Antigua makes time fly

Pillars of Hercules - welcome to English Harbor

Unusual to see so many TALL ship lights

Antiqua – 3 weeks flew

After our short stop in Montserrat – the anchorage in Little Bay rolls at the best of times, we headed east to Antigua. Easterly headings are usually directly into the prevailing winds and although we were fortunate to have only 3 to 4 foot seas, it was enough to slow our progress and make for a lumpy ride.  On the bright side, the day was relatively short and we were tied to a mooring in Falmouth Bay in early afternoon with time for Steve to visit the customs and immigration folks in the historic Nelson Dockyards. 

Entrance to Dockyards Customs Office

The two harbors – English Harbour and Falmouth Bay are separated by a narrow strip of land and together they provide some of the best protected anchorage in the Caribbean. As a result, they are popular and crowded with boaters from its earliest discovery by Europeans. All manner of services is available for boaters so it is a good place to hang out and fix whatever needs fixing. Or, just hang out and enjoy the scene. In addition, Antigua has historic British connections so English is the main language. The direct flights from London and regular cruise ship visits bring lots of tourists to enjoy the beaches and historic sites.  One of these is the restored and vibrant Nelson Dockyard complex. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and uniquely combines the feel of the 18^th century fortress with a living marina, hotel, and shopping destination. We treated ourselves to lunch at the Pillars Restaurant to enjoy this combination of old and new for a relaxing afternoon on their shaded patio.

Old Bakery and Ovens

 We also hiked the Middle Ground Path or better known as the “goat path” – mind where you step! It connects the two bays via an up and down route through several old lookout and gunnery placements which offer spectacular views of the island and surrounding seas.

Sunday afternoon we opted to taxi up to the restaurant at Shirley Heights on the south side of English Harbour to enjoy their BBQ and listen to the steel drum band. This is another complex of old fortifications restored but also re-purposed for modern use. As one boater told us, just about everyone on the island shows up for the weekly event – some dressed up in fancy, fancy outfits and others very beach casual plus a lot in between!

Frequent local buses run from the English Harbour area to the capitol city of St John about 10 miles away.  Steve needed to have another x-ray taken of the wrist he injured back in late December so we flagged a bus heading to the clinic on the outskirts of St John. While we had read about the typical bus services in the islands, this was our first experience. First, they are very reasonably priced – our round trip for both of us was about 6 dollars US. The comfort and panache vary widely. We rode on almost new larger vehicles as well as rough, rugged, and falling apart contraptions.  All of them got us to our destinations!  However, the system for picking up passengers is somewhat different.  The bus heading into town picks up passengers until he is full only stopping to pick up again if someone gets off.  On the other hand, from town, most buses don’t leave until they are full.  The passengers must wait until all the seats are occupied.  Since the buses run fairly often the wait is usually not long on popular routes – it can be much longer if the route is not a popular one, however. While there are designated bus stops with good signage and even a few with shelters, riders can flag buses almost anywhere. It might seem obvious, but this is a good trick on the narrow roads.  Other traffic either goes around – hoping to avoid any oncoming cars or they wait for riders to get on and off. Stopping the bus is another trick – there were no buzzers or buttons to push – but the rider simply says “bus stop”. If it is not loud enough, (all the buses included music to the taste of the driver) the other passengers relay and the bus echoes with “BUS STOP”…..

Have also to mention the driving habits on Antigua. The roads are narrow and vehicles drive FAST! Plus they are all driving on the wrong side of the road! Buses especially are in a hurry since time is money.  They zoom past slower cars weaving in and out of parked vehicles and on coming traffic.  It can be an adventure to travel by road in Antigua! After all, our boat rarely gets above 7 mph.

museum entrance in old court house

While waiting for the Classic Boat Regatta – Easter Weekend, we took a few side trips.  First, we anchored off Jolly Harbour.  This is another popular stop for boaters and home to a large charter fleet of catamarans. There are several man-made canals around the main harbor with a variety of condos and homes. The marina area has several restaurants, a Budget Marine store and an Epicurean Grocery. This is a sister store to the main mega grocery in St John’s which we visited by bus. Although much smaller than the mother store, it seemed to have the same vast variety of food options from fresh through frozen and canned.  There is nothing that can’t be found here. Wandering these aisles, one could be in any Publix or Harris Teeter or in some cases even better since these stores stock British cheeses, condiments, and crackers. 

no lack of interesting food choices

While visiting the dentist – don’t ask – we discovered a lady who sells baked goodies from her trunk and her regular schedule includes Jolly Harbour so we were also able to replenish the bread and treats before moving on.

Just about the only down side to this anchorage is the long and slow (5mph) no wake trek into the docks.

Our second stop was around on the east side of the island behind Great Bird Island.  This is a protected area to preserve the marine life here and includes a few free moorings.  It is also sheltered from the prevailing east winds by the reef so it provided a nice stop to relax and explore the reefs and work on our kayak skills. Although it was too windy and rough for the kayakers, there was some snorkeling and harvesting to be had.  We also met fellow boaters Lynn & Mike on Time 2 and Fiona & Mark on Avatar, plus Xavier a single handing sailor. We managed to enjoy lobster pizza in this scenic and secluded anchorage.

