ALeria Update 16

Update #16 from Aleria –  Antigua, the social epicentre of the Caribbean @ 17°00’N 61°46’W Hello friends, We are exhausted beyond comprehension. Antigua, and especially Falmouth and English Harbours, has turned out to be the most social destination for us of all in the Caribbean. Just about everyone we have met on our travels through the Caribbean ended up here for Classics Week, plus many, many more. Our good friends from Great Britain, many of whom we first met crossing the Atlantic, on Spruce, Festina Lente, Talulah, Elmarleen, Guiding Light, Moonlight, and Rapau are all here. Then there are the Americans on Searcher, Aragorn, and Jarrka. Sprinkle in a few new acquaintances made as a result of those connections, add in the folks we’ve been talking to almost every morning for months on the Coconut Telegraph (SSB radio net), add in free drinks and food most every evening and you’ve got the makings of a non-stop party. Which, of course, has happened.  Classics Week is when all the pretty one-of-a-kind boats congregate in Falmouth to show off.  There is more varnish applied, more polishing done, more racing than we’ve seen, and more drinking and eating than we’ve experienced here than anywhere else in the Caribbean, we think. Or maybe it just feels that way. But what a time we’ve had! We started out if you’ll recall, heading to Nevis when we turned right and went to Antigua. We had more time than we’d planned as a result, so we took the opportunity to circumnavigate Antigua while stopping over in Barbuda (the subject of our previous missive) to the north. We checked in at Jolly Harbour, which we’d heard was much less expensive to check into than Falmouth/English Harbour and it was. [We paid about $40 ec ($1 US = $2.67 ec) for a month’s cruising permit and up to two-month’s stay. In Falmouth and English Harbours, they add $15 ec per day of planned stay for park permits up front. ]  Jolly Harbour, our first landfall on Antigua) is an example of a real estate development gone bad.  La Perla bought up all the land surrounding the entire harbour, which is quite lovely. They leveled, drained and dredged the mangrove swamp and built a massive marina complex, complete with customs & immigration, shops, restaurants, a casino (now closed), a chandlery, a huge supermarket, a pharmacy, banks, a hair dresser, and a housing development with private slips. The island in the middle has small lots, the perimeter has larger beachfront properties all in a gated community, and the inner harbour has two-story townhouses – all with private slips and finger piers.  As the economy tanked, they were unable to sell many of the lots. And since investors weren’t building on their lots, there are many properties standing idle and neglected or for sale at reduced prices. The government has since passed new laws that force people to build within a certain time frame. The centre of the marina complex has mega-yacht slips that stand empty. It was a great concept except the harbour keeps silting in (remember it was a mangrove swamp), and despite being dredged to 15 feet every couple of years, is now at about 8 feet MLW.  And the casino was built with no hotel nearby and when no big spending mega-yachts coming in, it simply went bust.  We were actually quite happy to see it now because once this land is fully developed it will be very crowded. We spent a couple of days just doing boat chores, walking along the development roads that were put in around the harbour, and reprovisioning.  Jolly Harbour does have the most amazing American-style supermarket, the Epicurean, loaded with stock from both sides of the Atlantic.  It was visual gluttony the instant we stepped in. As we had not had much access to provisioning for some time, it was a treat to stock up on some items we had not seen since the States or Europe. But one did have to be careful when making selections. A chocolate bar was priced at over US$10, as was a tiny quarter pound packet of Oscar Meyer bacon. Then again a liter bottle of Appleton rum was only EC$20 (US$7, or 5 Euros). We sailed to English Harbour next, which is on the south end of the island. This is an amazing restoration project – brainchild of an Englishman, Nicholson, who sailed here in the 1970s and started the first yacht charter company in the world. He found the ruins of a British fort and naval installation and proceeded to raise the funds to restore it. This ruined village once housed sailors, boats, sail lofts, a dockyard, chandleries and workshops from the 1700s through the mid-1900s. Andy’s (Spruce) father, who like his son after him was in the British navy, was stationed here for a while. When the British left, it fell to ruin. Nelson’s Dockyard is now a complex of beautifully preserved buildings that house a marina, an inn, restaurants, shops, a sail loft, a museum, a bakery, a convenience store, and lots more. It is a working village with historical significance, the main attraction being that Admiral Lord Nelson spent several years stationed here before the Napoleonic wars.  