Antigua Days

Back in Antigua, we settled into the usual round of maintenance, cleaning, lolling, reading and tots.

It was Agents Week in English and Falmouth harbours. This is when the fancy charter boats come and strut their stuff to agents who, they hope, will book them to clients at $100,000 US a week. The boats are very big and very shiny. They take up a great deal of space and block our Internet signal. Still, it's nice to walk around and pretend you'll take, hmmm, that one. Or maybe this one.

Internet blockade duty: big boats between us and our signal
during Agents Week in Nelson's Dockyard.

A vast boat leaving English Harbour.
Yours for a week for a mere hundred grand.

Our mainsail, dead in its furler, was removed and delivered to the Nelson's Dockyard sailmakers to be measured and then disposed of humanely. Prices for a new sail finally arrived and one was ordered. The head honcho at the sail loft came to measure the mast as WW has always felt our mainsail was a bit on the short side. The new sail should arrive on January 26.

The other task was to replace all the little slides through which the lacing supporting our trampoline are threaded. They are plastic and the current set had come to the end of its lifespan. Years of sun and salt had weakened them and they were starting to break. WW was the first to get that sinking feeling as one snapped and the trampoline sagged. Then Enn, helping with raising the anchor, popped another. We banished the men from the trampoline.

I counted the slides. We'd need 130.The sailmaker had some but would not part with them for love nor money. One chandlery had a few, not nearly enough and their price was exorbitant. Finally, WW ordered them online. We'd get them at home, in Montreal, over our Christmas visit.

On Sunday, December 12, we attended Keep Fit as good little totties to. We were to work in the H.M. LIVth Regiment's graveyard up at Shirley Heights. A descendent of one of the men buried there had complained the the Antigua parks services that it was in dreadful nick. We werer asked to deal with the problem. Much weed whacking, brush cutting, raking and chain sawing ensued. It looked rather better when we were done. At least you could see the graves.

View from the Shirley Heights graveyard.

Commemorative marker at the Shirley Heights graveyard.

Connie at work on the overgrowth around
the Shirley Heights graveyard's gates.

It's hard to read. It is to the memory of Harriet,
wife of a sergeant major in H.M. LIVth Regiment
"who fell a victim to the withering effects of
the climate & dysentery on the 23 January, 1851, aged 33.
The last tribute of her sorrowing husband".

A few days later, we decided to do the hike to Shirley Heights from Fort Charlotte, down at the mouth of the harbour. We also wanted to go and check out a wreck we'd seen on our return from Guadeloupe. We found out it was an old acquaintance, Sea Terror. She'd dragged her anchor while her owner was away and had done herself in on the reef a the harbour's entrance. Very sad. We visited her grave after an excessively hot and sweaty climb up the shore path and much cooler walk down the road back to the harbour.

WW climbing to Shirley Heights at noon-ish
on a very hot, airless day. Mad dogs...

R.I.P. Sea Terror.

Then it was time to prepare for our departure. On Saturday, December 18, we flew home (without having to spend any time blizzard-bound in Newark, for a happy change). Django was left to the tender care of Peter Mac, who would visit her daily during our three-week absence.

Forts and Farewells

Enn at the wheel as we cross to Les Saintes.

We anchored off Bourg des Saintes and Dana created a splendid stir fry for our dinner.

We were too far from our provider to get an Internet signal, so the next morning WW and I carried our computers with us when we went ashore. The Eager Crew wandered the picturesque main street and informed themselves about ferries to Pointe-a-Pitre while we communed with electrons.

Then it was off up the hill to Fort Napoleon. I've described it before, and it remains marvelous. I was a bit disappointed to find one of my favourite exhibits in the little museum had gone missing. It was an English print presumably produced sometime around 1782, when Sir George Rodney and his fleet captured or destroyed a French fleet of roughly equal numbers. The print showed the gleeful Brits clobbering their cringing foes (I am sure they didn't actually cringe, just nasty gloating by the winners) . At its bottom was a bit of scurrilous doggerel, not kind to the enemy. But funny. I think someone must have told the museum's bosses what it said. It is no longer there.

We descended into Bourg for lunch but, sadly, the French have fixed notions on the correct times for eating and shopping. The siesta is alive and well and living in the French West Indies and we were looking for food at, sacre bleu, quarter to two. It seemed everything was closed until we finally found a small place where very good sandwiches were to be had and I had accras--salt cod fritters...I am an addict.

