"storms" to sailing

Well Tropical Storm Erika was a big disappointment to many of the storm junkies that i know. I have to admit that i had hope for some good waves to go surfing with or at least some good winds to go windsurfing with. About three times a year i get to go windsurfing in extreme conditions and I was thinking that Erika would be one of them. Instead she fizzled to a weak storm and then depression and then wave as she meandered past us like a has been rock star.
The surfing was so so a few days before and the windsurfing amounted to loading up gear into my truck and waiting for the winds that never came. Some areas of the island got quite a bit of rains but even that disappointed me. We had mostly drizzle which did last most of the day on Thursday. Wednesday night we had some strong wind gusts in the squalls but that was when i was trying to sleep so it wasn't as exciting as we had anticipated. Of course we are all very happy that it wasn't a hurricane and that nobody was hurt and nothing got damaged, but a little action is all we were asking for. That's the thing about hurricane season and storms that most people from abroad don't understand. Just because it's hurricane season and just because we have a storm bearing down on top of us doesn't mean we will experience tropical storm or hurricane conditions. In fifty years we have been directly hit by 6 hurricanes and taking a holiday here in the summer isn't a bad idea if you need some chill time in a nice place. Speaking of chill time, I am going sailing today on our sloop with the Jolly Harbour Youth Sailing team. I don't think I will be getting any chill time today. In fact, this may be more extreme than Tropical Storm Erika. Yeeeee haaaa

Tropical Storm Erika - a troubled woman

From my post on StormCarib.com yesterday:

Well after some chores i loaded up my windsurfing gear and expected some
action on the north shore. Not only didn't we get enough winds but I got
sunburned while i waited for something to happen. I don't think we had
more than 18 knots for the whole day and still Erika which is supposed
to be just to our SSW isn't saying much. What a lovely sunset and moon
rise though with a wild array of colours almost looking like the colour
IR sat map that shows the disorganised storm teasing us. To see a bright
moon inside some brighter pink high cloud was quite something 20 minutes
ago. I'm not sure we will get any more shows of light later on. The radar shows DA about to get some and some patchy rains scattered east and south east of us, but this troubled girl looks like she's about to call it a day. I doubt Erika will be a storm
for much longer. I would hope we get at least one thunderstorm out of her....but with her it's anyone's guess.

Last night the lightning was quite a show in the east. Since then we finally
got some rain in Jolly about 3 am and it's been raingin on and off since
then. A
few strong wind gusts in the squalls but mostly light. The center of
the very
weak tropical storm is just off our south west shore and according
to the radar
seen here which shows actual rainfall, there is plenty more
rain to come.

To me it looks like the eye of the storm is pretty much over Antigua right now, but the storm is so weak that it doesn't count for much apart from plenty of rain. It's a day for TV, the computer, tea and relaxin'. I think some areas may see some flooding today if it gets heavy which is very possible. I also think that some of the squalls could give us some stronger gusts up to 30 mph but so far it's calm.

Tropical Storm Warning for Antigua. I'm going windsurfing!

AT 1100 AM AST...1500 UTC...THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM ERIKA WAS
ESTIMATED TO BE NEAR LATITUDE 16.5 NORTH...LONGITUDE 60.4 WEST OR
ABOUT
100 MILES...165 KM...EAST-SOUTHEAST OF THE LEEWARD ISLANDS.

ERIKA IS
MOVING TOWARD THE WEST NEAR 10 MPH...17 KM/HR. A WEST-
NORTHWESTWARD MOTION
IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN LATER TODAY. ON THE
FORECAST TRACK...ERIKA WILL BE
MOVING THROUGH THE LEEWARD ISLANDS
TONIGHT AND TOMORROW.

MAXIMUM
SUSTAINED WINDS HAVE DECREASED TO NEAR 40 MPH...
65 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER
GUSTS. LITTLE CHANGE IN STRENGTH IS FORECAST
TODAY WITH SOME SLIGHT
RESTRENGTHENING POSSIBLE TOMORROW.

TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND
OUTWARD UP TO 105 MILES...165 KM
MAINLY TO THE EAST OF THE CENTER.

weather, boat building and sailing all in one.

