribbean but not that close. It was still the mating period for the them so we saw the ritual of the males that inflate a red sac they have along the throat like a baloon to impress a female. We were also quite impressed!

After the frigate bird sanctuary, we drove to Two Foot Bay Caves, another of the attractions on the island. We climbed through a limestone cave and from there we enjoyed a beautiful view of the eastern coast of Barbuda and the dramatic waves of the Atlantic Ocean breaking over the reefs and shoals. Considering we were planning to leave the following day, this view was not really inviting. As we were leaving the site, a young bird (red build tropcbird) fell from the nest to the ground. Our guide did not think two seconds before giving it a rescue, raising it into the air so it could fly away, avoiding the wild cats.

On our way, as our guide was driving, we came across many donkeys. They have no owner anymore and our modern society doesn’t require their service so they just roam freely on the island. World’s happiest donkeys?

The ride itself was not really pleasant. Barbuda has one main road but it is asfalted only in Codrington. Out of the town it is more of a track with many holes.

On February 28 in late afternoon, we said goodbye to Barbuda and went for a night sail to St Barthelemy. We were expecting the duration of that passage to be longer than daylight hours. Because St Barthelemy is usually very crowded, we didn’t want to anchor by night. We also did not want to leave our anchorage before daylight with poor visibility because of all the reefs around the anchorage. We chose to leave before dawn on Friday and sail during the night at a lower speed to reach St Barthelemy in the morning. That was our first night sailing since we crossed the Atlantic ocean. After more than two months sailing during only daylight, we were a bit nervous to sail in the dark. Nervous from getting out of the comfort zone we built by sailing just in daylight.

Apart from a squall that sent 15m/s wind gusts, we enjoyed pretty stable winds between 8 and 10m/s all the way and let the windvane steer. At 8:30 we anchored in a very crowded Rade de Gustavia in an incredibly clear water.