The anchorage was, in addition to too far from the Internet provider, rather rolly. We'd experienced this in the past, so we upped anchor and moved into the lee of Ilet a Cabrit where we suffered almost no motion and the holding is very good.

Next day, we explored. The Ilet is essentially uninhabited. A potter/fisherman has a small place there. He makes little wall-hanging planters in the shape of whimsical faces. A sign tells you to leave 5 euros if you would like to take one away. Also on the island are an army of goats, some cats, and Fort Josephine, gazing longingly across the straits to Fort Napoleon on the far side.

Fort Josephine is crumbling but beautiful, up at the top of the westernmost part of the small island. We wandered the ruins for some time and enjoyed the antics of some extremely new kids.

Some locals visiting the Fort Josephine ruins.

Fort Napoleon seen from Fort Josephine.

Back on Django and with heavy hearts, we returned to the Bourg anchorage to see off our Eager Crew. They were going to Pointe-a-Pitre and thence to Dominica. At least, that was the plan. The first part went off fine, but their subsequent adventures were less successful.

We decided to go back up to Deshaies, leaving bright and early the next morning. Well, early. It wasn't bright. It was pouring. And first we needed to get water. The water at Bourg is supplied through a very long hose that runs from shore out into the harbour. It's location is marked by a large EAU buoy. With WW at the wheel, I took up my spot on the trampoline. Before I'd got the bridle in, I was soaked to the skin. We motored the short distance to the buoy and I picked it up and got the hose aboard. It continued to rain heavily. WW tried to raise the chap to turn on the water on our radio. No reply. In the end, he had to take Boffo in and gesticulate. Apparently our radio isn't broadcasting, only receiving. It's on the list.

Once we'd filled our tanks, we set course for Deshaies. About midway across the channel between Guadeloupe and Les Saintes, and demonic squall hit us. The wind was blowing 25 knots with gusts over 30. Seas were, thankfully, not to dreadful. The rain was like a wall. Visibility was to the bow. WW had be go below and take regular notes of our course and position in case it all went pear-shaped and we had to radio for assistance. He closed the lower have of the door in the salon companionway and I peered out at him in his foul-weather gear as he peered ahead at the murk.

Very very wet.

The squall lasted probably half and hour and then, as these things do, it just...went away. The rest of the run up to Deshaies was uneventful. The following morning we fled up to Antigua as the weather for the next several days was promising to lock us into Deshaies if we didn't.

Last Day in Basse-Terre

Back with Sue in St-Claude, we were fed delicious and refreshing lemonade (made, of course, with home-grown citrons). Sue told us to keep the car for a bit and instructed us on how to get to an enormous supermarket, where we purchased mountains of provisions. Enn needed particular ingredients as he was to make his inimitable groundnut stew for our dinner. Fully laden, we returned to the boat, then WW took the car back to Sue who drove him back to the marina. Such comings and goings!

Dinner was fabulous. Later, the leftover sauce would become the star ingredient in one of my very best ever Refrigerator Soups.

The next morning, we walked along the boardwalk into the Basse-Terre market area, where we browsed the stalls and made a few small purchases. We had a rendezvous with Sue who was going to take us to a favourite waterfall.

Contact was made and, a short drive later, we walked a pleasant trail into a secluded bit of river, featuring a lovely little waterfall with a deep basin at its foot. Bathing suits were applied and I (unlikely, I know) was first in. It was freezing. I could barely breathe. Still, it was also crystal clear fresh water. We all (except Dana, who chose to retain some body heat) swam and frolicked.

Sue, swimming and frolicking.

WW managed to penetrate the cave behind the waterfall. Sue allowed as how she'd never swum here in December before and, yes, it was pretty darned cold.

Portrait of WW with waterfall.

This waterfall, like all the best waterfalls or deep pools, has a rope with a handle for swinging out over and dropping into the water. Enn managed the feat, but the wet handle dumped WW unceremoniously into the water before he'd got a full swing.

Enn of the Apes.

The path back from the waterfall.

After our swim, we went back to the car and Sue dropped us for the last time (this visit) at the marina. It was still quite early and quite calm, so we stowed our gear, raised the anchor and had a lovely easy run down to Les Saintes.