Today is the start of "fall" as people in North America call it and also the start of the peak month for hurricane season. We have a low pressure system just east of us that seems to be having a very hard time figuring out what the heck it's doing. The weather channel people in the USA can't figure out what to say about it and neither can the National Hurricane Center in Miami. It could strengthen into a depression at any time and into a tropical storm and then even into a hurricane as it passes safely to the north of us. They say the opposite is true and that it could weaken as it moves into some dry air just north of us. Either way, we are going to be checking it very carefully over the next 8 hours and into tomorrow.

My power boat building project is on the go slow at the moment, but i do have a few photos of the paper model that i built. I'm not sure if you can see the measurements and the angles on each piece. Anyway, you get the idea of what the boat will look like. The wooden one is gonna be built later this week.

When it's done it will look like this one we saw in Bequia:

Lastly i thought i would leave you with a video of us sailing some time ago just to remind you what the sloop looks like on a day out.

Possible Tropical Storm warning coming soon

If you are in Antigua at the moment or are on your way here before mid week then be advised that the forecast isn't looking good. At this hour the National Hurricane Center is trying to decide if what was "Invest 94L" (a fancy name for a strong tropical wave or low pressure system) was turning into a Tropical Depression which is the stage of a low pressure system between a tropical wave and a tropical storm. Of course the stage after a tropical storm is a hurricane. Many of the weather forecaster blogs are saying that Invest 94L is probably a Tropcial Depression as i write this and many are suggesting that it may become a Tropcial Storm very soon afterwards. This is where it gets interesting. These days all the super computer forecasting tools that there are out there are usually good enough to predict the track of an approaching storm. We have seen them accurately predict where these storms go each year. In fact, they seem to do a better job each year too. This invest has been different. None of the models seem to know where the hell it will go. Windguru.com still says the weather this week will be awesome, so maybe they know something we don't know.
After reading the weather discussion on www.crownweather.com and looking at the moving sat maps on www.weathercarib.com i think we should all be thinking about getting ready for a storm. I will post updates here and on www.stormcarib.com so keep checking the sites.

balsa wood for a scaled down model boat

My good friend Roddy from www.acquafilms.com has always wanted to build a boat and is very interested in my project of building a 14 foot power boat. I built a model out of card and will show that soon, but i wanted something a little more robust. Roddy had some old model plane balsa and hooked me up (after sushi last night). I will build a 1/2 model of the boat this weekend and show by monday. I hope to start building the real thing soon as well.

Come help out on International Coastal Cleanup Day Spet. 19th

September 19th is International Coastal Cleanup Day. You can find more info on it at the Ocean Conservancy site here: For the past few years we have taken one of two of my boats out to clean up a beach or two that you can't get to by car. "We" is usually a group of people from all over the place who happen to be in Antigua and who are interested in marine life and helping to clean up beaches. So much of the garbage on our beaches ends up in the water and then causes so many problems. Just yesterday I was doing a little talk to the Antigua Yacht Club kids about beaches, reefs and the marine species that live in those habitats. Carl James runs their kids sailing program and had asked me to come down and chat with them. Anyway, we did quite a bit of talking about turtles too as the kids seemed very interested in them. After the talk and before going on a snorkeling trip with the kids, Carl took them on a little beach cleanup down the coast from the Yacht Club. He called me to let me know that they had found one of the "two year old" turtles that we had just spoken about. It was dead and had been washed up on the beach tangled in a bit of discarded fishing net. Ya will never know how much wild life you will be saving by collecting some garbage from the beaches.
If you are interested in coming out with us on the 19th of September to one of the off shore beaches to do a cleanup and then a bit of snorkeling possibly contact my sister Nell who handles the bookings on 1 268 726 6366 or info@adventureantigua.com and make a reservation.
This photo was from two years ago and shows a group of us and the garbage we collected from just one beach at Green Island.

Building your own power boat

Ever since i first went to the Grenadines in November i have been intrigued with the passion many young people there have for building their own speed boats. Since there are so many islands scattered around eachother people need to get to and fro using boats. Fiberglass boats are too expensive down there so almost all small powerboats (and many of the larger boats) are locally build out of wood. As many of you know, i was down there getting a 40 foot wooden sloop made. Ocean Nomad which we do sailing and snorkeling tours on was finished on the beach there back in April 2008. Anyway, each time i go there i take great pleasure is seeing all these little powerboats. Most of the islands in the Caribbean still have one or two people still making them but in the Grenadines almost all of them are locally build of wood. Here is one i saw in Union Island back in November 2007:

As you can see, the young desingers there love to make their boats full of colour, and there is quite a bit of competition and pride encompassed in building them.
Here is another one anchored off the west coast of Carriacou at sunset:

Simple boats but very functional in our choppy waters. With plenty of deep V up in the front of the boat these little vessels cut through the water very well.
Here are photos of some in Grenada:






Most of the fast more modern ones are built using a two by four skeleton and a ply wood skin covered in some fiberglass to keep the wood from rotting. The older ones are built the old school way as our sloop was. No ply wood and no fiberglass. Ones like this have been built the same way for hundreds of years:

The slower and older boats are all like this:

Anyway, without having any experience in boat building I was very interested to listen carefully to my boat's designer speak about making models so that he could scale from there to the big boat. Seen here the model of my new sailing boat still being built is carefully designed with 16th of an inch to one inch scale.

Notice any resemblance?

Hopefully by the end of this yeat she will look something like her sister (our other boat) Ocean Nomad seen here below in photos taken by www.photoaction.com :



Anyway, with some of the things i learnt i decided to start building my own small powerboat. Last week my sister Nell told me that she wanted to go boating with some of her friends and that it wasn't fair that we didn't have a small boat she could use. I agreed! Not only that, when it's calm and i want to go fishing by myself i always think it's crazy to use one of the big boats.
Tomorrow i will show you the simple model i have made. It took me about three days of work on and off, but a scaled model has been almost finished of what will be a fun 14 foot speed boat which will be perfect for fishing and playing.
For more info on our wooden boats check http://www.sailing-antigua.com/ and http://www.adventureantigua.com/

Adventure Antigua is happy

Yup with two storms that were first forecast to come and ruin our nice summer now no threat to us, we at Adventure Antigua are jumping for joy.
Tropical Storm Ana died and Hurricane Bill is turning away from the Caribbean and is of no threat to us according to all forecasts.
The Eco Tour went out yesterday and Xtreme is out today. Tomorrow we are doing maintenance and thursday there is a cruise ship in town and all hands will be on deck as we have Xtreme, Eco and Classic Yacht all out.

Weakening Tropical Depression Ana leaves the area

With a few heavy showers and some thunder rolling around Ana turned up last night after failing to stay strong enough to be called a tropical storm. She never made it to hurricane status either, but we did prepare here in Antigua just in case. I guess we had one or two wind gusts up to 30 mph in rain squalls last night but by sunrise today the weather was perfect and beautiful as it was yesterday morning. The Eco Tour is going out today with Captain JD, Chris and Alex. Jason, Tony and I will be sanding the bottom of Arawak Odyssey so that we can put a fresh layer of bottom paint on her. Hurricane Bill which is the first of the season is forecast by every forecasting tool to totally miss the Caribbean with Bermuda the only land mass that should be very worried. See the model tracks here:

These lines are each organization's forecast track based on the super computing done by their tools. It's extremely technical work and after plugging in a huge variety of weather factors from all over the Atlantic and further, they come up with the forecasts. They are usually pretty accurate. With that in mind we should always prepare when a storFor more info you can check this link. m is east of the islands no matter what the forecasts say. It's like turning your back on a raging bull that's tied. Anyway, i'm keeping my eye on Bill even though i feel pretty confident that he will not come close to us at all. Apart from that we have pretty good weather on the cards for the next week.

Big positive change in forecast for Antigua.

With every single computer model from the international weather departments saying Tropical Storm Bill is going to pass far to our north we are feeling much better in Antigua once again. Tropical Storm Ana which was forecast to hit us at just under hurricane strength has now weakened to a very weak tropical storm and has continued on it's westerly track keeping it far enough south from Antigua that we won't be hit by any of the tropical storm winds and very little of it's rain. Ana is a small tropical storm and a hurricane hunter plane is supposed to be on its way into the storm to see if it is still strong enough to be called a tropical storm. Looking at the actual rainfall amounts at this hour below from the Guadeloupe Radar you can see that there simply isn't much out there.


The IR satellite map below shows very little cloud cover associated with Ana either, but I think Dominica and Guadeloupe will get some squally weather later tonight and tomorrow. We here in Antigua may or may not get much at all. We will have to see. That being said you are wise to prepare for some 40 - 50 mph squalls just in case.

The forecast track for ana is here and for bill is here. Currently the weather is mostly sunny here in Antigua with a very light north wind. Some boaters are securing their boats and the others are out enjoying the use of them on this sunday. The rest of the week now looks fairly normal according to all forecasts but we will have to keep an eye on Bill as he's still east of us and you can never 100% trust the forecasts.

