Thursday, January 31, 2013

Pigeon Island, Guadeloupe

Monday, January 28

We sailed down to Pigeon Island in the morning on Monday, arriving there around 11 am. Pigeon Island is a small uninhibited island about a mile off the west coast of Guadeloupe where there is a Jacques Cousteau Underwater Park and one of the world's top dive sites. Gene and I were excited to go diving since we hadn't dove since St. Kitts. We anchored in the bay off the Plage de la Malendure across from Pigeon island, and took the dingy over to the dive spots on Pigeon Island. Diving from the dingy is a bit of a challenge, but we managed it alright. The dive was awesome with a huge coral wall that dropped straight down. We stayed at around 50 ft for the majority of the dive, and made our way almost completely around Pigeon Island underwater.










After our dive, we went back to the boat, showered, and went into the little beach village for lunch at Le Rocher de Malendure which is a beautiful restaurant up on the highest hill at the rocky point of the village. Again, we had some challenges with the language barrier, but we had a really great meal, and even tried the local drink called Ti Punch which is a small glass (a little larger than a shot glass) half filled with the local Guadeloupe rum, raw sugar, and lime. We tried the local cuisine as well while we were here – the creole octopus and the smoked fish with avocado. The smoked fish is served everywhere in southern Guadeloupe and the Saints. It's really delicious although we still aren't sure what type of fish it is!

Octopus creole, smoked fish salad, goat cheese on toast, and Ti Punch

View of the bay from the restaurant (Kalalau in the middle)

Plage de la Malendure

 After lunch, we headed back to the boat and sailed down to Basse Terre for the evening, hoping to position ourselves well to rent a car the next day. 

Deshaies, Guadeloup


Friday, January 25 - Sunday, January 27

We left the Jolly Harbor marina early Friday and sailed to the French island, Guadeloupe. It took us about 5 hours to sail there, but unfortunately we didn't catch any fish. We arrived in Deshaies (pronounced Day-ay) that night and went to shore to check into customs at Le Pelican. All the customs check-ins in Guadeloupe are via computer, and there are a few places on the island that charge a fee where you can check in. We walked around the fishing village of Deshaies after checking in, perusing through the shops, and realized that very few people in the village speak English, and those that do speak only a few phrases. Also, there didn't seem to be any English speaking tourists or other cruisers. So Gene and I definitely were feeling out of our element!

Sailing into Deshaies Bay

Cafe on the beach

Kalalau at anchor in the bay


We did a river hike on Saturday that we had read about in our cruising guide. The trail takes you up along the river with a few crossings to a waterfall. We had a really hard time trying to find the trail. There were a lot of places where we thought we found the trail, but then ended up at a dead end. We attempted scrambling up the river via the boulders, but they were really slippery. Ultimately we ended up turning around after two hours. We did see some small waterfalls and some nice pools which Gene swam in. On the way back, we ended up finding the trail which actually cuts into the rainforest away from the river then winds back, so we were pretty far off.


Deshaies River leading out to the ocean

Kat trying to blaze a trail along the river

One of many natural swimming holes along the river


That night we went to dinner at La Savane. Just trying to order was adventure in itself since none of the staff spoke English! We memorized a few key phrases before leaving the boat that night, so we were able to get by. After a couple bottles of wine, we paid our bill (l'addition, sil vous plait), then strolled down the road and went into a little bar that had live music. The place was packed, so we ended up getting a table just outside of the restaurant. We had a couple of drinks and chatted with some of the locals using some of the phrases we just learned. We gave them a good laugh – I'm sure we were way off with a lot of our pronunciation. The night ended with Gene and I meeting the local musician after he finished playing, and him teaching Gene his complicated hand shake.

View of Deshaies from our anchorage

Deshaies sunset


We woke up to a stormy Sunday morning. The rain didn't stop once the entire day, which was fine with us. We stayed inside the boat watching movies all day and recovering from our great night out in Deshaies.

