Tooth Fairy

The tooth fairy has been busy aboard these last days. Matthew lost his second tooth on Monday and was rewarded that night, then Elizabeth lost another incisor the next morning. Unlike Santa, the tooth fairy does not require a chimney to descend down and seems to have better navigational skills at finding children at sea than Mr. Claus.

The cruise ships finally left us in peace as the sun set on Tuesday. The P&O cruise ship Azura left first to a deafening series of easy listening covers, including “We’ll meet again” and “It’s Not Unusual” (for the two passengers aged less than 85) and reached a climax with “Rule Britannia” as she slipped. The neighbouring AidaLuna left to a less invasive “Sail Away” by Enya on a seemingly continuous loop. The peace lasted only as long as the darkness. By dawn, the 300m long Carnival Celebration was arriving, closely followed by another cruise ship and then the exclusive The World arrived. We left.

Passage to Montserrat was abaft the beam and fast. I wanted to see the devastation of this British Overseas Territory first hand so we monitored the Montserrat Volcano Observatory website prior to departure and saw we could pass the southern tip of the island and then run north past the former capital, Plymouth, in the “daytime transit only” zone. From afar, the volcano seemed to always have a lower cloud base and we were unsure whether it was smouldering or not. As we approached, it became increasingly obvious that it is smouldering hard. Vast ash flows have further engulfed the airport on the east coast so only the tip of one building remains visible. There is a gaping hole in the south-eastern side of the volcano and thick plumes of steam gush continuously from the exposed face.

Montserrat volcano shrouded in smoke

Rounding to the west side of the island, the ash flows appear to have further enlarged the coastline as none of the bays of our five year-old chart remained visible. The city has further been drowned beneath these sand-coloured flows which look like strangely beige glaciers creeping down from the summit. In the lee of the crater, the air is hazy, filled with fine ash and the stink of sulphur.

Remains of Plymouth, Montserrat

We had to continue to the northern tip to Little Bay to clear in, however, on arrival, the anchorage was untenable. We had seen no other yachts all day but watched a single sloop lying at anchor being rolled and wrenched around violently. We turned tail, hoisted our sails once more and set off for the next stop, Nevis.

Halfway to Nevis is the island of Redonda. This is now part of Antigua but has an interesting history. Before it was annexed, it was landed and claimed as an independent kingdom. The title “King” has been passed on to this day and is usually held by a literary person who will generally muster a landing party once during their ‘reign’.

Finally, two hours after nightfall and after 13 hours and 85nm of sailing, we dropped anchor off Charlestown, Nevis.

Antigua and Environment

Antigua’s landscape is far more arid than any we’ve seen so far. With little rainfall compared to the higher islands, much of their fresh produce is imported from Dominica. It also makes for a slight variation in avifauna as well. This was only the second island we have seen collared doves (the other being Martinique) and I presume these have been introduced by Europeans along with our first sighting of house sparrows. Both were still outnumbered by the ever-abundant lesser Antilles finches and zenaida doves. The mangroves around English Harbour are also home to the white crowned pigeon. This initially had me flummoxed as the size and colour looked like a slightly greyish coot but it was obviously flying like a pigeon.

We saw wintering laughing gulls here – again only the second place since we saw them in Soufriere, St. Lucia but again the frigate birds and royal terns are more frequent. Sightings of brown boobies are now decreasing although frigate birds are still present (we won’t get up to Barbuda to see the breeding colony at its peak) and there are more brown pelicans than further south.

Wading birds are still pretty much limited to herons and egrets. We saw a swamphen briefly at the Indian River in Dominica but nothing else before or since. Even the lagoons behind the beaches in Antigua appear bereft of small waders but there was a substantial heronry in the shallows at St. Johns, peppered with hundreds of snowy and great egrets, with a pair of little blue herons proving that it wasn’t just for white birds. We also spotted a handful of martins hunting around the arriving cruise ships in the early morning.

Peregrine mobbing egret at St.Johns, Antigua

Raptors have been even more infrequent. I watched a black hawk in St. Vincent then there was nothing until we started seeing American Kestrels from Les Saintes northwards. On arrival in St. Johns I photographed a peregrine mobbing a lone snowy egret. It nearly succeeded in drowning the egret as the latter crashed into the bay, was submerged up to its neck and then could barely drag its wet feathers clear of the water to make it to the shore, under continued harrying by the falcon. We also spotted a large bird of prey but were unable to identify it, larger than a falcon but smaller than a buzzard with slow, deliberate wingbeats.

The sea around Antigua is equally shallow shelving. Most of the seas are less than 10m deep and so coral is restricted to shipwrecks and shallow rocky headlands. However, the sea is an amazing pale blue as a result. This was until we entered the harbour at St. Johns where a line showed the colour change from blue to sickly green with an aroma of untreated sewage. The sludge in the shallows made for poor anchor holding and a smelly night. We, however, continued to use our holding tank.

We have been quite careful with litter. Most shopping is packed into our own bags and stall holders are reluctant to hand out plastic bags for fruits and vegetables. We had been carefully separating our recycling and keeping our Dominica litter to recycle further north in Guadeloupe and continued to separate glass for Antigua. However, the recycling bins at English Harbour only catered for aluminium drinks cans, PET and HDPE, and there was no recycling in St. Johns.

Meanwhile, we are learning to make do with less, avoid litter and eat less meat – lessons we will most likely carry home with us.

St Johns

Deep Bay is the watery grave of a large iron barque which sank in the entrance. She lies with her main mast just out of the water in the mouth of the bay. I got the chance to dive on her whilst the children snorkelled above. The Andes sank in 1905, carrying pitch from Trinidad. The crew noticed smoke coming from one of the masts and suspected the pitch had ignited. She was consequently refused entry to St. Johns and so she rounded up into Deep Bay instead where the fire took the ship after they opened the holds for a look. She lies erect in 4 to 6m and is still surprisingly intact.

