Les Saintes – 31st March – 2nd April

At last, we were now heading almost south, as opposed to the ESE that we had been doing from BVI to St Martin to Antigua. With predominately east trade winds the previous trips had all been motor sail jobs.

We left Antigua 3am with perfect conditions and soon had both engines off (what a novelty!). I took the first watch 4-7am. Great wind angle and wind speeds – I had the boat at over 8 knots for a lot of the watch. By 5.30am the sun was starting to come up in the east on my left and a full moon was setting in the west on my right. This is what it’s about!! The full moon was like a big light above us, so we did not have to use the radar very much. The passage between Antigua and Guadeloupe is about 40 miles.

We were planning on catching up with Tracy and Jerry on Challenger on our way down – they had been doing some diving in the Jacque Cousteau reserve at Pigeon Island, just off the west coast of Guadeloupe. We made radio contact and arranged to meet in Les Saintes. Once down the coast of Guadeloupe, not surprisingly, the engines went on again (and we were able to BBQ lunch!). Below is Charlotte pretending she is harnessed up on night watch.



Like many of the mountainous islands further south, the mountains block the wind on the leeward side. Once at the bottom of Guadeloupe, we had an 8 miles close haul over to the Saintes. We made great time and were swimming off the back of the boat by 3pm.


Les Saintes is always a favourite stop of ours, and as it may be the last time in a while, we decided to stay once more day, and then do a straight run for the remaining 125 miles to St Lucia. Les Saintes are some small French islands, part, and south of Guadeloupe. Busy in the daytime with day trippers from the mainland, and like a quiet French village by night – when all the local kids come out and play on their scooters in the square. We rented a scooter (3 to a bike wouldn’t be allowed in a lot of places!!) and toured round the small island.


Tracy very kindly babysat that night and so Jimmy and I got to go out for a meal to one of our favourite restaurants in the Caribbean “Les Petit Saintes”. It was our first time out alone since New Year! Finding a babysitter, when cruising in the Caribbean, is not easy.

By 8am the next morning, Good Friday, 2nd April, we were on our way again, out of Les Saintes, passing Dominica and Martinique. There was so little wind that we didn’t even put up the main to begin with. However as the wind filled in, we put up the main but still had to motor a lot, especially behind the mountainous islands. We arrived into St Lucia at 2.30am Saturday morning. Rodney Bay is a large open anchorage, easy to arrive and anchor in the dark, as it is relatively shallow far out. We anchored far out, went to bed and then moved closer to shore the next morning.

Antigua 29th-31st March

We arrived Antigua after a 15 hour trip from St Martin. It was the first time in a while that Jimmy and I had done a full overnight sail (as opposed to getting a few hours sleep first) and we were shattered all day Monday! We headed to the pool at Jolly Harbour and let Charlotte (who had slept all night!) swim and play with the other kids in the pool while we dozed.

We spent Tuesday in Antigua, getting fueled and water and catching up with Mick and Sue, some good cruising friends. Unfortunately not for long enough – and they were now heading north for the rest of the season and we were heading south.

Wednesday 31st March, alarm clock on at 2.30am to ensure a 3am departure… We wanted to make it as far at Les Saintes by dark. Les Saintes can sometimes be a tricky anchorage - deep water except close in and sometimes difficulties getting the anchor to catch, so we needed to be there to get anchored before dark. Leaving at 3am would leave a conservative 15 hours to cover the 75 miles, assuming an average of 6 knots.

St Martin 26-28th March

Again, a hectic few days in St Martin.

Friday, we rented a car – a trip over to Philipsburg – more electronics including little computer for Charlotte (and for me to take ashore without the worry of water damage to an expensive computer in the dingy). In the afternoon, there was a kids’ beach party on Simpson Bay beach – they had continued the weekly beach play dates that Charlotte had started. That evening, making good use of the rental car, we went over to Grand Case for dinner – Grand Case is on the French side of St Martin and is known for its street full of great French restaurants.

Up and out early the next morning – a trip to Cost-U Less – the big warehouse type shopping where we stock up on a lot of our food for the next few months. Once the car was returned, more social activities for Charlotte with Harmony’s 11th birthday party on the beach. We think that Jimmy Buffet was playing that night in St Barths after the “St Barths Bucket” (the sailing races for boats over 100 feet!! – quite a sight) –but it was Charlotte’s turn for a social life!!


Sunday morning, the cruisers weekly “Champagne Breakfast” get together. Then after that we headed back to the Islander Hotel (where Paul and Leonor had stayed) to meet up with Jimmy’s brother and sister-in-law Dennis and Patty, who were down in their timeshare for a week.

We spent the day with them, then headed back to the boat at dark, put Charlotte to bed, picked up the anchor at 9.30pm and continued our trip down to St Lucia (about another 200 miles), where we were meeting Claire the following weekend.

As we passed St Barths that night, we could see so many red anchor lights in the anchorage – a boat that has a very high mast (over about 100 feet) has to have a red rather than white anchor light (for low flying airplanes) – St Barths was full of very large boats that weekend for the St Barths Bucket race.

British Virgin Islands 18th-25th March

British Virgin Islands – land of the charter boats. The BVIs is probably one of the best locations to charter a boat for a week, in the world. Beautiful scenery, easy sailing, lots of small islands surrounding Tortola and Virgin Gorda, the two main islands, close anchorages, constant winds. As a result, probably about 95% of the boats sailing in the BVIs are people down on a week’s charter. This is a vast contrast to the islands further south where the ratio is probably the other way round, and mainly cruising live-aboards.