Tropical Storm Ana threatens Antigua and Barbuda

This week has been a strange one for tropical weather forecasters with a tropical wave out in the Atlantic fooling everyone. At first they said this wave was going to develop into a depression and it took some time doing it. Finally it became tropical depression number two or "TD 2". It was then forecast to go North of the island chain and we were told not to worry about it and to focus on the tropical wave behind it. Everyone stopped looking at TD 2 which started to fizzle and we all started to become extremely worried about what was now "invest 90L" (a very strong tropical wave). This thing was forecst to strengthen rapidly and was also forecast to track straight to us arriving on wednesday as a hurricane. Nobody i spoke with in Antigua yesterday (except Steve Mendes) mentioned TD 2 which had been downgraded to a tropical wave once again. We were all making plans for 90 L. Last night i went out for a few rums with the crew and returned home pretty late deciding to look at the forecasts before hitting the bed. WOW!
The old TD 2 had strengthened and was forecast to pass right over Antigua and Barbuda as a Tropical Storm on Monday!!!! This wasn't expected, and at this hour most people on the island are unaware of this.
Here is the National Hurricane Center 11 am forecast:

000
WTNT32 KNHC 151432
TCPAT2
BULLETIN
TROPICAL STORM ANA
ADVISORY NUMBER 14
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL022009
1100 AM AST SAT AUG 15 2009

...ANA...PRONOUNCED AH-NA...MOVING
QUICKLY WESTWARD WITH LITTLE
CHANGE IN STRENGTH...

INTERESTS IN THE
LEEWARD ISLANDS...THE VIRGIN ISLANDS...AND PUERTO
RICO SHOULD MONITOR THE
PROGRESS OF ANA. A TROPICAL STORM WATCH MAY
BE REQUIRED FOR PORTIONS OF THE
LEEWARD ISLANDS LATER TODAY.

FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA
IN THE UNITED
STATES...INCLUDING POSSIBLE INLAND WATCHES AND
WARNINGS...PLEASE
MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED BY YOUR LOCAL NATIONAL WEATHER
SERVICE
FORECAST OFFICE. FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA
OUTSIDE OF THE UNITED STATES...PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED
BY YOUR
NATIONAL METEOROLOGICAL SERVICE.

AT 1100 AM AST...1500 UTC...THE CENTER
OF TROPICAL STORM ANA WAS
LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 14.3 NORTH...LONGITUDE 48.3
WEST OR ABOUT
920 MILES...1480 KM...EAST OF THE LEEWARD ISLANDS.

ANA
IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST NEAR 16 MPH...26 KM/HR. A TURN TOWARD
THE
WEST-NORTHWEST IS EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS.
THIS MOTION COULD
BRING THE CENTER OF ANA NEAR THE LEEWARD ISLANDS
ON MONDAY.

MAXIMUM
SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 40 MPH...65 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER
GUSTS. SOME SLOW
STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT
48 HOURS.

TROPICAL STORM
FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 70 MILES...110 KM
FROM THE CENTER.

ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 1005 MB...29.68 INCHES.

...SUMMARY OF 1100 AM AST INFORMATION...
LOCATION...14.3N 48.3W
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...40 MPH
PRESENT MOVEMENT...WEST OR 270 DEGREES
AT 16 MPH
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...1005 MB

THE NEXT ADVISORY WILL
BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER AT
500 PM AST.

$$
FORECASTER BEVEN

You can see the forecast track here showing times and intensity forecasts here in this image:

Another good tracking map for Ana is this one.
Some good sites to go to are http://www.weathercarib.com/ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ and
http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/ and of course you can see local reports on http://www.stormcarib.com/
For now the weather couldnt be better and i have seen many people going out here in jolly harbour today on their boats. I will post more on the stormcarib site later today.

