antigua in april — SV shift

Jolly Harbor
The conditions crossing over to Antigua were favorable so we got an early start and enjoyed a good day of sailing. As usual, we saw plenty of other sailboats out and a few heading in the same direction. Enzo and I are still taking meds to not be too seasick and its getting better. I suppose our systems are getting used to the swells and motion. Anais tends to take good long naps the rougher the conditions are and when she’s up she’s content. And Andreas never gets sick and takes care of all of us!

The arrival into Jolly Harbor is gorgeous. The water is shallow a mile from the shore so it’s an incredible turquoise color and as transparent as it gets and spotting turtles was thrilling. There’s a fairly big marina and we settled on staying a couple of nights to get groceries and laundry done. With Spring Break around the corner there were more tourists. The beach closest to the marina was postcard perfect and Enzo flew the drone to get some beautiful shots as the sun set. We’ve learned the hard way that being in a Marina on a thursday night is painful; its karaoke night and the blaring music [if you can call it that] travels across the water exponentially. Why they have to crank up the volume so much is a mystery. We got hit in Martinique with the french amateurs and then again in Jolly Harbor with the english ones - we’ve learned our lesson!

English Harbor
Just to the east some 20 miles is English Harbor - famous for its sailing culture and regattas. It was a tricky but beautiful sail in shallow waters and the turtles and dolphins made it even better. Even trickier than the crossing was the entrance to the harbor and then the anchorage. It’s very shallow, long and naturally protected harbor with super yachts taking up most of the spots and a wonder you don’t see them colliding into each other. We set the anchor out but it took 4 tries before getting it right. It was crowded and some boats were moored. The boat closest to us was a steel boat and they seemed OK with our proximity. However at 4 in the morning we don’t think they were pleased about us bumping into them! The wind kept changing directions and it made for lots of swinging boats. We weren't the only ones up in the middle of the night flashing our light out to make sure we didn’t git anyone. The next day we went over to the boat we hit with a bottle of wine to apologize. They weren’t bothered in the least that our boats collided and offered to have us over for a drink the next night. They’re on a ?junk? boat and had loads of great stories to share. Azimuth crossed the Atlantic on his own and we were left with our jaws hanging - no AIS or fancy navigation to help.

Green Island
Kiteboarding has been on our minds constantly. And to be honest, we thought we'd be doing a lot more of it on this trip! Turns out that when you're anchoring in the ideal spot, its usually leeward with offshore winds - exactly the opposite conditions we need to kite. Since we have not mastered taking off directly from the catamaran, we find that our chances to kite are limited. So, when we heard that there was a good spot to kite on Green Island we couldn't resist going. Its a beautiful spot and although the first night we thought we had it to ourselves, its a well known gem and we were soon surrounded by quite a lot of other yachties. Even so, we had a great time. The wind wasn't as ideal but oh well, we kited!

what could be better? yeah, more wind probably!

giant Tarpon hanging out under the docks

yellow quarantine flag for arrival in Antigua