Just a quickie

It's 7 am and i am about to run out the door and make it over towards Xtreme.

We have an early tour today that i am skippering. JD is off to Barbuda to do some camping with his family and we have press on the boat. The weather looks lovely as is usual at this time of year, so it should be nice. I was supposed to write more about the marlin and had several people moan about how i left you hanging yesterday. The moans will be louder today as i have to go and do some "real" work on XTREME.
L8r

The 42nd Annual Sport Fishing Comp.

This year Team Adventute Antigua Xtreme entered the Antigua Sport Fishing Tournament once again. We had finished 2nd and 4th in the Marlin Divisions on previous years and had caught the biggest marlin in the last ten years and that was only on 50 lb test line. We were going for 1st this year. I say that because our crew was made up of three core regulars: me, Big John and Tony and we also had two more young enthusiastic fellas who had fished in tournaments with us before: Ross and Guilli. John's girlfriend, Kiesha, also came along to catch some of the smaller fish as well as take the photos needed for the marlin division. All of us knew that if given the chance we would win, and not only did we know that but we also knew that Xtreme usually raised marlin while other boats nearby saw none.

I was in the middle of moving house so decided to get a room at the Catamaran Hotel where the tournament was being held. This allowed me to try to get some rest before those wicked early mornings. The first morning we had to take part in the Bimini start at the entrance of the harbour. This is where all the boats leave at the same time going full speed out the harbour and into the big seas. It was pretty rough that morning and as we passed my Dad and then Phillip Shoul we started getting tossed like a green salad. Xtreme was faster than the rest of the pack in the rough conditions because of its length and design. The waves down below Shirley Heights were pretty big and very short. In the rought stuff we averaged 20 knots up to a place called Frank's Hole which was where we raised our two marlin the week before. It was wet and poor Kiesha kept getting waves coming over the side and hitting her flat in the face. She is tough as nails though and didnt moan. After fishing for about 30 minutes Tony yelled that he say something in the water about 100 meters from the boat. It was early in the morning and the light was bad, so none of us could see what he saw. We got closer and Tony said he could see it again, but this time he yelled MARLIN. It was a huge marlin just swimming on the surface between the big swells. We all got ready for the hookup and saw the colourful tail as it broke the surface just off our port side. The anticipation of a hookup was something hard to describe, but it wasn't to be. On my GPS chart plotter i always use the track when fishing so that i can loop back onto the exact line i was fishing before. We fishing that area and nearby for the next hour without a strike and then moved on to a spot named "Marlin" on our GPS chart. Shortly after we got there we had a very good strike with line stripping off the reel like it was going out of style. All the other lines were cleared and the fighting belt was fitted just before the line went limp. The fish had gotten off. We made another pass in the area and 15 minutes later we were hooked up again. Guilli fought the fish very well as he had done with the wahoos in the last tournament he had fished with us. He's a very strong guy and would never rest until the fish was alongside. This marlin was about 250 lbs and came to the boat with little trouble. Kiesha took some great shots and we released the marlin to fight again another day. 300 points in the bag and we were in the lead in the marlin division. We fished the same area for another 30 minutes before we were hooked up again. This fish did the same thing as our fist strike that day. It pulled and pulled and managed to free itself. We were so upset, but that's fishing. We had lines out and were fishing again very quickly. Our team worked like a formula one pit crew. The speed and organization was excellent and the loss of two hooked fish was just bad luck. We continued to fish the same area about the size of a small village out in the ocean. There were no distinctive bottom contours or trenches, but for some reason this area had produced marlin strikes for the last three years in may and june for us. Not much time passed and a marlin came and hit the #2 lure which was only about 5 meters behind the engines. The fish just hit the lure and was gone. We knew we still had a chance and played the lure. Then our #1 lure was hit just like the last one and the fish was gone. We played the hell out of the lure dropping it back and reeling it in as if the lure was an injured and scared fish. Like had happened on almost 70% of our hook ups, the playing worked and the marlin attacked the lure hooking up this time. The pit crew cleared the lines faster than Lewis Hamilton's crew changed his tires. Ross was in the harness and fighting before the fish had finished his big run. Ross knew this fish had to count and did a very good job of fighting it. He wasn't as strong as Guilli but didn't slow at all. We got the fish to the boat fairly quickly and released it once we had pulled it throught the water a bit. When they come to the boat the fish can be very tired and their colours can be faded. Like most fish water pushed through their gills will liven them up. After a minute or two of being held by john alongside as i steered ahead the fish had all of its amazing colour back and was trying to break free. IT was time to let it go and in a flash of blue it was gone. We