From the BVI’s to St Martin, our First Visitors and Nelson’s Dockyard, Antigua…

We arrived in St Martin late at night after an all day, upwind sail from The British Virgins. It can be stressful arriving at an anchorage at night and I am generally up on the foredeck with a spotlight lighting up anchored boats (a surprising number without anchor lights), mooring balls, reef and other hazards. It took us anchoring 3 times before we were happy with our position and we were relieved to finally stop and relax after our100 mile upwind slog. The metropolis of St Martin presented itself with immense hotels, a sea of high rises, traffic noise and neon lights- like being on another planet really… 

Our buddies from Perth, Stu and Nat have been looking for a yacht of their very own and had booked flights to St Martin to view an x-charter Catana 50.  The broker got the catamaran’s location wrong (?)and as it turned out, it was in Guadeloupe not St Martin! Stu and Nat had already booked flights to St Martin and in a happy coincidence, we were scheduled to sail into St Martin that same day- en route to Guadeloupe. What are the chances?! We delivered them to view their potential boat after 6 days on board that included a night passage to Antigua and a long, day sail on to Guadeloupe.

Stu and Nat were our first visitors and it was lovely to share Tika and a small part of our journey with them. Kai moved into Jaiya’s forward cabin and gave them his spacious aft berth. As Stu and Nat are about to embark on their own sailing adventure with their 3 children, they were happy to experience a couple of passages with us and spent the hours sucking sailing knowledge out of Russ, who loved having such an attentive audience!

 

We sailed from St Martin to Antigua where we stopped for a few days to wait for weather. We had had a big day, were tired and salty and were less than impressed when our starboard engine squealed at us when we tried to start it at the entry into English harbour. We opened the engine locker only to find it full of water! Another maintenance job for the priority list…. Next we tried to dock stern first at English Harbour’s famous Georgian Dockyard but we didn’t like the set up (no-one to take our lines, anchor chains crossing one another in a chaotic grid on the bottom and the final straw- surge banging us onto the ancient, concrete dock and bending our starboard side stern ladder) We gave up and moved to a peaceful bay close to the action but away from the dock itself. We were close to the shore and set a stern anchor for the first time so that took a bit of nutting out- Stu and Russ tackled it and then we finally got to stop and put the kettle on. Stu and Nat got the ‘whole’ experience- a long day, a trial of seasickness medication, managing mechanical breakdowns, an entry into a dockyard, and the feeling of tribulation to finally stop, anchor down and cuppa in hand  

Nelson’s 18th Century dockyard is the place to hang out of you are a super cool, super yacht. It was a mass of masts and impressive mega yachts from Europe, the States and various Caribbean islands – These 100-400ft sailing machines are reportedly chartered out at between US$300,000 and $500,000 per week. We thought it was fun to gawk at the gleaming hulls, massive winches and expanses of spotlessly scrubbed decks!

We also happened to be in English Harbour for the arrival of the first of the Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge rowing race. Basically, it is a race for people who like to suffer. A lot. A team of four crazy (but extremely buff) English dudes spent just under 4 weeks crossing the Atlantic Ocean (5000km) in a pod shaped row boat (below right) We were told that more teams would arrive in the following days and weeks. As well as teams of 4 there were pairs and even some solos! An all female team came second. We had no idea that it was happening at all until we heard all the hoopla of the winning team rowing into the harbour- so we wandered over to have a look and got caught up in the excitement…

We spent days exploring the dockyard and surrounds- which is a living museum. I especially loved the chunky, timber lintels embedded into brick or stone, the weathered, shuttered windows and the old, English light fittings, door knobs and latches. The pillars from the old sail loft now stand like sentinels at a fancy, dockside restaurant. 

 

We hiked up a hill and were treated to a spectacular view of super yachts with full sails billowing, the island itself and elevated hills from islands beyond. A convenient, English-pub style restaurant was perched right at the top of the ascent (Jaiya found a dusty, old piano in the corner and played happily despite it’s missing keys!)

These days we are a little blasé about ruins and historic fortifications, but it was fun to park the dinghy at the bottom of a set of smooth, worn and ancient stone stairs that led straight from the water to the ruins of Fort Berkeley, built by the British in 1704. We wandered among the chunky canons of the first battery and along the fort’s walls that edge the tip of the peninsula. There was a cool breeze blowing and a view beyond the relics of the fort and out into the open sea.

Below: Tika nestled in the bay…

Below; new sport- cannon jumping!

Below; it’s nice to get a translation for the island lingo!

We went zip-lining in Antigua! After conquering about 12 zip lines that reached over a deep, lush canyon, we also attacked the ropes course…

zip lining with Stu and Nat!

Next Post: Guadeloupe- the first of the French Islands…

 

This entry was posted in The Sail.