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Velas, Azores: Hiking, Friends & Food

Velas, Azores: Hiking, Friends & Food

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We were once again in the land of cheaper food, so decided to have another meat-filled BBQ with Blue Note, Atlas, Extress, and Escapade (who just arrived in time for the BBQ anchored outside). We fetched Escapade from the anchorage in our dinghy which was still inflated from used in Flores, and ended up leaving it with them for most of a week until they found space in the marina.

Sam and Joost contemplating meat purchases
Sam BBQing

This was the first of 2 BBQs, but before the second we needed to wear off some of that food. On the morning of the scheduled low pressure, we headed up the nearest hill to a little viewpoint overlooking the harbor and town.

We used roads to get to the top, which were very steep and had many switchbacks, but as we walked along the top of the hill we found there was a nature trail and fruit tree path that we could use to walk back down to the town. And along the way, we saw many a Maderia lizard (why they are all Maderia Lizards here we don’t know).

Velas town and marina
Flower bouquet made by Kathryn
Three little lizards

Up next Atlas had organized 2 rental cars for us to take around the island and do some further exploring and longer hikes. The weather didn’t start off perfectly, with fog at the top of the island, so we headed to a small coffee plantation and cafe for a coffee and mini tour, before exploring the coast of the north side of the island (with the swell rolling in), and finally heading for our hike in the afternoon followed by a quick drink, and a steak dinner out in the town.

A foggy drive
North side costal town
Adam avoiding getting splashed
Rout of the walk
Walking over a bridge
Lesser Kestrel (Falco naumanni)

Getting into the Portuguese cake spirit once again, we set off one morning in search of a cake, however, found ourselves eating a Crème brûlée for breakfast (at noon!) with a coffee/juice.

For the next two evenings on the trot, we met with Tomas and Lindy of Extress on their boat for games night, on night 1 we played Dutch Dominion and Port Royal both of which were fun card games, and along with it, we made hot chocolate with a shot of rum and tasty homemade caramelised popcorn, then on night 2 we brought over Azul, a Portuguese coloured tile game and Werewords which is a guessing game, this night we also took marshmallows over for more hot chocolate and tried an orange liqueur which Lindy had picked up from the shop earlier.

Dominion
Port Royal

We also hiked up the hill to the west of Velas which provided another view over the town, as well as a view further west along the island over a sheer cliff edge. The hill itself was a very green caldera (a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption), so once at the “top” you would descend further into this cauldron.

Inside the caldera
The view over the cliff
Blackbird in a tree
Kathryn looking over the cliff
Kathryn taking a picture over the cliff

We finished off our time in Velas with a final BBQ with at least 7 or 8 boats from the marina and anchorage. This time with 3 BBQs in attendance, and in the boat park area instead of the breakwater to protect us from the wind a little, lots of great food was eaten!

Just before this final BBQ we had also decided to sail to Horta the following day, so this also acted as a farewell BBQ, as we would be speeding along for 1 more week through the Azores before heading in the general direction of the UK with another ~10-day crossing.

But before ending this post, another highlight of this food-filled week would be the purchase of 2 packets of frozen pastel de natas for cooking onboard, and also the purchase of a blender for smoothie making!

Flores, Azores: Everything is green!

Flores, Azores: Everything is green!

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Our first destination after our west-to-east Atlantic crossing was Flores, Azores.

Flores, the easternmost island of the Azores archipelago, is a captivating destination known for its stunning natural beauty. With lush valleys, dramatic cliffs, cascading waterfalls, and secluded beaches

In 2019 the Port of Lajes das Flores was partially destroyed by Hurricane Lorenzo, and efforts to rebuild are still underway. A result of this means that the harbor was not fully protected by a breakwater, and inside the harbor, there are only minimal pontoons for use. You can find some images of the destruction and plan for the future in this article.

Escapade and Saga, 2 Dutch boats we know, were already moored in the harbor and had the situation all figured out. We were not able to moor in the main body of the harbor, but were able to use the inside quay wall and also optionally the outside quay wall. Anchoring was also an option, but we really wanted to be moored!

We started off rafted up in 4 columns, and over the next few days, 3 of these rafts would be 3 boats deep, with the outermost raft being 2 deep. So 11 boats on the inside harbor quay wall. Upon leaving there were 2 boats also rafted on the quay wall next to the anchorage, and 3 more boats in the anchorage itself.

The harbor master is lovely, and after a few days of being on the quay wall, we were informed that a new rule would be in place for future boats visiting, where they would only be able to stay on the quay wall for 48 hours before needing to move on. The quay wall is high, so expect to used your dinghy to get to the ladders!

Step one for us being back on land, food (that we didn’t have to cook), and bed (that isn’t rocking around or leaning over)!

We tidied the boat, did laundry (5EUR wash and 5EUR dry), and had a lovely free warm shower.

Boats we knew continued to arrive the day after us, bringing the full list to include us, Blue Note, Extress, Saga, Escapade and Atlas.