Leaving Antigua & Barbuda

Wednesday, January 23 - Friday, January 25


We sailed back to Jolly Harbor, Antigua on Wednesday in order to check out at customs and immigration and to troubleshoot our windlass which we were still having problems with even after the fix. When we arrived at Jolly Harbor, we attempted to anchor just outside of the harbor, but the windlass wouldn't work to drop the anchor down. We entered the harbor to try to pick up a mooring ball, but all the moorings were taken, so our only other option was to dock. The customs office has a dock, so we tied up, and got into the office to check out just before they closed. They agreed to let us stay on their dock that night/early morning while we tried to get the windlass working. We woke up early the next morning to work on it in the daylight, and realized that we just had a loose connection. By the time we got it working, it was pretty late into the morning, so we decided to get a slip at the marina for the night and head to Guadeloupe the next morning. After the huge seas we faced sailing to and from Barbuda, the boat really could use a wash down, and we needed to get laundry done anyways, so the marina worked out really well. We met a cute French family who were staying in the slip next to us for the evening. They were very nice and invited us over to their boat for appetizers that night. The communication barrier made it pretty interesting since neither Gene nor I speak French, and the husband and his wife speak a little English, but their three children didn't speak any English. Their English/French dictionary was really useful! They gave us some recommendations on where to go in Guadeloupe since they had just sailed from there, and we gave them some recommendations for St. Martin. They had sailed over from France and are sailing for about 10 months, with plans to stop in Florida to see Disney World, Cape Canaveral space center, and to fly to New York City. We turned on our underwater lights behind the boat to show their kids the big tarpon swimming around the docks. The kids were really amazed with Gene pointing behind the boat yelling “poisson” - at least we could communicate a little bit with them.


The follow pictures are of Jolly Harbor and Jolly Beach from the top of Reeds Point where some beautiful plots of land are for sale.  I stumbled upon the property during my run on Thursday around the harbor area.  Really spectacular views!




Thursday, January 24, 2013

Barbuda Adventures with Solomon

Tuesday, January 22

We planned to head over to Codrington to explore the main town of Barbuda and arrange a tour to see the Frigate bird colony. Codrington is difficult to get to from the west coast anchorage where we were anchored since the town is located on the eastern coast of the Codrington Lagoon which is a huge lagoon that runs almost the entire western length of the island. The 11-mile beach is a thin strip of land that separates the lagoon from the ocean on the western coast. The only way to get to the town of Codrington from the western coast anchorage is to leave your dingy on the 11-mile beach and take a water taxi across the lagoon to the town.

After breakfast, we jumped in the dingy and headed to the beach. There was a wooden sign on the 11-mile beach advertising the water taxi pick up location and the number of the water taxi guy to call. We beached the dingy and attempted to reach Solomon water taxi on the VHF, but did not get any response. We decided to walk down the beach to a tiny little beach bar shack (the only other piece of development on the thin strip of beach aside from the Lighthouse beach resort) and see if there was anyone working there who could help us find a water taxi. Luckily the beach bar was open, as most places in Barbuda only open if you call them in advance. We ordered a couple of drinks and the bartender called us a water taxi from her cell phone. We spent the next hour walking along the beach, collecting shells, and waiting on the water taxi. Eventually Solomon showed up, and we negotiated a tour package with him to see the Frigate Bird Colony, water taxi to Codrington, tour of The Caves and Two Foot Bay, and lunch in Codrington.

Gene waiting on the water taxi

Lighthouse Beach Resort on 11-mile Beach

Looking out West from 11-Mile Beach

Little beach bar on 11-Mile Beach

Kat chilling on the 11-Mile Beach

Cordington Lagoon (Cordington village in the distance)


The Frigate Bird colony was really neat. It is basically one section of mangroves at the north end of the Codrington lagoon where the Frigate birds reside. Frigate birds are huge birds, with a 6 foot wingspan, but relatively small body. They can't land in the water to catch their food because it impacts their ability to fly, so they generally scoop up fish on the top of the water with their beaks, or torment other birds to steal their fish (apparently this is where they get the name Frigate). The male Frigates have large red hanging sacks that hang from their beak, sort of like dangling red beards. They sit in the mangroves and puff up their red sack as a mating call to the female Frigates. The female Frigates fly over the males in the trees below and select the male whom they wish to mate with. The joke is that they choose the male with the biggest sack. The male Frigates will mate with the female in Barbuda during this season, then in the summer, they migrate to the Galapagos where they do the same mating ritual there. Then they come back to Barbuda and the cycle repeats. The females stay in their locations and hatch their eggs. It was really interesting to see the males in the trees puffing up their red sack and the females swooping down to them. We got some great close up pictures and video!