were way ahead of the rest of the fleet as it had been a slow day for blue marlin, but this wasn't enough. We had another day ahead of us and another few hours of fishing. Anything could happen. After another 45 minutes i left the spot called Marlin and headed to the spot called "Grander" on my chart. I mark areas where something unusual happens. "Grander" was the spot where a fish estimated to be a monster and local record smasher came up half way out the water with our #2 lure in its mouth. It just hovered there shaking its head until the lure was spat free. This was last year and as the #2 lure is so close to the back of the boat we all had a very close look at that fish that may have been over 1000 lbs a.k.a. "a grander". Very close to that spot was a place where most of the marlin hookups over the past 5 years have taken place. The Little Bank is a small hill coming up from extreme depths to a flat area some 350 feet below the surface. These "hills" are called Sea Mounts and fish congrigate around them. Tuna in particular feed around this bank and at this time of the year little tuna are there in big numbers and the marlin are there to feed on them. We had no luck as we passed through the "Grander" spot though and kept fishing the area in the hope that something would be raised. A little closer to the bank i had two other marks where we had caught and released marlin. GPS number 47 and 49 and they were on the line from Grander to the little bank. With only 30 minutes left in the first day's fishing i left Grander and headed on a broad reach to the bank. As our little boat passed over 49 on the GPS screen #2 got a tiny hit as if a super small fish bit the lure. We all knew different though. In deep water we treat all strikes on big marlin lures no matter how small they may be as Marlin Strikes. One of the crew played #2 and the others stood by the other rods just in case. #1 got a small hit and Guilli let the lure go back in free spool. He stopped it and reeled in quickly.....nothing...he dropped the lure back in free spool again then cranked up the drag just as the guys screamed in awe. The reel screamed louder as line and a big blue marlin started heading East back to Africa faster than you can imagine. Later Big John told me that the Marlin's bill and most of the top of its body came out of the water and it finnaly attacked the lure in a ravenous and violent manner. "ASF radio, ASF radio Xtreme is hooked up and fighting a big blue", i yelled down the mic of my VHF radio. We had to let them know we were hooked up before the official "lines out" which was at 4:30 pm. Again the four other rods and lures were cleared and put away, the two teasers were taken in and Guilli was fitted properly for the fight. I turned the boat to the fish and we managed to get it close to the boat fairly quickly again, but we all knew this one was a big fish. Guilli being the strong guy he is spared no time taking in the 80 lb test line. There was 26 lbs of drag pulling against him (we always use 1/3 of the breaking strain as the drag setting) and it wasn't easy work, but he was as excited as the rest of us. This was going to be the slam dunk and we hadn't even started day two. The fish never jumped, but when the double line came out of the water thirty feet behind the boat we all knew we would see it soon. With gloves on and the flying gaff ready John positioned himself to grab the leader. In slow motion i saw the leader pop out of the water as the waters below became alight with silver and dark blue. All of the crew murmered at the size of the fish. We had faught and lost bigger but had only ever brought one fish to the boat bigger than this one. What happened next will never be forgotten and could have ended in a crew fatality. I will tell you about it in the next blog. (the spell checker isn't working today on blogger so sorry in advance). (the chopper photos were lifted from the ASF website)

no internet.... go fishing.

Wow, my last blog about whales was supposed to be followed by a blog a few days later telling everyone about the 42nd annual Sport Fishing Tournament. I was going to talk about our practice runs where we managed to catch a few fish and spot loads of whale pods. Little did I know that moving apartments (which I was doing at that time) would leave me without any internet for 3 weeks!!!!!
Anyway, I am back online now and realize that I do need to join internet addiction anonymous. Our two practice runs out fishing this year were not that great. In fact on the first one we hardly got a single strike, but managed to see five different pods of whales off the South coast off Antigua. We saw whales breaching and slapping and generally enjoying the warm waters here. They were all very late this year and on the day where we saw all these pods, they were all moving fairly quickly up around the South Eastern side of Antigua as if trying to go around the top and swim North. We have only seen one pod since then and I think that they have all gone now. We won't see them again until next Feb maybe. On our second fishing practice trip we managed to release one blue marlin about two hundred pounds and had a very big one burst off after taking about 4oo yards of line off the big 80lb reel in seconds. The reel was incredibly hot when the line broke. Luckily for the marlin and for us, the line broke pretty close to the fish. I know people always talk about the big one that got away, but that's because nobody cares about the little ones that got away. We had four very experienced fishermen on board that day and we all agree that the fish was bigger than anything we had released or landed before. 650 - 700 lbs was what they thought. The tournament was a week away and we couldn't have lines breaking then.