Extreme forecast for Northern Caribbean August 19th and 20th

The photo above was taken as we arrived in from our 15 day adventure sailing trip all the way down to Grenada and back thru the Caribbean. We knew it was a risky time to be doing it because of possible storms and even before we arrived home we started hearing of one brewing over the west coast of Africa. Actually, at that time it was just the seeds of a storm, but now its a very strong tropical wave forecast to get stronger.
With most of the high tech computer models saying that the northern leeward islands are going to be hit by a cat 2 hurricane on wednesday, i think we better start doing what my dad has done already. Get supplies that you will need to see you safely through a hurricane if you haven't gotten them already. Although there is still plenty of time for things to change most suggest that a tropical wave far out in the eastern atlantic will turn into a hurricane fairly soon and track towards the northern leeward islands. We are in the northern leewards and should monitor this situation carefully. For more on this system check http://www.crownweather.com/?page_id=325 and http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at200990_model.html IF you are on a yacht cruising here you still have time to sail/power south but go far south. I have reserved to take two boats out the water on monday and tuesday. One up at Parham and another in Jolly. I am still hoping it will just be a good bit of hard core windsurfing weather, but it could be worse. Keep checking the weather sites...
Windguru is saying 60 knots and almost 30 foot waves! For info on how to use windguru (since so many people keep saying they can't figure it out) check: http://antiguaisland.blogspot.com/2008/07/understanding-windguru-and-weather-in.html
Remember that a hurricane usually gives bad conditions for a day and then is gone. The forecast is still a ways off but Antigua is forecast to get tropical storm winds which are less than 75 mph. We can handle that, so lets hope that IF we are to get hit... 75 is the max we get. For more info and updates from me and others on this you can check http://www.stormcarib.com/


268 725 7263 Cell
The powerboats: http://www.adventureantigua.com
The sailing: http://www.sailing-antigua.com
The Blog: http://www.antiguaisland.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/antigua

a slide show with photos related to Adventure Antigua

Hope you enjoy the show from my flickr account (which is where i get most of the images i show on my blog). Anyway here is the slide show.
To get your own photos of this kinda thing book a tour with www.adventureantigua.com getting the online direct booking discounts and come to Antigua!

terrible weather over st lucia and southern caribbean

very early this am I checked the radar and sat maps while in rodney bay marina. yesterday had been bad but from what I could see, it was gonna b worse today from martinique south. we rushed 2 get some provisions and hurridly pullednout of port bound for dominica. the morning sky was darkening and as we rounded the point a ferocious squall hit us pushing us along @ 8 knots even wit a reefed main and small headsail. it didn't last 2 long tho and the main line of storms seemed 2 always be just east and south of us as we sailed north. we're in the lee of martinique now motoring in no wind at all. ali says that the NHC in miami is speaking about this weather saying it could develop as it goes into the caribbean sea. a french coast guard boat has been shadowing us 4 an hour but with only a few miles before we pass the northern end of the island, i'm sure they won't bother us. according to our crappy garmin GPS we'll be in Roseau, Dominica by 9:30 pm. the radar shows more squalls on the way. ADVENTURE! this HTC Windows mobile phone still working well after 2 years!

mobile phone blogging from da boat

after a fairly bad forecast here in st lucia, we decided to chill here for the day. it probably dumped about 6 inches of the "wet stuff" and martique radar still shows more coming. hope its cleared up by tomorrow as we hope 2 sail 2 dominica early in the am. wish us luck. hope this works as its 1st time on phone blogging.

Sailing Adventures

Together with some friends and Jason we sailed Ocean Nomad from Antigua directly to Carriacou in the Grenadines. This wasn't just a simple cruise..... We were delivering a cargo of 6,500 lbs of lead which will be used as ballast on the new sloop. This is the first time i have been on a computer in 10 days or so. We also took part in the Carriacou Regatta which we didn't do particularly well in before going to Grenada to drop off David Mendes and to pick up Tony. David was going back to med school. Now it's just Jason and Tony with me sailing up the island chain enjoying the breeze and the Caribbean! Very early today we left Union Island where we had a lovely afternoon yesterday bound for the Tobago Keys. Passing very close to Palm island we got a good luck at the lovely resort there. The keys were as beautiful as i had imagined and after relaxing a while there we set sail for Bequia. It was blowing 25 knots and the crossing was a wet one. Bequia is unique and we enjoyed a proper island tour as tourists. Tomorrow we will check the weather and go north stopping wherever we are meant to stop. I am loving this adventure and would do it full time if it wasn't for me missing mykl so much.
www.adventureantigua.com

Adventure Antigua Eco Tour reviews

Someone sent me this link to a not so nice review on trip advisor. IT's review #10 and doesn't do the tour justice at all. The funny thing is that right at the same time they did the tour this person did the tour too:

From: shoffo27@xxxxxx.net [shoffo27@xxxxxx.net]
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 12:28 AM
To: Adventure Antigua
Subject: Re: AA-Booking Eco Tour Confirmation July 13th x2


Hi All,

Just wanted to say thanks for an absolutely incredible tour. My wife and I went out on the Eco on Monday 7/13 and have not stopped talking about it since - definitely a highlight of our trip. The sightseeing, snorkeling, and the swim/climb to Hell's Gate were unforgettable. The crew of Chris, Alex, and Tony was awesome!! and they had us learning and and laughing the whole time out. It felt like we were saying goodbye to friends by the time it was all over (although a few cups of the rum punch may have had something to do with that!) We know some folks headed your way in a couple months and we will make sure they book their tour(s) with Adventure Antigua. Only bummer was there were no T-shirts left. Let me know if you get more in - i'd be happy to pay to have one shipped.

Top notch experience - thanks again !!

Scott & Cathy

That was such a positive review. After reading several reviews where people voiced their dislike of hearing about the hotels on the way up the coast I made some changes. The thing is that we have to pass these hotels in order to get to the North Sound's islands and people will always ask about them as we pass them. We have been doing this tour for 10 years and if you don't speak about them so that the whole boat can here the crew just get called over by guest after guest to tell them what was the hotel we were just passing. I guess we will just tell people what they are while we pass with some very basic info.
Today another lovely review came in and I am going to try to remember to post them as often as i get them.

From: Andrea Birdsall [ABirdsall@xxxxxx.org]
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 8:18 PM
To: Adventure Antigua
Subject: RE: Adventure Antigua Eco Tour

Hi Eli

I just wanted to drop a note to say what a great tour we had with Chris, Jason and Chantel (sp?) on our visit to Antigua. All three were very nice, extremely knowledgeable and great tour guides. We had a blast! The trip to Hell's gate, the snorkeling, climbing to the top of the mountain and the mangrove 'nursery' were fabulous. All were top notch.

Thanks again and tell Jason I still want to know what he puts in his rum punch! I have the rum but need the mixers. Perfect to sit in my pool and dream of being back there...

Andrea

Many of the people who email nice reviews don't put them on forums or travel sites, so i will put them here for all to see. Thanks for coming out on our tours and thanks even more for telling people about them. We are not hooked up directly with any hotels, cruise ships or travel companies so your reviews are what sell our tours and we thank you!

Sailing down to the BVI from Antigua

At the end of June three of us sailed Ocean Nomad, our Classic Carriacou Sloop down to Virgin Gorda in the BVI to take part in a week long windsurfing regatta and sailing adventure. HIHO (which stands for hook in and hold on) is a world famous windsurfing event that has been going on now since the 70s. This year was the 25th time the event has been put on and with our own sloop for accommodation and transport was looking forward to the adventure.
With just three of us, preparing for the trip was easier than other similar trips i have been on. The last time we wend it was pretty much the entire Adventure Antigua team and more! This time we packed all of our gear the day before and had a fairly relaxed departure before sunset bound for St. Martin just over 90 miles down wind from us. I love cruising down wind at night as there isn't many things as relaxing and peaceful in decent weather. The weather was more than decent with very little cloud cover and a nice 15 knots of wind to keep us going. Neither of my crew were experienced sailors but both were very experienced power boaters and I felt very confident with them on board. Since we were going to be away from home port in Jolly Harbour for two weeks and there were going to be several big crossings we prepared a "grab bag" which most boaters have close by when sailing in open ocean. We had a small inflatable dinghy on the deck, the EPIRB and all the other regular safety equipment.
Our grab bag was huge and we decided to tie it to the tender which was on the forward deck ready to go in case of a dire emergency. The bag had enough survival stuff in there to last a long time. We all felt as though we were going too far with the safety preparations but ya never know. A guy i used to deep sea fish with as a kid always used to say "its better to say here it is than where it is" and I always think that's the right way to prepare.
As soon as we sailed out of Five Islands Harbour we were full of smiles and eager anticipation. David "Choppa" Mendes who has worked with Adventure Antigua on and off for years was on board and even more excited than usual (which is hard to imagine). The African dust in the air was pretty extreme and within a few miles Antigua was hard to see.
In fact, by the time Mykl hooked into her first fish we could hardly see Antigua. It was a Spanish mackerel and we released it. We already had dinner sorted out and there was no need for fresh fish this time.
Sunset was a strange one with the dust in the air and you could look directly into the sun while it was still high above the horizon.
As it got dark some stars managed to push through the haze and it got brighter and brighter as the moon came up. The winds backed off a bit but it was still enough to push us quietly along at 7 knots on a very broad reach towards SXM. We took three hour shifts on the tiller and with all those stars, the phosphorescence, and the "Just cruising" play list on my IPOD I was in heaven holding on to the tiller.
At one point in the night while i was steering I saw the most amazing shooting star i had ever seen. It started off above my starboard side and shot down towards the sea in the north breaking apart like a big "Stanford" firework that we used to see at all the 20 20 cricket matches. Mostly it was white but there was green also as it broke up. The whole boat lit up as it fell and although i was excited to have seen it, I was sorry that the other two who were fast asleep at the time had missed it. David took over afterwards and before dawn Mykl took her turn. As you can see, the sunrise was as strange as the sunset with all the dust making the sun almost look like a rising moon.

