Day: April 2, 2017

Birds and Beaches

~ stull61 ~ Leave a comment

It took a lot of patience to wait out the high winds all week, waiting for that elusive weather window that would allow us to sail the 30nm over to Barbuda. We ended up taking off a day earlier than most of the rest of the mob, some of which were delayed by some Rugby team who have been doing well lately, probably because they are coached by an Australian.

The sail over was exhilarating, doing 8s and 9s with a single reef in a tricky 2m swell over 30m shallow water. Once we got close to the island, the water shallowed up and it was simply stunning – clear and beautiful. You could see the bottom in 8m of water. We dropped the sails and heading into shore on the recommended approach as per the charts and motored along the coast 100-200m out from shore. As we approached our anchorage at Low Bay, the water turned that cloudy milk colour that we had experienced on Antigua. The locals say it’s because of the ground swell. Disappointing. We SUP’ed into shore and checked out the resort that was closed and Codrington Lagoon that was across a narrow sand spit.

Next day we up’ed anchor and headed off in search of that wonderful clear beautiful water we’d seen on the way in. We found it 11nm around the bottom of the island at Cocoa Point, where we dropped anchor in 3m of stunning water.

We spend the rest of the day snorkelling and walking on the beach. The reef at the point looked interesting but wasn’t that great. The beach has being unofficially renamed Lady Di Beach because she evidently loved it there. As well as Cocoa Point resort, there’s also another one that’s currently closed called the K-Club that De Nero and Packer have purchased – but is currently the subject of a court case surrounding the extra 180 acres of land that got thrown into the deal.

As usual our social calendar was impromptu, depending on who turned up in the anchorage. As we were swimming back to the boat, we saw Venture Lady pull in. Gloria pulled in as well so 8 sailors meant sundowners one 5 o’clock on La Mischief, with a call to reconvene on Venture Lady for the subsequent 5 o’clock somewhere session.

Next day, we organised a tour to the Frigate Bird Sanctuary. We caught a taxi into Codrington and then hopped onto a small boat with Junior as our tour guide and zoomed across the lagoon to the mangroves where the frigate birds were mating and breeding. There were thousands of them hanging out of all the trees. We were able to get up quite close to the cute chicks and their parents who were gliding about on their 7 foot wingspans.

 

After two glorious days in Paradise it was time to up anchor and head back to Jolly Harbour to pick up Ramona and Barry and head off to Monserrat.

Lots and Lots and Lots and Lots of Wind

~ stull61 ~ Leave a comment

Cricket over and done with, it was time to plan to see some of the rest of Antigua, even though it was blowing its t–s off. We toyed with the idea of using a small weather window to shoot up to Barbuda and sit out the bad weather up there; but we stuck our nose out into the swell and quickly decided this was not an option. Instead we kept inside the protective reef system to the north of Antigua and made our way around to Long Island.

Long Island was stunningly beautiful – a fact picked up by the up market resort that had taken over the whole island. Landing was forbidden by the resort ( As Chris Doyle says “Security is as tight as a cramped sphincter”) so we stayed on the boat and tried some snorkelling in Jumby Bay. Once again the water was cloudy and not great for snorkelling. It seemed that this was the case everywhere on the sheltered west coast of Antigua, where the fine shell grit was stirred up by the ground swell. Disappointing.

Next day we decided to up anchor and go around to Parham, which has seen better days. The holding was exceptional and the local fishermen sold us 3 huge crays for 80EC, but after that I’ve run out of anything else to say about the place. We had intentions of eating all three crays but they were so large that we were pretty full after the first and the other two were dispatched to the freezer for another day.

The pick of the places on the northern side appears to be Greater Bird Island so we motored out there and checked out the moorings, but just like the cat that got there just before us, we decided it was just to blowy and decided to head back. We checked out the anchorage in Davis Bay on the south coast of Long Island but decided to give it a miss and head back to Deep Bay on the West Coast.

Heading West, all we needed was a genoa and we were soon there. We anchored in 2m of milky water tucked into the bay. We contemplated snorkelling the wreck in the bay but it was just too blowy so we dinghied to the beach and climbed up to the fort instead. Nice views.

Friday Night at the beach bar in Jolly Harbour was beckoning so we only stayed a night in Deep Bay before heading back to anchor outside of Jolly Harbour in Mosquito Bay. Good news is there was no mosquitos in mosquito bay in this wind.

We gathered up Peter and Jenny, Peter from Stormbreaker, Andy, Alison, Fiona and Steve and headed to Castaways for a beach BBQ and a band.   Another great night with the B50 crew, plus some other yachties that we’d met along the way.

With the weather on the improve, it was time to set our sights northwards to Barbuda.