Looking For Crew

On Saturday we sailed back to Jolly Harbour for fresh supplies and so we could get internet access. We had to come right up into Jolly Harbour this time to get a good WiFi signal, so we picked up a buoy right beside all the little houses.

We are now looking for crew to join us on the leg from St. Maarten’s to the Azores, so please let me know if you know of anyone interested in joining us for this passage. We are looking for two people, ideally a couple. Friends are joining us for the leg from the Azores to Ireland and then onto Arran. We plan to leave St. Maarten on the 19th of May and sail to Bermuda for a week then on to the Azores arriving mid June.

Jolly Harbour and Deep Bay

We sailed on to Jolly Harbour, a very large, but not unattractive, collection of little water-front houses, each with their own mooring. Outside the developed area is a very nice bay with sandy beaches all around. Anchoring here is very pleasant and it gave us the advantage of being able to dinghy in to use the excellent supermarket in the Harbour. We also found that if we took the dinghy up to the marina and then walked South for about a mile across a very touristy beach and over a headland, you could find a beautiful empty sandy beach that was full of all sorts of shells just perfect for collecting.

We stayed in Jolly Harbour for a few days, cleaning out lockers, doing odd jobs like scrubbing our bottoms (Octopus’s not our own). There is a lot of bottom on a cat and two props, she now goes ½ a knot faster. We then sailed to Deep Bay, another beautiful empty sandy beach we could anchor just off and swim to. We found yet another fort to explore with super views for miles around. While exploring the fort we meet up with a Swedish couple with three boys on a boat called Tabasco. Next day they came over for lunch and then we swam to the beach. Chris took various children out in the sailing dinghy. The children played happily together, despite the language difference.

Nelson’s Dockyard and Cades Reef

We enjoyed Nelson’s Dockyard and its history, most of the buildings have been restored and are in use again catering to the needs of the tourist and visiting sailors. We walked along to Fort Berkeley, which used to guard the entrance to the harbour. Last Tuesday, as we left English Harbour, we went back in history ourselves; when we lifted our anchor we found we had picked up some of ‘Nelson’s Chain’. Back in the 1800s Nelson laid down several large gauge chains at various places across English Harbour, to stop his ships from being blow out to sea during hurricanes. We used a tripping line to free the anchor and were then on our way. Unfortunately, I missed the opportunity to take a photo. We sailed to Carlisle Bay along with Norn and had another afternoon playing on the beach.

The next morning we sailed to Cades Reef, it is a horseshoe reef about two miles off shore. We negotiated our way in slowly and anchored in the middle and took the rib over to the reef so we could snorkel. Susie found a conch shell and we saw lots of colourful fish. We went back to Octopus and had lunch while anchored in what seemed like the middle of the sea.

Antigua

We had a very quick stop-over at Deshaies, the anchorage very crowded so we ended up anchored very far out in the bay with little protection from the wind. After two days we moved on to Antigua and had a very lumpy sail as it was a very exposed crossing and we had to sail very close to the wind which is not Octopus’ best point of sail. We arrived at Falmouth Harbour in Antigua in the afternoon. It is a beautiful spot but the weather has been just like at home, because of a big low in the Atlantic. We have had lots of wind and rain but thankfully is has now cleared up and we are back to lovely sunny Caribbean weather.

We went for a very long walk on Tuesday looking for a vet. Bosun is due to neutered, but trying to find a vet is a challenge. We took a mini-bus-taxi to the capital, St John’s; we were unlucky enough to be driven by the taxi driver from hell, and he must have had a death wish. He drove up the back of every car and loved over-taking lorries on blind hills respective of whether or not anything was coming in the other direction, banging his horn at anything that moved!!. We didn’t pick him for the return journey. On the way back we had a slower driver who was wearing so much ‘Bling’ on his fingers he could hardly hold the wheel.

On Friday we moved around to English Harbour and moored near Nelson's Dockyard. It was developed as a base for the British Navy the late 18th century and was greatly expanded by Horatio Nelson. Today the dockyard has been completely restored, and it is now the only Georgian dockyard in the world. We took the rib to the beach the next day, so we could all enjoy a swim and the children did some more shell collecting.

Sunday night we walked up ‘Lookout Trail’, from the harbour through a forest of trees and cacti to Shirley Heights. Kristle, Ben, Amber and Ben’s parents (who are staying with them for a fortnight) joined us. We enjoyed the famous Shirley’s Heights Barbecue, the rum punch and steel band.

The guide book advises – ‘descending the trail is not advisable after dark or barbecue revelry’, but we made it down to the beach just as the sun was setting. Putting all the children to ‘bed’ on Octopus and retreating to Norn for a chat and a nightcap worked very well.