With a stop at Jolly to resupply, we moved back to Falmouth Harbour to observe the classic boats of all sizes that raced in the regatta. Races were held over four days – usually the boats began parading by on their way out of the harbor about 9 in the morning and returned late afternoon.  The boats circled at the end of the harbor just before the inlet to hoist their sails. The weather cooperated for all the races with brisk winds so lots of big sails were seen.  We could see some of the racing from our boat, but the best views were from the look out at Fort Berkley in English Harbour…..that is unless one was brave enough to take the dink out into the open water to get close like our friends Lynn and Mike did.  Their pics are spectacular! We did walk the docks several evenings to drool over the beautiful boats from the tiny ones to the massive 200 footers. Our favorite was the Columbia – probably mostly because we share her home port of Panama City, Florida. (We did hear she is for sale, so that might change.) Just as the racing events and festivities came to a close the weather settled and we are headed out for our next country.  Thanks to our new friends we are armed with lots of info on where to go and the best places to have fun as we head on south.

boat pics:

not "classic" but unique

Not all the boats in the harbor were classic or beautiful

Trials, Tragedy and Resilience

passing the island of Rhodonda on the way to Montserrat - a long story for this uninhabited island.

Trials, Tragedy and Resilience

This title of exhibits at the Montserrat National Museum sums up Montserrat.  The very active volcano here forced the evacuation of almost 2/3 of the island beginning in 1995. Their capital of Plymouth was largely buried in mud or burned by the pyroclastic flow. On our tour with Joe Phillips we stopped at the volcano observatory to watch a film of the eruptions and learn about the type of volcanos which have constructed the Caribbean islands. Not only has the volcano erupted but is has also grown taller over the process.

 With Joe we toured a neighborhood of homes that were in the former exclusion zone and covered with ash.  While they were not buried or burned, the ash is so fertile that now these homes are consumed by vegetation. We also were able to visit the current exclusion zone to see the new shore line – areas that once were underwater are now dry land. The pier that once was far out in the water is now close to shore.  In Old Road Bay we drove over the pier – it is now on land. 

 Many citizens of Montserrat moved away and although the population seems to be rebuilding it is still less than 50% of its former size. 

However, the people are friendly, the land is beautiful and as Joe said, “Why would anyone want to live anywhere else?” They have endured many trials and tragedies but their resilience is amazing.

Back to Tourists and more Volcanic Drama

Back to Tourists and more Volcanic Drama

Just the boats at anchor - 3 more were on docks

Independence Park

Crossing to St Christopher & Nevis – the twin island country part of Great Britain, we were plunged back into the flood of cruise ship tourists.  St Kitts, as St Christopher is commonly known, is a favorite cruise ship stop. They are organized in true British fashion to provide the most efficient and enjoyable vacation experience for the cruise ship visitors. On our second day there we watch four mega ships arrive all with in minutes of each other. They currently can only dock three big boys so one anchored out and passengers were ferried from the ship to shore. That added traffic only exacerbated our rolling around in the harbor already uncomfortable with the less than favorable wind direction. While the Port Zante Marina mostly provides docks for concessions to serve the cruise ship passengers, they managed to find us a space for our fat boat and we were able to move inside for a couple nights on a dock with both power and water!  We had not dropped our fenders or lines since leaving Crown Point Marina in St Thomas back in January – I almost forgot how to sling those lines, but Steve slide us up against the wall for a few nights without any rolling about. This gave us ample opportunity to explore St Kitts. 

We got an early taxi to the train station to ride the only functioning railroad in the Caribbean.  This train was built in the early 1900s to transport sugar cane to the processing plants.  The island once had more than 60 mills and stacks to grind and boil the sugar cane. We could see many of the stacks as we approached the island from Statia although most of the windmill structures are in bad repair or have been destroyed by hurricanes.  

old sugar cane rail cars

remains of cane processing plant

The train winds through the eastern side of the island from the airport area to Sandy Point on the north western tip. Catering mostly to cruise ship clients, they are big into making the trip fun as well as informative.  Bountiful free drinks were provided by a crew of hostesses, a running commentary from Patricia over the loud speakers educated us, and frequent choral interludes by the trio of acapella vocalists entertained us. Free drinks can be a mixed blessing as a few passengers may have over indulged – it was 8:30 in the morning – but overall it was an interesting ride.  The tour ended with a bus ride back to the boats again with running dialogue on the history of St Kitts. 

One interesting point on that tour was the connection with the hymn Amazing Grace.  The author of the text wrote the hymn after surviving a storm at sea. As a result, he found his faith and eventually became ordained and the pastor of one of the churches on St Kitts. (Sorry, I wasn't fast enough to get a photo) We also passed the oldest Anglican church on the island which includes the tomb of Samuel Jefferson, great, great, grandfather of Thomas Jefferson, our 3^rd president. The family sold its holdings on fertile St Kitts and moved to Virginia. (That property is now a ruin but has been re-purposed into a batik art factory and botanical garden.)

On another day we arranged a taxi tour to Brimstone Hill Fortress a national park.  This impressive and huge complex took over 100 years to build out between 1690 and 1794. During most of this time St Kitts was divided between the French and the English so the fort was deemed essential to the security of the British side and its other holdings in nearby islands.  The fort was not occupied for almost a 100 years in the last 1800s to mid 1900s until the citizens of St Kitts began to restore and preserve the ruins.  Today it is a magnificent example of sweeping fortifications perched on steep hills with clever engineering and masterful construction.  The Engineers were British soldiers and the labor was done by the St Kitt slaves.

Statia from the fort on St Kitts

Authentic re-en-actors

drain to catch water

We made an afternoon stop in Nevis for a quick trip to walk in the only town there – Charlestown. It has many well-preserved colonial style buildings with the flavor of a town well lived in rather than one primped for tourists.  We enjoyed a beautiful sunset and interesting sunrise for our early start to the next volcano.

early light with a little rain