Our first stop was The Baths in Virgin Gorda – always a lovely spot and Charlotte got to explore the big boulders again. Then to Road Town and a chance to meet up with Bernadette, Peter and 3 year old Sutton – friends who used to live in Bermuda. And to meet up with the “Gang” arriving for their great charter vacation – 5 couples, 3 crew on a 65 foot catamaran.

We spent a few days following “The Gang” (as Charlotte referred to them) around various anchorages (although not quite as busy as their schedule). Norman Island (with the obligatory trip to the Willi T’s pirate ship bar for Jimmy and the Gang), Jost, Virgin Gorda – Bitter End and Leverick Bay. Jimmy had a chance to have a good catch up with Danny and Regina

and Charlotte loved all the attention. The Gang had a great time on their catamaran - the crew spoilt them with lavish meals and great service. Tim and Joan were the "Leaders of the Gang" and their other friends, who we met for the first time, were a great bunch from NY.

By Thursday it was time to start heading south again – the trip back to St Martin, and then Antigua, is just south of east, which means wind on the nose. Thursday was a good day to ensure lighter winds and hence an easier trip! We motored out of Virgin Gorda Sound at 6am, arriving just before sunset into Marigot bay 12 hours later, leaving the rest of The Gang to carry on their partying til Saturday!

St Maartin 14th-17th March

We had a hectic few days in St Martin.
On Monday Charlotte and I went “fruit shopping” at the electronic store – an Apple and a Blackberry!! Not to mention some other bits and pieces - this is my idea of shopping!! – forget the clothes and shoes. St Martin is the cheapest place in the Eastern Caribbean for electronics, and as my older/spare/Charlotte’s computer had recently “lost” its hard drive, it made me speed up my decision to change over to a Mac.

We met up with Paul and Leonor, who were down from NY at their time share.


On Tuesday Charlotte met up with Harmony again on Orient Beach – Jimmy and I enjoyed and “adult lunch” while they played on the beach and in the sea. On Wednesday we got to catch up with some other cruising friends at the weekly cruisers get together.

We headed back to the boat for a few hours sleep at 8pm – alarm clock on for midnight and then on Thursday 18th March, 12.30am we headed out of the anchorage in Marigot, on our way to Virgin Gorda BVI. Light winds, and downwind meant a motor sail. By 1am I was back in bed and Jimmy took watch til 5am when I took over, and he slept. 12 hours later, after an easy, non eventful sail, we were tying up to a mooring at The Baths – Virgin Gorda, in time for lunch. We had hoped to use the spinnaker, but it wasn’t to be. The winds were too light.

Antigua 1st-14th March 2010

By 6.30pm, Monday 1st March, 11 hours after leaving Statia, we were anchoring “back” in Jolly Harbor. We seem to spend so much time in Antigua, it’s like “coming home”! This time, (for a change!), we anchored off Jolly Beach for a couple of days before moving around to the anchorage. Boat jobs, Charlotte meeting friends at the pool, fueling and filling up with water, laundry – all the regular activities of life on board (Charlotte doing her dolls' laundry!):


At the weekend we headed to Bird Island in the north. It’s very pretty with lots of deserted islands. Charlotte and I went snorkeling - there are literally loads of conchs all around the anchorage. We could have dived down and easily collected enough to make a nice meal – but unfortunately this involves a lot of work, getting the conchs out of their shells and pounding them (and they are very tough) before cooking – BBQ burgers was easier!! While snorkeling we also saw many sea cucumbers, other interesting “breathing plant life” and a stingray – a little unnerving as we were in very shallow water and almost eye to eye!

Lewis, Sonja and Josh came over on Sunday, and Charlotte and I got to have a go on his very fast jet ski!!


I was keen to circumnavigate Antigua (and it being our last time here for a while….) – many times we’ve gone up one coast and then round and up the other, but never all the way round – usually because of sea and wind conditions as there are a lot of reefs in the north and its essential to have good light to navigate the reefs. Well, we had perfect calm conditions so after the weekend we continued round to Green Island on the east coast.

On the way there we stopped at “Stingray City” – a fenced off area on the reef where they take tourists to see the stingrays. Charlotte and I swam over from our anchored boat, and snorkeled. The area was no longer fenced in but there were still some stingrays there.


Green Island is in Nonsuch bay, a lovely big anchorage on the east coast, set behind the reef, with deserted islands around. We spent a couple of days there – Charlotte got to show off her water skiing talents to the anchorage and met a new friend on another boat that she invited to join her ”ski-bobbing”.

From Green Island we continued round to English and Falmouth Harbour in the south – home of the mega yachts. Charlotte got to play with Jack and Josh, 2 cruising kids that we met in Grenada about 4 years ago, and have been bumping into each year.

Some friends of Jimmy’s were renting a 65 foot crewed catamaran in BVI. Originally we were not going to see them as we were on our way south, but in Antigua we made the decision to turn around and go back up to see them. It had been some while since Jimmy had been able to spend a decent amount of time with Danny.

On Sunday, the winds looked best, to do the trip back up to St Martin – a 6am start and we were in St Martin by dusk.