Whales in the Caribbean later than normal

Two weeks ago we were out on the first day of Antigua Sailing Week 2008. It was a day that Xtreme wasn't working and the Eco Tour boat was doing a private charter. Greg from Caribbean Helicopters, Ian from Acqua Films and several other friends came out with me to watch some of the racing starts off Falmouth Harbour. That was fun and we followed the racing for a while watching the fantastic yachts do some very close roundings at the Curtain Bluff gybe mark. Anyway, later we had planned to go on to the finish where there was going to be a beach party at Ft. James. This year the Antigua Hotel Association which owns and runs sailing week decided to move the regatta from Dickenson Bay on this day for a number of reasons. Anyway, it turned out to be a big problem with waves breaking on the shore causing many upsets for water taxis and their guests.
The coast guard with machine guns at hand were there to help (aka watch).Amazingly there were no major injuries. The four photos above were taken by Kevin Johnson and lifted from facebook. Anyway, on our way to Ft. James we were passing in close to Hawksbill as we normally do on the west coast when off to my I noticed something big and black break the surface about a 1/4 mile from us. It didn't spout as i normally expect whales to do when they surfaced. There was a big fast powerboat coming up behind me and we told them to slow down just after i saw the tell tale humped back come out of the water again. These whales were half way between Sandy Island and Hawksbill rock. I told the guys in the other boat to follow me and we went along to check the whales out. So many Antiguans who own boats somehow manage to miss whales every year. Gilbert Boustani a classmate of mine was driving the boat and said that it was his first time seeing them. Anyway, these whales usually move on my this time and i was surprised to see them in so close. The kept surfacing nearby and at one time when we were drifting with engines off trying to figure where they were...they passed right under our bow. It was such an amazing experience. As you know from reading my blogs if you are a "regular" reader, our country's leaders support Japanese whaling so in my opinion its always a good idea to show as many Antiguas as possible these amazing creatures. If someone is lucky enough to be up close to them and see them interact with their calves then they couldn't possible support whaling. Anyway, the mother and calf in this case just kept cruising around the boats without seeming to be bothered by us. Usually they keep swimming into deeper waters not wanting to be bothered by boats, but this time they didn't seem to mind that much. I called my dad on the VHF radio. He was so excited as he had just been alongside some super fast tri-maran which was passing all the other boats at speeds of about 28 knots he said. Anyway, i knew he would be more excited to hear about these relaxed whales. Many other boats had listened in to our conversation and before long there were five or six other small boats hanging around the whales. I told them to turn their motors off if they were going to stick around. At one time the whales got so close to us as we were just drifting that i just jumped in with my snorkeling gear. Several of the guys on the boat followed me and we were lucky enough to see the massive momma protecting her calf up close. IT was an amazing experience for all of us that day. The crazy thing was that it happened to be the busiest day of boating for the year and many sailing yachts as well as powerboats got a good look at the whales in the calm shallow waters. I was a bit worried though as they didn't move much over the next 24 hours. The eco boat had a good look that first day with all their local guests too. Many of them had never seen whales and all agreed that our government needed to stop supporting Japan. The next day JD and crew on the regular eco tour managed to see them not too far from the place we had been the day before. Wow! How lucky we all were!! That being said, i was very worried about the whales as i had never seen them stick around for that long in one place. My girlfriend and I made calls all over the world trying to find info on this situation. Were we about to see a stranding? I hoped not. All that boat traffic could have been problematic, and after all the phone calls we didn't seem to have any more answers. Then i remembered that a whale watching boat from Dominica was here helping Sailing Week by doing starts. One of our regular fishing crew "Big John" managed to hook up with the skipper of the whale watcher and explained the situation. The skipper told John that he had seen this sort of behaviour many times and said that when a whale and her calf have been in stressful situations out at see they often will come into a calm sheltered bay to relax and feed. When we are speaking of feeding we are only talking about the calf as the parents don't feed during the six month period that they are away from the nutrient rich waters of the North Atlantic. Anyway, possibly a big shark out in the Atlantic had bothered the calf enough for the mother not to have been able to feed it. Who knows but sure enough after 2 days they were gone again. We were all so relieved and happy to have seen them in the calm waters. Usually when we see them the whales are in the rough Atlantic and sitting around drifting in those waves is never that enjoyable for our guests. I was also surprised at how late these guys were staying around this year. Little did i know i would see way more in the days to come......

Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta 2008

The morning of Race one came at us fast. On board racing were a bunch of friends some with experience and some with none. Anyway, we got towed off the dock and quickly raised some sails. All was looking good. As skipper i didn't want to do any pre-start racing as in all the years of windsurf regattas around the world i have found that this never is productive. I just wanted to tack and gybe a few times to get to know how the new sails and crew worked. We were looking and feeling good. We were looking to have an amazing start and i asked the jib sheet man to take in some at about 2 minutes before the start when all of a sudden we had problems. We had been given some old winches from a friend of a friend and it turned out that there was a small piece missing from inside. We found this out less than two minutes before the start when our jib sheet jammed inside the self tailing part. Anyway, we couldn't get the power we needed at the most crucial time of the race. We watched Genesis and a few other boats pull away from us while we rushed to actually take the winch apart with tools rushed up from below deck. It was a crazy rushed team effort....something this boat is now so accustomed to. Finally we were under power and catching the slower boats while keeping up with the two leaders. At times it looked as though we were gaining on the two guys up front while reaching out to the gybe mark. From here i was sure we would pass them as our new downwind "flying jib" was supposed to be very powerful according to the designer. Needless to say, we rounded the mark, hoisted the sail and saw the leading boats pull away even more from us. The guys up front in control of the "flying jib" said it looked funny, and finally i left the helm to have a look. It looked terrible and told them to take it down. Immediately we could feel the boat starting to do better. With only two sails we were no match for the guys up front who had heaps of power more than we did. We managed to finish the race over the line third and got a second on corrected time (corrected according to a formulae to do with finishing time multiplied by your yachts rating. Ratings are calculated according to the weights and measurements of the yacht.) Second wasn't bad for our first race ever. We still had several more to do which meant we'd certainly to better. The sail maker got the weird sail ten minutes after we got back to the dock and could immediately see the problem. He went and checked his emails and noticed that he had made a typo when sending the measurements of the sail to South Africa where it was made. He had mistakenly said 8 meters instead of 3 meters for a particular part of the sail. Anyway, he had to spend most of the night while the boats rested on Antigua Yacht Club Marina cutting it in order for us to be able to use it in the next race. He said although it would now be way smaller than our competitors' sails it would work better than it had done the day before. He also said he'd replace it later with a new one from South Africa free of charge. The next day we did better and although we were slower when we had the down wind sail up than the rest of them, we managed to catch the leaders upwind where we were way faster than them. In fact my crew estimated that we were about a 1/2 mile behind the leader at the down wind mark and managed to finish something like 6 seconds behind them at the finish. We were second over the line behind Genesis, and second on corrected time too. The race had taken over three hours too. There was only one other race due to the lack of wind on the final day. Todd, who had commissioned Ocean Nomad originally, took over as captain on the third race and managed to beat Genesis over the line. Although Genesis and one other yacht managed to beat Ocean Nomad on corrected time in that race, it was a great achievement for the guys to at last have beaten Alexis' yacht over the line. I didn't race that day and slept after 7:30 am for the first time in months. Later on their way into port i took photos of the yacht and the happy crew seen here at the "parade" past Antigua Slipway. Overall Ocean Nomad finished second in the Traditional Class during the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta of 2008 and with the problems we had and all the drama we had to get her this far, we were delighted to have done so well. If you pick up a copy of Classic Yacht Magazine for last month you will read about Peter Dasavery's yacht "Savy" which was finished just before ours down in the Grenadines. We thrashed them badly which made Alwyn and his sons very happy. All the boat builders in the Grenadines are very competitive. First second and third in the class were build by Alwyn and his sons on the beach in Carriacou traditionally as they have been doing for hundreds of years. The next regatta we will do much better.

