January 2008
Carriacou - Grenada - Guadeloupe - Antigua
New Year's Day found me sailing south, 32 miles, from Tyrrel Bay to the Blue Lagoon - i.e. St Georges in Grenada. Almost a run in 20 knots with a 10' swell on the port quarter at first, but conditions improved after Diamond Island when a slight wind change and a course change to correct for the current brought the wind more on the beam. Kick 'em Jenny behaved herself today so it was a good sail to 6 miles short of St Georges where the wind goes light (it usually does because of the lee of the mountainous island) necessitating a motor sail for the last few miles, but I needed to charge the batteries in any case. The whole trip took 51/2 hours.
Grenada looks quite beautiful along the west coast in the morning light with tree covered mountains, a scattering of colourful houses and a few boats ploughing up and down the seaboard.
Jacky joined Gypsy Dancer on 3rd January and after a few days provisioning we set off for a two day and night sail to Antigua at the northern end of the Leeward Islands chain. Bumpy sailing in an old swell gave way to some good close-reaching on the second day. However the wind fell light before we made the whole of the 295 mile trip so we diverted to Isles Des Saintes south of Guadeloupe, 50 miles short of our intended destination. A couple of days in this delightful place and then on for a couple of days in Deshaies, one of the best anchorages in the Caribbean in my opinion - reasonable protection and French food! We visited the interesting Botanic Gardens while there - thoughtfully laid out and worth the walk up the hill.
From Deshaies we sailed hard on the wind across to English Harbour in company with four other boats that left Deshaies at the same time. Modesty forbids me to comment on the relative positions as we crossed the finish line at English Harbour....! ("If two sailing boats are heading in the same direction it's a race..." Anon.)
The walk up Shirley Heights was shaded and interesting, but English Harbour felt strangely lifeless compared to my last visit (during race week) so we moved on after a couple of days to Five Islands Bay for a rolly lunch stop and a short sail round to anchor in Jolly Harbour where we arrived on 17th.
The weather doesn't look good for our proposed crossing to St Kitts, so we may be here for a few days.
Strong winds and some major squalls with heavy rain and electrical activity kept us in Jolly Harbour. We took the local 'disco' bus to St Johns where there is a great fruit and veg market and an interesting wooden Victorian church up on the hill.
As the weather continued unsettled we busied ourselves with rigging the boom preventer - which we may need on the next part of the trip - and purchasing and rigging a new furling line for the genoa which chaffed badly because of a failed block during the trip from Grenada. Luckily there's a friendly branch of Budget Marine here which is well equipped.
The outboard needed some attention too as it stopped because of a petrol leak on the way back from a trip to the long beach south of Jolly Harbour.
We cleared out this afternoon (22nd) with the intention of leaving early tomorrow. Clearing out of Antigua is the reverse of the over-bureaucratic procedure for clearing in - 5 visits to three different lots of officials: Port Authority, Customs, Immigration. However the officials at Jolly Harbour are more laid-back than at English Harbour probably because there is a lot less traffic here.
The forecast wind and swell conditions made a trip to St Kitts undesirable so instead we started our return journey south by sailing 48 miles to Deshaies on Guadeloupe in bumpy and squally conditions. The passage took 9 hours in 10' seas – not a fun trip!
Deshaies is as relaxing as ever with the Caribbean's most laid-back clearance procedures, good French food and a wide variety of interesting yachts and power boats of all sizes including one large yacht which seemed to be flying a royal standard.
We had a snorkelling expedition to the rocks off the northern arm of the bay. A good variety of marine life in pretty good visibility on rock with some corals.
The following day we walked north over the 207-metre hill north of Deshaies amongst semi-arid deciduous forest and along the fine beach for an al-fresco lunch in a beach restaurant at the far end.
The 36 mile trip from Deshaies to Isles des Saintes is often a long motor-sail in the lee of the island, but on this occasion we managed to sail quite a lot of it, ending with a good 7 miles from Guadeloupe across the open strait to the islands.
The following day we attempted to sail north-east to Pointe-a-Pitre on Guadeloupe but gave up and returned to the Saintes when the wind died leaving the prospect of motoring straight into a lumpy sea for 3 or 4 hours. A second attempt the following day was successful and we anchored behind Isle de Cochon south of the commercial port.
Early the following morning we crossed to Bas du Fort marina to treat ourselves as it was Jacky's birthday. Unlimited power and free water were totally luxurious.
We visited the town, shopped for supplies and had a day working on the boat before moving out of the marina on to one of their mooring buoys.