Solomon's water taxi ride to Frigate Bird Colony

Male Frigate performing the mating ritual

Female Frigate flying overhead seeking best male






Our buddy, Solomon

 Female swooping down to choose her male

Approaching village of Codrington


After the bird colony, Solomon took us across the lagoon to the village of Codrington in his water taxi. From there, he had called his buddy Loose who runs a taxi / land tour business. Solomon and Loose work as a team – one handles the water activities and the other handles the land activities. Solomon joined us on our land tour of Barbuda. Loose took the three of us across the island to the East coast where Two Foot Bay is located. This is also the start of the famous Caves hike which you scramble up through the bolder path under the cave to get to the “Highlands” which is basically the highest point on the island where you have a beautiful view of Two Foot Bay and the east coast. Loose told us stories about some weddings that he witnessed up there, where the bride and bridesmaids had to scramble up to the top in their dresses and high heels! Loose also has big dreams to start a bar and zip line tour from the top one day.

East Coast of Barbuda

Hike to the Caves and Two Foot Bay

Climbing up the caves (Solomon barefoot hiking)

View of Two Foot Bay from inside cave

Gene and Loose discussing the zip line tour potential


View of Two Foot Bay from the Highlands


After the Caves, we traveled back to Codrington and stopped at Solomon's sister's restaurant for lunch. On the way there, we saw wild donkeys and horses roaming around. Loose told us that there are hunters in Barbuda that hunt deer and wild boar. We arrived at his sister's house, and we sat and talked with Solomon over drinks before having lunch, discussing some ideas on how he can further grow his business by advertising his package deal on tripadvisor and other sites. We showed him our Cruising guide to the Leeward islands, and he immediately knew the author, Chris Doyle. He apparently comes to Barbuda every two years to keep the book up to date, and all the locals know him since he'll advertise your tour in his book for a $500 fee. We spent some time convincing Solomon that this was a great idea to pay the money to get into his book since it's really the only thorough cruising book for the leeward islands, and everyone cruising down there has it. After talking business with Solomon for a while longer, we heard a call on our VHF for a water taxi. Solomon immediately grabbed our VHF, and responded to the call! He left us momentarily to pick up the people and take them back to the town. In the meantime we enjoyed his sister's amazing cooking! The restaurant is basically a home kitchen, and there isn't a menu, they basically just serve whatever they happen to have in the kitchen that day. On this day, they served us BBQ chicken with a number of delicious sides (garlic mashed potatoes, cole slaw, collard greens, black beans and rice, plantains, and salad). Everything was amazing!

Wild horses walking down the street past Solomon's sister's restaurant

Finally, Solomon returned, and Loose showed up in his taxi shortly thereafter, and we headed back to the dock for Solomon's water taxi. We got back to the 11-mile beach and said our good-byes to Solomon. Hopefully he'll reach out to us and we can help him get his tour package advertising started for him! We had such a great day with him and really enjoyed getting to know him and learning about Barbuda from his perspective.

When we got back to the boat, we were within an hour of sunset, so we decided to pack our dinner and our beach chairs and head to the beach for sunset and a beach fire. We spent the rest of the evening hanging out around the beach bonfire, cooking our dinner over the fire and roasting marshmallows.   



 Kalalau at sunset

Beach fire grilling

 Roasting marshmallows




Sail to Barbuda


Monday, January 21


With the wind out of the East / Southeast, we had great conditions to sail to Barbuda. We averaged about 8 knots the majority of the way there. There were some big swells hitting at the starboard beam, so I ran inside to secure everything. I heard Gene yell from outside, so I ran out to see what was going on, and just as I got outside, I saw a huge splash about a mile off to port. Gene had witnessed a huge humpback whale jumping out of the water! We heard from our buddies in Saba that Jan – Feb is the season for the Atlantic Humpback whales and that we may see them as we headed south. Of course, we spent the next two hours staring out to sea trying to see another one, but no luck.