Wreck of the Andes, Antigua

We then moved round to the Redcliffe Quay, St. Johns, where we had three attempts to get the anchor to hold in the fine stinking silt off the city dock and came ashore to join the several thousand tourists off two massive cruise ships in dock.

Tomorrow we shall swing by the active volcano of Montserrat before continuing onto Nevis and St. Kitts for Thursday.

Liming with Friends

James was very eager to visit English Harbour. His father used to read Hornblower to him, so it was quite poignant to anchor his own yacht in those historic waters. The dockyard itself is a living useum, with the historic buildings converted to bars, museum, chandleries and charter agencies. Next to the column of the former sail loft sits the main hotel among quiet tropical gardens. The open musem is free and has much memorabilia and tales of life in the British Navy 200 years ago.

The afternoon was spent on Galleon Bay beach where the children frolicked in the sea beside a massive abandoned fisherman’s hook, wedge in the shore for two centuries. Above the bay was the infamous Shirley Heights which hosts one of the best known Sunday night parties in Antigua. Liming is the custom of having a good time, drinking rum and partying to steel drum bands and Shirley Heights is the best known of all.

The bar is the former fort with stunning views over English and Falmouth Harbours. We met up with John Bridge and Ariane Decloux who were celebrating their anniversary on the island and drank seriously strong rum as the sun set.

Happy Anniversary, John and Ariane

The following day, Ariane and John came aboard for a very pleasant day sail with us on Croix des Gardes. We left English Harbour under the main alone and slipped round to Carlisle Bay where we anchored for lunch and a dip in the sea off the boat. We then had a wonderful sail through the shallow aquamarine waters to Deep Bay, the safe anchorage next to their resort. We ended the day with pleasant splash on the white sand beach.

Superyacht Central

James has never seen so many vessels on the AIS before. We have no less than 77 superyachts showing within 0.5nm. This morning we went ashore to explore the "Worlds only working Georgian dockyard" and gasp at some of them. English Harbour itself seems to be for a select few - this area has the most 'cruising' fleet anchored in Freeman Bay near the entrance, then a collection of superyachts stern to at Nelson's Dockyard, and just a few intrepid visitors such as us anchored further up in the swamp. We are mainly accompanied here by the birds and yachts long abandonned and decaying.

The children have decided they will buy one particular yacht when they are old enough - two masts, about 150ft of glistening plastic complete with a "living room with sofas in the cockpit" and "a swimming pool on deck!" We would be happier with the three masted schooner Shenandoah who we were next to at Tobago Cays. She is next to another modern 44m yacht and then Icon - an immense luxury superyacht at 62m.

Across at Antigua Slipway are several vessels, recently shipped in and still plastic wrapped - J-class Ranger is among them as are several pretty and immaculate large classics.

Behind us is a forest of masts topped with the red lights that signify they are over 150ft tall. We chatted to the recent owners of 3 month-old 'deckhouse' Spirit yacht Spirit of Rani which is the first Sean McMillan has made with varnished topsides. James wishes to win the lottery and order one. There was also a large historic tallship weighing anchor before being towed out to sea and several immense gentleman's steamships. Maltese Falcon and Leopard are also is, but James prefers the Fifes Sumurun and local Antiguan Fife Mariella although these were dwarfed in the company. J-class Ranger is also here already as is Rainbow, and Athos who we saw earlier is nearby. The largest one I found on AIS is the 151m Parvati.

The afternoon was spent with the kids playing on Galleon Beach. Even Matthew is now enjoying the water, so long as the waves aren't too big.

English Harbour

The passage between Guadeloupe and Antigua was indeed long and wet. We set off with two reefs and staysail, and battened down the hatches. We were not as close on the wind as we'd feared and initially went very well, only being overtaken by a couple of large fast modern boats.

Matthew spent the entire trip "watching the waves" and looking out for flying fish. Elizabeth spent the whole trip with her head in a plastic bucket until she was finally relieved with about an hour to run and then in instant need of food and drink. Vomitting really is a reset button for seasickness.

Antigua is less mountainous than the other islands we've visited so far. This made it harder to sight on the way over and also means that it has less rainfall and is visibly more arid. Incontrast, Montserrat, which we left to port, was immense and imposing, with a visible plume of ash scarring the east side of the volcano, visible even from twenty miles.

We approached the historic bay of English Harbour. This is where Nelson's base in the Caribbean and is a strategic gem - it is the most upwind of the main island chain and the natural harbour has so many twists and turns that it is near invisible from the ocean. The entrance was heavily fortified,a nd within, the historic Georgian dockyard has been carefully restored. We hope to explore tomorrow.

English Harbour is also home to many of the region's superyachts. Both immense modern motor cruisers and sailing yachts were here, as well as recently arrived classic giants, such as the J-class Lionheart which I watched last summer in Cowes. In such immaculate and plastic-wrapped company, we slunk off to the furthest and dankest edge of the mangroves to drop our hook. Here I am watching the sun set as egrets and herons patrol the shores, pigeons coo from the trees and pelicans cruise overhead.

Tough sail ahead

Early start today. After a smooth and sound night's sleep in Deshaies, Guadeloupe, we again awoke early. Elizabeth was roused and offered a Stugeron and James blasted to the jetty to pick up our last French patisserie for a while. Now we're making ready for the tough eight hour leg to Antigua. The forecast suggests we should just make it on one tack but it will be hard on the wind all the way in 2m waves.