Within a few hours we would be in St. Martin ready for some more provisioning and a huge creole lunch with some friends there. Clearing in and out of immigration at Simpson Bay was a breeze and we actually bumped into AnnP of http://www.antiguacaribbean.com/ and http://www.antiguabliss.com/ and many other tourism and travel related sites. She had just come back from Anguilla next door. During the day we got some bits and pieces for the boat including a nice fan for the forward bunk and some new lights for the head. St. Martin is always cheaper than Antigua for marine parts as it's a duty free port. We replaced broken or tired bits on the boat and had a big dinner before pulling anchor and heading out to sea once again, but this time it was dark when we left. As we pulled out of Simpson Bay we could tell that the winds had dropped and as we set the main we realized that we would be lucky to average 3 knots without the engine on. We immediately decided to motor sail and off we went at 6 knots. The sea was so calm that it felt strange to be out in the open ocean and hardly rocking at all. Not long after we left we saw a huge search light on the horizon come on for a minute and then go off. I couldn't tell how far away it was as we have no radar but I told David that the coast guard must be doing something out there. Since we hadn't slept much the night before and had been running around a very hot St. Martin we were very tired. Once we were on our way and everything was settled it was my time to go on watch. We decided we would try three hour watches again I only managed about an hour before i started to fall asleep. I struggled but with it being so nice and calm it was even harder to keep my eyes open. Mykl had told us to have a nap before we left but we had decided that we needed to be on the move to the BVI. She was right. We should have slept! I woke David up and told him that he had to give me an hours nap. He didn't even last an hour before waking up Mykl who ended up steering for several hours. Girl power! While she was steering i heard the some talk on the VHF and Mykl said there was a spot light on a few miles away. As we listened to the VHF we heard someone say "This is US Coast Guard west of St. Martin, can the boat in the spot light please identify yourself and your flag". They were inspecting boats out there and Mykl said this was the second one she had seen get the spot light treatment. The US coast guard was out there without any navigation lights, creeping up to boats and hitting them with the flood lights. We were sure we would be next and for the next few hours we kept looking over our backs. Mykl said that before she had heard them on the VHF she had this weird feeling that there was a boat next to us, and i am sure she wasn't far off. With night vision equipment and all the high tech gear that they have, I am sure there was a good reason why we didn't get searched. Our boat is so unusual looking that i was certain we would have been of interest. Anyway, we didn't come under the spotlight and powered on to Virgin Gorda. Like the day before sunrise was slow and not as bright as it usually is.

With about 5 knots of wind the sea only had a small chop and we cruised along. Several unfortunate flying fish had managed to get stuck on the boat during the night and i returned them to the sea as we spotted Gorda in front of us. As we approached the reefy channel just south of the famous Baths we had a dolphin come and play at our bow for a few minutes until it got bored and swam off into the blue once again. What a nice welcome to the BVI!

We were all tired and felt like a swim before going to clear in with immigration and customs at Spanish Town. What better place to have a swim in the Virgin Islands than at the Baths in Virgin Gorda? It was so refreshing that within no time we were ready to enter the islands officially. It had been a lovely trip down and a week of BVI Adventure was in front of us.

Antigua Yacht Club uses classic sloop to teach kids

Antigua Yacht Club uses a Carriacou Sloop like ours to help teach kids about larger boats. The boats are perfect for teaching as all the lines are outside the mast and can be followed and figured out.



For more info on our sloop check http://www.sailing-antigua.com/