Antigua and Barbuda are joined so you can clear in on one and clear out on the other if you wish, which is what we were going to do but after finding out it would have been a 45min dinghy ride from the closest anchorage in Barbuda we decided that passing by Antigua on our 60mile crossing to Montserrat would be a better option!

So we headed the 30 miles downwind back to Antigua to check out and spend one more night in Antigua’s most popular anchorage, Jolly Harbour.

And the following day we set off for Montserrat.

We could see the island before we’d even left the bay so knew it wasn’t going to be rushed sail, it was fairly leisurely albeit a bit rolly, but on our way we actually overtook a sailing catamaran that was headed in the same direction. It’s not often that we are the ones catching up on and overtaking boats, particularly catamarans which should be faster than us downwind!

It’s a Saturday and clearing in on weekends can be very expensive, Montserrat has a few out-of-hours charges which we didn’t want to pay, so instead we stayed on/around the boat at anchor in Little bay anchorage (which is totally allowed as long as you don’t go to shore and keep your yellow Q flag up)
We swam and tried to relax in the most rolly anchorage of all time.

We were glad when Monday came around so we could go to shore, check in and explore.

We hiked in the morning to a lookout over the bay we were anchored in and sat for a while under the shade of a tree admiring the view and the few birds that graced our presence.

The day was getting to be unbearably hot so we decided not to take the trail any further and go back down to the town

On the sea front we saw a fun-looking dive shop/bar and found ourselves a nice cold drink whilst eating our packed lunch of ham, cheese, and everything wraps.

In Montserrat half the island is restricted due to volcanic activity which has destroyed a large city called Plymouth (yup spelt exactly the same as Plymouth back home!)

You’re not even allowed to sail around the south end of the island because of it too so travel was a bit restricted, instead after lunch we took a walk through the town, the local school was having a sports day on a playing field and we laughed whilst watching the egg and spoon race!

We wondered some more and got back to the sea a little way up the coast. The waves were smashing up against the rocks and sending spray high up in the air. I enjoyed the stillness of the land whilst watching the sea as this place has got to be the most uncomfortable anchorage we have ever spent more than one night in, even the barman at the dive shop asked how rolly the anchorage was!

Walking through the restaurants and bars we found one with an outdoor pool table so naturally we had to play, we spent as long as possible on land before going back to the rolly anchorage.

We played best of 3 games to start with and after winning two Adam said we’d better up it to 5! We were fairly evenly matched, even if the table, cues, and balls were a bit rubbishy, the red was our black 8 ball because we were missing two balls but had 2 8 balls instead so anyone looking on probably wondered what on earth we were doing!

So that we didn’t need to cook on the super rolly anchorage we bought a whole bunch of wings and cheesy fries from the bar to take away, quickly walked back to the dinghy and headed back to the boat for sunset.

Unfortunately for us our outboard engine decided to have some issues this evening and didn’t want to start to deliver us back to Hannah quickly, so we ende dup slowly rowing half of the way until the engine eventually decided to start.

The anchorage doesn’t look rolly from the shore, but you can see the breaking waves on the beach.

Montserrat was lovely, but we will be glad to put this anchroage behind us.