WWW.SAILING-ANTIGUA.COM

Getting ready for Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta

After arriving in Antigua with a boat that wouldn't dare to call itself "finished" we had to get her somewhat presentable for a special party at Antigua Yacht Club the night before Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta started. The special event was in aid of the launching of the two volume book "Carriacou Sloops" which detailed 10 years of photography focusing on the traditional boat building in and around the Grenadine island of Carriacou. World renowned photographer Alexis Andrews had helped me every step of the way to get us to Antigua with our own Carriacou sloop and I wanted to be one of the eight or nine other boats on the dock for the party. It was a book signing cocktail party with a slide show. What made it even more special was the fact that Alwyn Enoe and two of his sons would be there. These amazing boat builders were the guys building our two boats and trying to get us finished to be at the party and more importantly to them, to be at the race. Alwyns sons are some of the only young men building boats traditionally on Carriacou, an island that sustained itself on boat building for hundreds of years.The day after we arrived in from our 300+ mile trip we were on the boat cleaning, sanding, and painting. More metal work had to be done at A1 Marine so that we could use the gaff rig racing sails in the regatta, and Carl Mitchell and his boys rushed to have us finished in time. What looked like a Haitian refugee boat the day before was starting to look beautiful. I think my sister Fran took this photo in between coats of paint. Stevie and Olly would be amazed when they saw her at the party. Wan Lovv, and Alwyn's sons painted until dark the first day as we had to be at Antigua Yacht Club by 5 PM the next afternoon. The next day it was much of the same.... painting, painting, painting. In fact when my dad and big John pulled Ocean Nomad out of Jolly Harbour and began towing her quickly up towards Falmouth, the paint wasn't even dry. I had a few frantic calls from Alexis and his gang trying to gauge if we'd be there on time. We arrived at minutes to 5 just in time for the party. Just like i figured, people were blown away with how beautiful Ocean Nomad was starting to look and even though paint wasn't dry properly and she still had another month of work to be done before charters could start, she sat there proud to be one of the Carriacou Sloops.....the newest one and soon to be the newest yacht in the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta. I know that sounds funny: New and Classic, but as long as boats look like it and are built traditionally they can enter. In fact, the fleet during the regatta is broken down into different classes and ours was called "Traditional Class". For all those interested in photography, wooden boats, the Caribbean and its traditions you should get the book. Go to http://www.indiancreekbooks.com/ and fire Alexis off an email. The books are beautiful as are the photos of the beautiful yachts inside. I tried not to celebrate too much as we had only one day left to get the yacht race ready. The next day we added some lead for ballast down below, fixed more blocks (pulleys) to the top of the mast and on deck, fixed up the gaff boom, put on the winches, and laced up the sails. We had our work cut out for us as usual and didn't have time to take her for a sail before the skippers briefing at the end of the day. I guess we would find out how well she performed in the race the next morning.

WWW.SAILING-ANTIGUA.COM

The first real sail: 300+ miles! (PART 2)

