Bon Voyage !

So we eventually arrived in Antigua after our glorious delay and the Joys of hauling all our kit through the airports. One notably funny point was when the lovely Spanish lady at check in, made Jimmy cover up the strip of Camouflage on his kite bag as apparently its illegal in the Caribb..?

After setting up the boat for a few days, we made several attempts to escape Jolly harbour, which is a lovely place by the way, we had the chance to get to know it quite well as we circumnavigated the marina like maritime hobos. We moored in a few different places after the boat was dropped in whilst nursing the boat back to health after 7mths on the hard. We had a few teething problems, batteries, dirty fuel etc. Anyway, in teeming rain (the rainy season is running on a tad longer than usual- makes for a nice shower though!) at high noon we made a dash for it on our madden voyage to Falmouth harbour-approx 3hr motor/sail around the other side of the island. We stocked up provisions before we left- 2 gallons of the infamous ‘Bushy Rum’ 10 quid a gallon, surprising it tastes lovely with a drop of lemon!!

On the back of Jimmy spending about a week deciding which lures he wanted, we caught 3 gorgeous yellow snappers  in the ‘Goats head channel’ just off the south coast of Antigua, which promptly became our supper that evening with some crusty bread.

We left Falmouth at approx 6pm on Thursday the 16^th, destination Martinique a beautiful French Island about 150nm from Antigua. We sailed through the night, took me a while to get my sea legs, interestingly I found solace in staring at the stars particularly Orion, no I’m not trying to be profound, it’s something to do with balance, your perception of movement and all that rhubarb.

We made good time and anchored up in the port of St Pierre in the north of Martinique about 22hrs sail. For the historian in you, St Pierre used to be the capital of Martinique, in 1902 however the population was reduced from 30,000 to 3 in seconds as the result of the volcano behind the town erupting with a force of that 40 times stronger than the Hiroshima bomb!

In the morn we went to the capital Fort de France and signed in then went over to Port de Bout on the other side of the bay where we had heard there was a wsurf/ksurf centre (Fanatic, Neilpryde) off the front of a hotel. We anchored in Plage de Anse Mitan and wandered over. Silly launching area, not to bad for windsurfers but the kiters have to put their kites on a 5ft platform then walk round into the water then launch, which means only one can be launching or landing at a time. It was blowing about 20 knts and we were a little bummed we didn’t get out that day, but we got some local knowledge (using my finest French-‘parlez vous anglais’) off the gadgey at the centre of some other spots to try.

So we cracked on in the morning (Mon 20^th) round to the east coast of the island and stopped off at St Anne for the night, busy little anchorage and small village with a couple of shops. The following morning we sailed to Cul de Sac de Anglais, we stopped had a snorkel and some lunch. This was a beautiful anchorage clear water and well sheltered. I think the some of the surrounding coast was a bird sanctuary and it is prohibited to go ashore. We saw this spot on a kitesurf movie and if there was a bit more of a breeze it would have been a nice flat water spot.

On the way up to Havre de Robert where we were planning to anchor for the night we went past a few spots that Jimmy had found on the net but were not ideal due to the lack of anchorage. Vauclin was one of these and there were some guys windsurfing out of there on formula kit out of there. We also think there is a Kite centre there where they have held a few kite comps over the last couple of years. Havre de Robert was a still anchorage on the south of the bay, surrounded by mangroves. We had caught a Cero (like a Spanish mackerel) on the way up and had it with some prawns that night- was beautiful eating.

In the morning we headed round to Havre do Trinite. There are a couple of play spots on the north coast of the bit that protrudes east of Trinite. Plays de Surfers; that we passed on the way across where there were a few surfers out and Bai de Tartane; again a spot that Jimmy found on the web.

This morning (Weds 22^nd) we jumped on the Number 8 bus from Trinite to Bay de Tartan (1euro30) but unfortunately there was  not a lot of wind. There were a couple of blokes out on 12s but they were struggling. We hung about for a couple of hours to see if it would fill in – which I didn’t, so we wandered up to Plays de suerfers further east and had a look over the bay, waves were not that big and a little messy but can imagine that with bigger swell it could be quite good spot.

So we’re still looking for a first illusive sail, but are hopeful it will be soon. We’re off tonight, heading for Les Saintes a small island off Guadeloupe then back on to Antigua to drop Billy off. Has been a nice first little voyage, and a good teaser of what’s to come.

Bon Noel and a happy new year to all!!

Over looking St Pierre.

Mount Pele.

 

Little swim before the greenflash !

Somewhere....

 

Counted over 200 bites after the first night, guess which bits were left out of the sheet!

 

Captions please !!

Advertisement