Antigua - party time at the Classic Boat Regatta
10 April to 08 May 2012
the lovely Storm Vogel
As I sit here now in Green Island (on Antigua's East coast) the sky is grey and heavy with rain, there is barely a breath of wind to keep Sheila-the-wind-gen turning and it is very very very quiet. And a little bit eerie. And a little bit sad. We said good bye to the last of our friends this morning (Terry, a fellow mischeifmaker at Dominica's infamous BBQ/ rum punch overdose) and it feels like our "Caribbean Experience" is over, in spite of one more island to visit (Barbuda). Antigua was an incredibly social time for us. Apart from having a group of our cruiser friends at anchor with us (Libertine, Miss Molly, Orion), we also had Killian (Ian's brother) stay with us on board, and Gav, Nadia and Suzie (Ian's friends from home) around too. To add to the revelry we were here over the Antigua Classic Regatta so Ian and Killian spent the week racing on a beautiful old yacht named Storm Vogel (the one from the movie Dead Calm) and we were introduced to another varied group of fun and interesting people. I don't want to bore you too much with stories of the copious amount of alcohol consumed, funky moves on the dance floor and other antics that are probably not fit for the internet….however every night involved all of these elements with an occasional extra thrown in like a missing body, a lost thong or a fight amongst the supposedly 'One Love' Rastas. Many nights seemed to finish at 2 or 3am but we were occasionally more sensible and took ourselves off home at the stroke of midnight. There were dinners our, dinners in, Mumsy burgers on the side of the road and barely a meal eaten on the boat. Banana daiquiri's on the beach, rum punches, espresso martini's, Mount Gay Rum parties, crew parties, happy hours at the Mad Mongoose and even a 'boat crawl' one evening. The free (yes FREE!!) drinks put on by the sponsors of the Classics were a a great way to kick start your evening and we attacked them with our usual gusto.
The Regatta itself would be best written about by Ian and hopefully he will get a chance to do it justice. As for the beauty and grandeur of these yachts, they pretty much spoke for themselves. Some are old but look new, some are new but made to look old. All of them seemed to have an incredible amount of money, time (hardwork/ slavery) and passion put into them. I've never seen yachts so big, or so shiny and perfectly varnished before. When the polished stainless steel fittings are as reflective as a real mirror you know what the crew spend most of their day doing. Some of my favourites though were still the older ones with more character and perhaps more of story to tell, like the traditionally built Carriacou sloops or the tiny little wooden yacht that sailed across the Atlantic. But if someone offered me a few days of luxury on one of the fancy 200 footers I'd probably manage okay.
Most of our stay centred around the goings on of the Classic Regatta and Falmouth Harbour (I did a bit of walking out around the cliffs and kayaked out to watch the racing start) but we did get to see other parts of the island. The first night we anchored on the West coast in Five Islands Bay. Exactly as it sounds, five islands, anchored in front of a very exclusive resort with beautiful clear water with hardly any yachts around. Another day we drove through the rainforest and pineapple plantations with Gav and Nadia and spent the day swimming and playing beach ball (very serious and competitive) on a gorgeous deserted beach. We also took Killian, Gav and Nadia on a trip up to Green Island and had a great couple of days snorkelling, swimming and lazing in the hammock. It's a shame Kill had to leave us there but it rained a lot once he left so at least he got the best of it. All in all a fantastic time in Antigua, sad it had to come to an end, but also glad because I really need some sleep and slightly 'cleaner' living again!
So we are back in Green Island again chilling out in the rain (out of both times we've been here we have only had one sunny day) and preparing for the next part of our journey - a day trip across to Barbuda, a few days there, then 7 to 10 days up to Bermuda. After Bermuda, it's The Azores…..then Ireland!!
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Barbuda - island of the beautiful 11 mile beach
09 to 13 May 2012
wouldn't this be a great advert for Walker Bay?
Beautiful Blissful Barbuda….what a place! A lovely early morning sail over from Green Island, Antigua (only 40 miles) found us anchored in paradise mid afternoon. What an anchorage! Barbuda, unlike most of the other islands in the chain, is a very low lying island, making it pretty easy to miss if you were sailing by. Perhaps this is one of the reasons it's not crowded with cruisers and tourists. The approach to Barbuda anywhere from the west has you sailing over shallow water (8 or 9 metres and steadily dropping) from a few miles out, a little disconcerting when you first arrive. We anchored off the beach in a couple of metres but it still felt like we were anchored in the middle of the ocean. And the beach…it's 11 miles long and PERFECT. It's white, with millions of tiny pink pipi shells that give it a pinkish tinge, clean, clear and completely deserted. it is by far the best beach I've seen in the Caribbean (San Blas were incredible too but they were tiny beaches around tiny islands).