After it got dark the five of us started to feel a little cold. After all it had rained several times and was very windy. There were no stars which was such a downer for me because one of the coolest things about being on a yacht at night is seeing the stars without having any artificial lights polluting their beauty. I guess there will be more nights at sea and more stars to gaze at. I wanted to keep close enough off the islands that i could maintain mobile phone and VHF radio contact but far enough from them to avoid getting becalmed under the shadows of their mountains. Remember we were in a rush and had no engine to power out of windless areas. We found out on this trip that the two were not possible together as even 10 miles off St. Vincent the winds got lighter and lighter. It seemed as though the waves hadn't been told that there was no wind and we rocked and rolled as if in a storm without any wind in our sails. This went on for hours and hours and i told the guys about a story uncle Jimmy had spoken about recently. As it goes, he was sailing the same leg from the southern Caribbean to Antigua on an engineless boat just like us sometime in the early 80s. He had gotten becalmed and sat there all day not moving. In the afternoon he went for a pee and a smoke on the back of the boat. Afterwards he threw the empty cigarette pack into the water in frustration as it was his last. All night long they sat there again with no wind and when the next morning came and he went for an early morning pee....... the empty cigarette pack was still in the same place. They hadn't moved at all. I was hoping that this was just a bad story and that we wouldn't be stuck for 24 hours. We had enough water and food, but we needed to get the boat finished in time for classics and had loads of painting and other work to get done. We had been having shifts of two people at a time up on deck. One at the tiller and one there for support, and while becalmed Stevie and I took our turn to rest down below. I was mostly awake and heard Olly and Terry on deck speaking about hearing whales. Later they recounted hearing whales spout (exhale). I guess in the extremely calm conditions too far from land to hear any other noise a whales spout would be hear from quite a distance. I have been at sea many times drift fishing and heard humpbacks before i saw them. Sometime in the middle of the night while resting below i head the flow of water against the hull change and i knew we had found wind. Thank goodness, we were on our way again. I made a slight course adjustment to make sure we were well off St. Lucia which i knew was very high. The winds were extremely strong the next morning and Stevie and I stayed on deck worried about how much this new boat could take. I think the winds were above somewhere around 35 knots in the squalls and the sea looked and acted angry. The Ocean Nomad kept trucking along as if happy to finally be at sea and oblivious to the concerns of those who sailed her. In the strongest gusts i have to admit was very worried about the rig. What if the rush had led some part of it not to be strong enough for this punishment. The photo above was taken by stevie who had to goto the top of the mast to fix something we had missed jusat before we sailed her for the first time. I hoped it was all ok now! IT was very windy and rough and we had no port to pull into...well sort of. At some 15 miles west of Martinique the winds finally died down as the shadow of the islands' largest mountain started to becalm us again. This time i was happy for the rest even if it did rain. It didn't last as long. Unlike the youngest person on the boat who seemed to have no problem nodding off anywhere (check photo below), I hadn't slept much in the past week and i fell in and out of sleep. By the way, there has been no work done below decks yet and we slept on bags of sand ballast. Speak about roughing it! The whole next day was much of the same with mostly cloudy, rough and windy conditions when we were not being becalmed. We spent most of our time wet and tired and i couldn't say it was nice sailing at all. I don't remember if it was Dominica or Martinique, but during the night some 15 miles off shore becalmed again i walked up to the front of the boat to stretch my legs and gazed into the water. For the whole trip we had been seeing huge amounts of phosphorescence at night and even in the calm while hardly moving the water would light up whenever a wave would wash against the side of the boat. All of a sudden a large glowing trail of phosphorescence zoomed past the boat and for a second i thought my tiredness had gotten the better of me. Did i imagine what i had just seen? It happened again and this time immediately i knew what was going on out here in the darkness. One of the dolphins exhaled loudly as i called for Olly and Stevie who were on the back. For the next five minutes a pod of about eight dolphins zoomed around the boat leaving glowing trails that could only be recreated in some kind of Pixel animated movie. It was wonderful and i heard one of the boys exclaim "This made the trip for me". Just then a dolphin launched itself about eight feet into the air and almost looked straight at us. They were showing off and checking our quiet dark vessel out. As suddenly as they flashed onto the scene, they were gone and the winds were back. Twice during our trip we had the lacing around the main sail burst which made for quite a fixing mission out there in the rough. I would have stayed 20 miles off from Guadeloupe, but with Antigua just fifty miles away at a tight reach i didn't want to go too low and have to end up tacking back upwind to home. Dad had warned me that i wouldn't be able to make Antigua on one tack if it was very windy and although i knew he was wrong at the time, i didn't need to hear "i told you" from him either. I maintained a course that kept us 10-15 miles west of Guadeloupe and once again we were becalmed. This time it seemed that for any foreword movement we made the currents would take us backwards to the starting point. I think we were at a standstill on GPS while seemingly making speed though the water. The currents were bad and we stayed almost six hours in the same place under Guadeloupe watching the same bits of land to our right. Two vast pods of dolphins past us fishing aggressively. With birds around too it was obvious that some major feeding was taking place and they hardly noticed us sitting there this time. Just before the winds filled back in i saw a whale spouting a good distance away from us. I hoped it would come closer, but it wasn't to be. Finally we were moving again and with the volcanic island of Montserrat passing below us Antigua was bound to be visible soon. I was uncomfortable numb with tiredness and had a headache to match which retired me to the "comfort" of the lumpy sandbags below. Olly seemed to be enjoying the see more and more and took the helm while soaked to the gills as only a tough Englishman could do. The rest of the crew laughed at how he managed to sit there struggling with the tiller, waves washing over him and still maintaining a wide grin. I don't think i have ever had a headache like the one that was bending me up down below and only managed to surface when we were a few miles from shore. Alexis on Genesis with some friends had sailed out in the hope of meeting us, but by the time we were in mobile phone range we were not in sailing range. We wanted to be in Jolly Harbour immediately and told Alexis we would sail together soon. JD who had just come in from an Xtreme Circumnav said he'd help bring us into port and as we zoomed past the lee of Cades reef the crew spotted probably a dozen sea turtles. Our welcome party of endangered species brought smiles to all aboard. The sun peeked out and Antigua never looked more beautiful. Mykl waved from Darkwood Beach and the boat kept zooming. Stevie said that this was more like it and that this would be a lovely boat for this kind of sailing. "Tourists are going to love it" he said. Anyone would in the lovely calm seas and brisk trades that flow on the south and west coast of Antigua. JD, Martin and Mykl met us outside Jolly Harbour's channel and towed us onto the customs dock inside. Family and friends came to welcome us and the Ocean Nomad home. It was a lovely afternoon and we were all happy to be there. Work and lots of painting would have to continue tomorrow Tuesday in order to make the party on the book launch on Thursday and Antigua Classics on Friday.