We arrived in Barbuda around 2pm. As we came in closer to shore, we saw a pod of 5 dolphin. First dolphin sighting of the trip! Dolphin aren't are prevalent in the Caribbean as they are in south Florida, so we were so happy to see them! Barbuda is a very remote island north of Antigua. It's half the size of Antigua, and almost entirely uninhibited. The highest point is a plateau called The Highlands that is 125 ft in elevation. The island is surrounded by shallow waters, especially on the west coast, which is a perfect anchorage. Almost everyone from Barbuda (population of 2,000) lives in village of Codrington which is basically in the middle of the island, and not very easy to get to from the anchorages surrounding the island. There are also only a few resorts on the island, so there are very few tourists aside from the sailing and yachting community. We anchored in Low Bay just off the famous 11-mile beach on the west coast, and took the dingy to shore as soon as we had the anchor down to explore. The sand on the beach is a beautiful pink color from the coral which reminded us so much of Eleuthera but with coarser grains of sand. We walked about a mile towards the north end of the island, and decided to gather firewood for later in the evening for a beach bonfire. Later that evening after dinner, after noticing another beach fire further down the coast, we took the dingy to the beach for a beautiful Barbudan beach fire.


11-Mile Beach (West Coast of Barbuda)

Sunset behind Kalalau in Barbuda



Windlass Repair While Hanging in Freeman Bay


Saturday, January 19 – Sunday, January 20


After talking to some other cruisers and some of the guys in Budget Marine, we had a pretty good idea of what was wrong with the windlass. We decided to solicit the help of one of the onboard technicians from English harbor to help us take apart and fix the windlass. It turns out that there was some water that had leaked inside the motor enclosure of the windlass which had caused the brushes to corrode. We removed the motor, and had Oscar, our technician, take it back to his shop to work on it while we were anchored in Freeman's Bay. We spent Saturday and Sunday hanging out on Galleon Beach and exploring more of English and Falmouth Harbors while our windlass was being repaired.

We got our windlass back, installed, and tested Sunday afternoon. Everything seemed to be working much better, so we were hopeful that we'd be able to take off the next day to sail to Barbuda. Later in the afternoon on Sunday, we found a bar that was broadcasting the Falcon's playoff game against SF. The bar had a whole room set up with rows of chairs for their patrons to watch the game. Gene and I were the only Falcon's fans amongst a room full of die hard SF fans, so this made for a fun competitive atmosphere (particularly in the first half while Atlanta was ahead). Unfortunately the Falcons ended up losing, but our SF friends were really good sports and a lot of fun. We enjoyed watching the game with them nonetheless.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Exploring Antigua


Friday, January 18

We rented a car on Friday so we could run a few errands and explore more areas of the island. We first headed to St. John which is the capital of Antigua. St. John is very similar to the other cruise ship ports in the other islands which bars and casinos lining the streets near the dock. We were able to find a store called Aquasports that sold fishing gear and beach toys, so we picked up a gaff, more lures, and a beach chair to replace the one we lost in Nevis. We walked around the shops and stopped for lunch at Hemingway's and learned a little about the history of the restaurant from one of the owners whose husband's great great grandfather had built the building where the restaurant is now located. She believes that Hemingway used to stay in the building during his visits to Antigua.

Next we drove down to Jolly Harbor to stop in Budget Marine to pick up another winch handle to replace the one we lost while sailing in St. Kitts. We ran into our cruising friends Mike and Audrey in the store who were picking up a few things in preparation for their haul-out on Saturday when they planned to do their anti-fouling work.

After leaving Budget Marine, we headed over to Half Moon Bay. The roads in Antigua aren't very well marked, so we made a few wrong turns on our way over there. By the time we had gotten there, we were within an hour of sunset. We hung out on the beach for a while, then decided to head to Shirley Heights to watch the sunset over English Harbor. Shirley Heights is a historical area at the top of the hill over English Harbor where the British navy had several lookouts in the 1700s. The main lookout at the top of the mountain has been turned into a restaurant/bar which is famous for their Sunday sunset BBQ. From the restaurant, we had a perfect view of our anchorage in Freeman's Bay with English and Falmouth Harbors in the background. We had a drink and watched the sunset over the harbor.

Fruit stand along Fig Tree Drive

Half Moon Bay


The Lookout bar/restaurant at Shirley Heights

 View looking down from Shirley Heights
(Freeman Bay with English and Falmouth Harbors behind)