But before we enjoyed the beach too much we thought we should get the 'admin' done first - checking out of the country (Antigua & Barbuda are run by the same government). Yes, we did it somewhat backwards, which is a bit risky sometimes, but the town of Codrington is so far away from the anchorage and the place is so off the beaten track we figured we'd risk it. So, the next day we had an adventure. Codrington, the 'capital' (and I use the term loosely) is a tiny back country town which you can see from where we were anchored. But to get there we had to dinghy into the beach, carry the dinghy over a narrow strip of sand (it doesn't feel narrow when you are lugging a dinghy uphill, but luckily for us our dinghy is a feather compared to most peoples), then dinghy across a 2 mile fresh/salt water lagoon to the town dock. Simple enough. If there isn't any wind. The day we went it was only blowing about 15 knots, but there is a long fetch across the lagoon so we had a couple of too-close-for-comfort tips at the start. Big thanks to my brother Rhy for buying an umbrella for all the hideous rain we had in Bocas del Toro, I'm sure at the time you didn't realise how handy it would become, opened on the bow of our dinghy, protecting us from becoming spray soaked. After 20 minutes or so we made it. Codrington has a brand spanking new fishing facility the likes I've never seen before, built for them by the Japanese (one guess as to WHY Japan built it for them? Whaling votes.) and right on the lagoon shore. It is enormous and has showers, fishermen locker rooms, quarantine and fish sorting rooms. It also looks entirely out of place compared to the rest of the town. There are a few tiny supermarkets with overflowing open freezers full of meat (delivery day perhaps) and fly blown salted fish stored in boxes under the fruit and veg. We managed to spend the last of our EC (Eastern Caribbean dollars) on a few decent looking freshies though. I thought Codrington was really sweet, but there isn't much there for a tourist (again part of why the beaches is still so pristine I'd guess). Checking out of Customs, Immigration and the Port Authority was interesting and done in three separate buildings (which looked like personal homes, by young un-uniformed women) in three different directions in town, often with nothing more than a hand written sign out the front, notifying people of what they did there. It seemed a complete waste of time to us, but again we were treated with much kindness. And best of we weren't charged a cent for checking out! Antigua is notoriously expensive for clearing in and out, but due to the remote places we did so in (on purpose) we only paid a grand total of 30EC (about $15)! So we got to spend it on a fantastic local lunch instead and roll ourselves, in reverse, back to the boat in time for drinks o'clock.
We stayed just under a week in Barbuda and loved every second of it. We had the anchorage to ourselves for the majority and plenty of time to get ready for our next passage in a relaxed way for a change instead of rush rush rush. At least once every day I rowed ashore and walked for miles and miles uninterrupted by…well…anything I guess. Unless you'd call a stingray jumping out of the water an 'interruption'? It was so deserted there was no need for trivial things like clothes until it got cool in the evenings so we had a good dose of skinny dipping (which will probably be the last for a long old time?). The only complaint was that the water was quite churned up since we were fairly close to shore and in shallow water. This was a little disconcerting when you couldn't see the ocean bed below you, or anything else in between (I saw ALOT of big fish and sting rays jumping out of the water (I wonder if they were the chase-ers or the chase-ee's?). We had a wash on the beach (thank you Cabana-boy-Ian for holding my soap) and sunset drinks on our last trip ashore in the Caribbean. Oh dear. Is it really almost over???
But before we enjoyed the beach too much we thought we should get the 'admin' done first - checking out of the country (Antigua & Barbuda are run by the same government). Yes, we did it somewhat backwards, which is a bit risky sometimes, but the town of Codrington is so far away from the anchorage and the place is so off the beaten track we figured we'd risk it. So, the next day we had an adventure. Codrington, the 'capital' (and I use the term loosely) is a tiny back country town which you can see from where we were anchored. But to get there we had to dinghy into the beach, carry the dinghy over a narrow strip of sand (it doesn't feel narrow when you are lugging a dinghy uphill, but luckily for us our dinghy is a feather compared to most peoples), then dinghy across a 2 mile fresh/salt water lagoon to the town dock. Simple enough. If there isn't any wind. The day we went it was only blowing about 15 knots, but there is a long fetch across the lagoon so we had a couple of too-close-for-comfort tips at the start. Big thanks to my brother Rhy for buying an umbrella for all the hideous rain we had in Bocas del Toro, I'm sure at the time you didn't realise how handy it would become, opened on the bow of our dinghy, protecting us from becoming spray soaked. After 20 minutes or so we made it. Codrington has a brand spanking new fishing facility the likes I've never seen before, built for them by the Japanese (one guess as to WHY Japan built it for them? Whaling votes.) and right on the lagoon shore. It is enormous and has showers, fishermen locker rooms, quarantine and fish sorting rooms. It also looks entirely out of place compared to the rest of the town. There are a few tiny supermarkets with overflowing open freezers full of meat (delivery day perhaps) and fly blown salted fish stored in boxes under the fruit and veg. We managed to spend the last of our EC (Eastern Caribbean dollars) on a few decent looking freshies though. I thought Codrington was really sweet, but there isn't much there for a tourist (again part of why the beaches is still so pristine I'd guess). Checking out of Customs, Immigration and the Port Authority was interesting and done in three separate buildings (which looked like personal homes, by young un-uniformed women) in three different directions in town, often with nothing more than a hand written sign out the front, notifying people of what they did there. It seemed a complete waste of time to us, but again we were treated with much kindness. And best of we weren't charged a cent for checking out! Antigua is notoriously expensive for clearing in and out, but due to the remote places we did so in (on purpose) we only paid a grand total of 30EC (about $15)! So we got to spend it on a fantastic local lunch instead and roll ourselves, in reverse, back to the boat in time for drinks o'clock.
We stayed just under a week in Barbuda and loved every second of it. We had the anchorage to ourselves for the majority and plenty of time to get ready for our next passage in a relaxed way for a change instead of rush rush rush. At least once every day I rowed ashore and walked for miles and miles uninterrupted by…well…anything I guess. Unless you'd call a stingray jumping out of the water an 'interruption'? It was so deserted there was no need for trivial things like clothes until it got cool in the evenings so we had a good dose of skinny dipping (which will probably be the last for a long old time?). The only complaint was that the water was quite churned up since we were fairly close to shore and in shallow water. This was a little disconcerting when you couldn't see the ocean bed below you, or anything else in between (I saw ALOT of big fish and sting rays jumping out of the water (I wonder if they were the chase-ers or the chase-ee's?). We had a wash on the beach (thank you Cabana-boy-Ian for holding my soap) and sunset drinks on our last trip ashore in the Caribbean. Oh dear. Is it really almost over???