The first real sail: 300+ miles!

Early in the morning on a cloudy Saturday in April Stevie Mendes, Olly Cobb and I packed our bags and set out to provision for the first proper sail all the way non stop to Antigua. First stop after we paid our bills at the hotel was the ATM machine. I stuck my card in and a little message came up and said i should contact my bank! Just like that my cash source was gone. It was a Saturday so nobody was in the little Carriacou bank. I was quite happy to find that one of the supermarkets took credit cards, but after paying for hotel rooms, buying all the rigging stuff, as well as a bunch of stuff from the chandlery in Grenada i was worried about how much food the little Visa card would manage to buy. Anyway, we managed to buy all that we needed and made our way to Windward. I had to find out if Alwyn's sons Chris and Terry were coming and leave Stevie and Olly to load up the boat while i went and cleared the unregistered boat out of the island with customs and immigration. Anyway, four hours later Chris, Terry, Olly, Stevie and I hoisted the sails for the second time and set off legally on a sail that would end up taking 50 hours non stop. The clouds were setting in and the winds were very strong. The picture didn't look anything like what i remember windward looked like the day before the launch seen here. It was rough windy and grey as you can see in this shot taken by Olly shortly after we left. We were still inside the barrier reef but you can see that it wasn't looking like nice sailing weather.

It was 4 pm by the time we said goodbye with loud horn blasts to Windward. One little boat followed us out the reef wishing us good luck. I didn't like the look of the weather and wasn't looking foreword to testing the boat to its limits on the first proper sail. We sailed out past Union island all the little islands of the Tobago Cays and into the deep passage on the way towards St. Vincent as the sun set seen here in another Olly pic. It was the first time we had seen the sun all day and was the last time we would see it for 24 hours.

The yacht's maiden sail

As i mentioned in my blog from yesterday, we had been working very hard on the rig and rudder and all the bits and pieces that go along with it. We were rushing far too much and it was stressful for all involved. Olly and Stevie who had come down from Antigua to help out were taking a few photos in between working like slaves too. Here are some of Olly Cobb's photos from the last few days before our maiden voyage. Thanks not only for the hard work you put in Olly, but also thanks for the great photos that help tell the story of how this yacht came to life.

After all the lacing had been done on the main sail and stevie had fixed a little rigging problem at the top of the mast, we were ready to push off the dock. The sun was setting and we were going to sail all the way back up the coast to Windward. Once we had pulled in the massive anchor we were off quietly. Many yachts in the bay knew this was the first time Ocean Nomad was sailing and they took photos and cheered for us. Frankie who had been helping the last few days and who had towed our mast out to the yacht was going to follow us. After all, this was the first time she was sailing. Alwyn son Cal took the helm to get us up the coast and we proudly sailed along at a good rate. There were smiles all around to finally be at this stage. Nothing was going wrong except the fading light in the west. The fresh winds were something beautiful and as the sun's light diminished the moon's took over. There was a blanket of fine upper level clouds which seemed to help give us enough light to see what we were doing as we sailed up the coast. Coming into the small channel between Windward's barrier reef was pretty scary, but Cal said he had been doing it all his life and i trusted that we would be safe. There was plenty enough light to see all the coral heads and fans passing below us as we cruised over the shallow reef. I can only imagine we had a foot or two to spare under the hull and stevie and olly traded funny looks. By the time we dropped anchor we were all very tired, relieved and happy to actually have accomplished what we had set out to do some 6 weeks before. Tomorrow we would set off on a 300 mile trip for Antigua with no engine and on a boat that had only ever sailed a 2 hour inshore trip. We were two days behind schedule and needed to depart ASAP in order to make Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta.