1st 1/2 2008 part III - cruising with cousins and neighbours

After a brief 2 weeks in Calgary, and an opportunity to tidy up mail, the house and the garden, Kerry heads back to Antigua.

Arrival in Antigua is timed to coincide with cousins Bill Rogers and Rob Jennings.
It's hockey playoff time, and they are equipped with a giant Calgary Flames flag, which we fly for as long as the Flames play - and this year, that is not a long sequence.

With full tanks and cupboards, we head off on the anti-clockwise cruise around Antigua. Stopping at Falmouth first for the Nelsons Dockyard and Shirley Hts tour. It's also Classic cruising week in Falmouth, and the marinas are full of wonderful wooden classic yachts. We have enjoyed a good day and a fine evening, but overnight we get dumped on. It's not windy, just black and very wet.
We wake up to dead calm, and the Classics are trying to leave the harbour to race. After a morning cup of coffee and  a weather check ashore, we give one of the Dragon yachts a tow to the harbour entrance so that they can reach the race start line in time.

We leave and motor through a barely moving race fleet as we head east and north around the coast.
Our next planned stop was Mamora Bay, but the sheltered bay is mud coloured and the water surface is littered with rubbish, washed down by the previous night's rain. Not pretty. We turn around and head back out, and on to Nonsuch Bay.
The entrance to Nonsuch is not particularly difficult, but is surrounded by rocks and reefs, and as we enter we are greeted by the sight of a catamaran aground on the Green Island reef. It turns out that the cat is "Tirla" owned by a UK doctor, Nigel, an acquaintance of Kerry's sister Helen.
As we found out later, Nigel, accompanied by his wife and another British couple, tried to make the entrance in the middle of the pounding rainstorm. There are no navigational aids in this entrance, and while attempting to find the anchorage, they turned too early, ran aground, and were then pushed further on the reef by the incoming waves. They were safely lifted off, but "Tirla" was holed and not going anywhere.

Bill, Rob and I did dinghy over for a look the next day. By this time, locals had already been on the boat, helping themselves to anything of value that could be moved. It's an awful shame to see a sight such as this, and a reminder that you are usually safer riding out bad weather offshore, rather than risk landfall and its associated dangers, even in areas with which you are very familiar.
We stayed a couple of nights in Rickets Harbour, swimming and snorkeling - it's a lovely spot.

Then we left early and enjoyed a wonderful sail across to Barbuda - with the wind behind us, it was broad reach and a chance to fly the spinnaker. We also ran out a fishing line and managed to catch a fine Spanish Mackerel as we sailed. Bill demonstrated yet another talent, and had it filleted in no time - and it made a delicious late lunch after we dropped anchor off Coco Pt, Barbuda.
We shifted around to Low Bay the next day, and Bill and Rob enjoyed the snorkeling on the offshore reefs.

Apart from that one rainy night, we were fortunate and had good winds and relatively calm seas on this cruise, and the sail back to Antigua was another good reach.
We stopped off in Dickinson Bay for a change. Bill and Rob wanted to make an early run  the next morning, in to St Johns fish market in the hope of purchasing some lobster. Partially unsuccessful as it turned out - no lobster, but fresh fish was a good substitute.
Somewhat re-stocked we head around to Jumby Bay and Great Bird Island - it;s the early part of nesting season and the young Tropic birds have hatched. The water is also clear, and on a good day the areas both sides of Great Bird have the best snorkeling on Antigua. We get treated to a good array of fish.
Then it was back to Jolly Harbour. Sailing with the cousins was coming to an end, but it had been a great time.
Solo again, Kerry had a couple of days boat cleaning and re-provisioning, and time for one solo sail around to Carlisle Bay - an opportunity to snorkel and bottom clean the boat, and watch a fleet of 200 yachts pass by, competing in Antigua Race Week.

Kerry also meets up with "Pouncer" - a 28' wooden classic - and its crew of 3 ladies - Charlotte, Jane and Karen - preparing for a return Atlantic voyage. We get the opportunity to wave goodbye to "Pouncer" a little later. The ladies had an uneventful and somewhat calm crossing, via Bermuda and the Azores.
1st mate Hil returns to the boat, and we are off again. After a few days visiting Falmouth, Mamora and Green Island we return to Jolly and clear customs before heading across to Nevis, and then on to Montserrat if conditions stay ok.

After a nice but long 8 hour downwind run across, we clear in through Charlestown, and then pick up one of the many mooring balls off Pinneys Beach. Having been to Nevis a couple of times before, but never taken a look at the island, we decide to hire a car and do the drive around. Nothing spectacular, but it's a nice island, centred of course by a  volcano. It doesn't take very long to do the tour.

We shift down the coast  for one more day, and pick up a mooring off Quallie Beach, and enjoy a very nice Mothers day brunch and a relaxing day, before returning to Pinneys to overnight.

Next morning, we're off to Montserrat. The wind is a little on the nose, so we motor sail and lay the Little Bay harbour in one go. We clear in and then do a dinghy around to Rendezvous Bay for a swim and snorkel. We cut this short a bit, as we notice some evil clouds building up just to the south. Turns out, it's not weather, just the still very active volcano belching out ash and dust. Fortunately the breeze is holding  at SE, and the stuff is heading out to sea and not landing on Manx Mist.

We have a night of little sleep, thanks to very loud and very late music coming from the holiday bash on the beach. Next day we hook up with "Fearless Joe Phillips" - local taxi driver - and take a tour across the island to the volcano observatory. Half of the island, including the main town of Plymouth, was covered by the eruptions of 1995-97, and an exclusion zone still restricts travel. It was an interesting tour.
There's not a huge amount to see and do on Montserrat, so the next morning we returned to Antigua, clearing back in at Jolly harbour.

The return to Jolly was well-timed - it was FA Cup weekend - and Kerry was able to watch and cheer on his old hometown team, Portsmouth as they won the trophy.

After the brief break in Jolly, we sailed around to Great Bird Island for a short visit and to check out the peak of the nesting season. The island seemed to be divided up with terns in the north, tropic birds in the centre, and gulls in the south - and there were lots of them.


Back to Jolly again, and our next visitors arriving - our neighbours Tim, Ann and their then 5 year old son Logan - otherwise known as "the pirates that don't do anything".

We had a really enjoyable week with them, again doing the regular sequence of Falmouth, Shirley Hts, Green Island - back to Jolly - then Jumby Bay and Great Bird. The weather was great. Logan loved the beaches, and was really good on the boat, and Tim and Ann enjoyed the swimming, snorkeling and cruising around the islands.
It would not be long before we would get to see them again, as the sailing season was coming to an end.

In Antigua, everything seems to start to wind down after the end of Race Week - usually early May. Boats start getting hauled out or they heading out to return to US waters or across the Atlantic to Europe.
By the end of May you feel like you are cruising by yourself.
Hil and I headed across to Barbuda for a few days of peaceful swimming and beachwalking, and then fitted one last sail up to green Island and enjoyed solitude there as well.

We returned to Jolly on June 8th, and spent a couple of days on the dock, before haulout on June 11th, followed by a few more busy days working on the boat, doing engine maintenance, and stowing everything securely for the hurricane season.
Bade farewell to MM and Antigua on June 14th.