According to the archives, Nelson was not very popular during that time because he enforced the blockade against trade with the Americans. We learned more about Nelson here than he even knew about himself, we think. During the day, it is mobbed with tourists taking a bus trip down from St. Johns. In the evening, it is pleasantly deserted except for the yachties anchored out or docked in the harbour.  The English Harbour anchorage is quite tight with lots of boats coming in and out every day. The winds in the outer harbour do strange things and many boats find themselves going bump in the night. One evening, two catamarans lifted their anchors without owners aboard and went for a spin around the harbour while neighbouring boaters fended off and tried to deal with the mayhem.  Festina Lente, Brindabella, and Elmarleen were here so we enjoyed the first of many social evenings with friends.  Perhaps the most alluring aspects of the harbour are the fort on one promontory and military lookout post on the other. Both offer spectacular views, but Shirley Heights overlooking English and Falmouth Harbours is breathtaking.  There is a road that goes up there, but one particularly nice attribute of Antigua is the system of walking trails maintained by the Naval Tot Club, several of which lead up to the Heights. Alex and I walked up a mile-long trail through amazing high desert forest that wound its way past the ruins of the hospital, graveyard, and officers’ quarters. Antigua has no water – no rivers at all. (Water costs $1 per gallon here.)  It is an arid landscape and totally different from other islands. We took loads of photos at the top, enjoyed refreshments at the restaurant, then hiked down the Lookout trail, a short but steep half mile back to the beach. It’s a memory that will stay with us forever.  Our next destination was Falmouth Harbour right around the corner, just to check it out before Classics week. We found lots of friends there, including Spruce, Moonlight, Rapau, and Elmarleen again. Tamsin and Will organized a beach BBQ on Pidgeon Beach and we all got together for chicken, burgers and salads. Moonlight had caught a tuna on the way in which they shared all around. The first of many social feasts had taken place.  We all then scattered around, visiting the many harbours of Antigua and Barbuda in the week leading up to the Classics Regatta.  Aleria headed up to Nonsuch Bay on the east coast of Antigua. Unlike many of the other islands which have mountainous and inhospitable Atlantic coasts, Antigua has bays and harbours with lovely anchorages all the way around.  And it has 365 beaches, “one for every day of the year.â€� Eric Clapton owns a house on one of the promontories en route to Nonsuch Bay.  Very pretty spot. Nonsuch Bay is surrounded by coral reefs, rolling hills, lovely beaches and pastoral scenery.  We anchored between Green Island and the reef on the eastern shores and enjoyed several days of seclusion, with swimming in crystal clear waters, exploring by dinghy, and snorkeling along the robust reefs. There were turtles, rays, and fishes and every variety. Conch were strewn about the sandy bottom, purple sea cucumbers rested alongside orange corals, and brain corals grew to enormous proportions.  This was as good as the Tobago Cays. Under one rock we found about ten young lobsters waving their antennae in panic as we approached. We had not seen such bounty before. We went out to the reef on the other side of Green Island but the larger coral there seemed to have suffered severe damage. There were beautiful fan corals waving in the tides in a mass of colours and tiny transparent jellyfish with purple veins floating down like snow. It was pretty interesting to be anchored seemingly out in the Atlantic but in reality just inside a massive reef.  From Nonsuch Bay we headed North to Barbuda, then back South to Antigua’s north and west coasts. Unfortunately, the weather had turned nasty as a low approached bringing gusty winds and the first real rain since we’ve been in the islands. This was a signal that the weather patterns have started to change, and an indicator that it would soon be time to head home or out of the hurricane belt. We skipped going to Bird Island and Long Island along the northern coast and sought refuge along the west and south coasts. After a another brief reprovisioning stop in Jolly Harbour, we made our way back to Falmouth and Classic Week.  The classic yachts were all here, including the J-boats Velsheda, Ranger and Hanuman. Shamrock was supposed to come but didn’t make it. The spectacular ketches Gallatea and Rebecca, and so many others. There were photo ops at every turn.  The first day was the Councourse d’Elegance, where all the boats are judged for their beauty. Then, for five days, they all went out to race. Each evening, there was a party with free drinks – wine, beer, champagne, rum punch, dark & stormies—and a few nights they had free food. It was a cruisers’ heaven.  After four days of this, though, we had to take a break.  Then Will asked Tamsin to marry him up at Shirley Heights, and the celebrations began anew. Oh well, we’ll rest later. Yes, the big boats were spectacular and we went out to watch the races with many of our friends onboard. A way-out-of-context experience happened when Stu Saffer, a friend of ours from American Yacht Club, with friends Patty Sykes and Sarah, pulled alongside in a power boat. You never know who you might meet around here.   But the greatest story of all was that of Guiding Light, a 75-year-old wooden double ender owned by our friend, Roy. Roy had spent a lifetime as an electronics engineer building big classics all over the world. But Roy had a dream. He wanted to enter the Classics in his own boat. So he bought Guiding Light years back and started restoring her for the day when he’d get to follow that dream.  Last summer, he set sail with two friends from England. In Spain, the two friends realized they weren’t cut out for ocean passages and returned home. Roy had no choice but to continue on his own. From La Coruna he made his way to Finisterre, then to Portugal, across to the Canaries and on to St. Lucia – single handing Guiding Light the entire way. He kept pumping to keep up with the seepage of water through her 75-yo wooden hulls. He hit some bad weather and heaved to a couple of times. He snapped his bowsprit and boomkin in one storm nearly losing his mast in the process, and lost steering in another but that didn’t dissuade him. Each time he fixed things or made do without. He kept going in search of that dream.  He had applied to the committee to be admitted as a classic but never heard a word from them. So he decided he would just have to sail to Falmouth to get the word personally. That’s when we met Roy, and sailed alongside down the chain from St. Lucia to Falmouth.  Roy is an amazing and charming character. You cannot not like Roy. He is always cheerful, always positive, and always a gentleman, albeit with a gleam and a twinkle in both eyes, especially when it comes to young ladies.  We were all there with Roy as his dreams were realized. But he had no idea just how much this would mean. Because not only was Guiding Light accepted into the Classics, she won first place in the privately maintained category of vintage classics. Then, Roy won the spirit of the classics award for persevering in following his dream, single handing Guiding Light across the Atlantic, and for exhibiting the seamanship that embodies the spirit of tradition. As if that wasn’t enough, he also won top racing honours in his class. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. We have never cheered so often with so much enthusiasm in our lives. Now Roy needs a new dream to follow, but first he’s going to have to top up the cruising kitty.  We are honoured to have had the pleasure of his company. And so it goes. It was a fabulous experience and now a very sad moment.  Moonlight is heading south for the summer. Spruce is heading for the States.  Rapau left this morning for England. Talulah and Aleria will be sailing north in a few days.  We are all on our way to a new place and the adventure has taken on a new meaning. We are heading home. The mental preparations have begun. The next weeks will involve getting our last doses of sun and warm waters in the Virgin Islands while we prepare equipment, supplies, and people for our third Atlantic crossing. Just as when we were heading out last year, we want to go but we don’t want to leave.  We will miss our friends, yet we know these are friendships for life. You don’t go through all this together without forming bonds that will endure.  Farewell from Antigua,Daria & Alex & Onyx