Walking up the hill to the small supermarket we got a little taste of what the other Azorean islands were likely to look like. Rather beautiful.

Unfortunately, as we spent our first days exploring the area around the harbor, the weather forecast looked like it was going to turn and push a large low-pressure system over right over the Azores, and sending swell straight toward and probably into the Flores harbor.

Most of us decided that we wanted to leave the harbor before this weather in a few day’s time, so started planning a departure, but also a quick tour and hike around some of the most beautiful nearby locations.

We found a tour and taxi number on the wall which lead us to Sílvio Medina who is easily contactable via WhatsApp, Email, Telephone etc. After some negotiations for hike length and pickup time our Friday plan had formed. Starting with an early morning boat shuffle as some people in the rafts wanted to leave, followed by a 9:30 am pickup, driving tour of the 4 large lakes, hike to a waterfall, and back down to a town for pickup. And then, head off to the other islands overnight.

Firstly from Miradouro Lagoas Rasa e Funda we could see Lagoa Funda das Lajes and Lagoa Rasa, two lakes that are at dramatically different heights.

Next, we had another 2 large lakes, right next to each other. These were Lagoa Funda and Lagoa Comprida which are very different depths and also very different colors!

We were dropped in a car park where we could both start our main hike down into Fajã Grande, but first, hike up to a waterfall called Poço Ribeira do Ferreiro (Alagoinha). There was a beautifully maintained path to the fall, and a large still lake just beneath it.

The hike then took us through some of the greenest lands we have seen since being in the mountains of Santo Antão in Cape Verde. So many green fields, cows, European wildlife, water, and high green cliffs.

We continued down toward Fajã Grande, where we could see one boat at anchor and another that was just leaving to avoid some swell.

Just before reaching the town we stopped at one final waterfall.

Overwhelmed with our first “long” walk of the month, we headed into town to our pickup point for a burger and drink right next to the ocean.

We stopped in at the shop again on the way to the harbor, picking up some frozen pizzas for our night sail, and arrived back at the harbor at around 3pm and started getting ready to leave. We topped up our water tanks with a few jerry cans full of water, had a final on-land shower, and cast our lines to start heading on to the other islands.

After 30 minutes the lines and fenders were stowed, pizzas were in the oven, and the dolphins were back, escorting us on our night motor sail (not much wind at all).

And at the time of writing this, we are roughly 3 hours from our next port of call 🙂

Atlantic Day 22: Arrival in Flores

Atlantic Day 22: Arrival in Flores

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We set off in the afternoon of the 8th May from the BVIs, and arrival in Flores, Azores was to happen in the afternoon of the 30th May, so a 22-day crossing in total!

Wildlife sightings were on the increase, with more and more dolphins and birds appearing every day.

One little bird even came and had a little rest on board for half a day.

The air temperature was getting noticeably colder still, and we had to dig around in our deep storage to find a wooly hat and a nice blanket for our night shifts in the cockpit.

On day 21 (the day before we arrived) we had our biggest lull in the wind for the whole trip, which latest around 12 hours. But this was a lovely opportunity to each have a nice long shower inside Hannah as we knew we were close to land and could spare the water, and the boat was nice and stable.

After the lull the wind picked up, as an area of low pressure was passing by the Azores.

We didn’t have the best approach to the island, needing to tack multiple times in the final half a day, on the southwestern corner, which is also where most of the chop and swell was building up and crossing over.

The tacking angles were annoying, and every time we tacked, after 5-20 minuites, the wind will have shifted (probably as it comes off the land) and we would find ourselves needing to tack once more to actually get closer to the island.

But, Land Ho!

What a wonderful sight!

And once within 1 mile of the island, the swell and chop really decreased!

Escapade had come into the port of Flores a few days prior and had tried out figure out where we were all going to moor as there is no marina, only a concrete harbor. Saga were a few hours ahead of us and already moored up.

They managed to take some pretty nice pictures of us approaching the harbor with our sails still up, before then helping us moor in the harbor. Here is our favorite.

We moored up alongside Sweet Life, and once secured and happy, we could head to land!

Having been cooking and cleaning for 22 days straight, job 1 was to find a local restaurant and eat some food prepared by someone else.

Steak and fish time, and of course a beer (for Adam).

Atlantic Day 8: It only took 8 days to catch a fish

Atlantic Day 8: It only took 8 days to catch a fish

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We have started turning to the east, and in general are making great progress to the Azores. So far we are very happy with the window that we set off in, as we have had rather flat seas the whole way, and mostly enough wind, though we have been motor sailing through some lighter wind spots.

During some of those lighter wind spots, we jump in the sea, have a cool down and a little wash, before rinsing with fresh water onboard Hannah with the solar shower.

We (one by one) hang off the back of the ladder at the back of the boat while sailing, with an extra line also out the back in the water. We wouldn’t be doing this if we were in lighter winds and flatter seas. This time, we also jumped off the bow to try and get a picture of Hannah sailing past before grabbing the line, but you can’t get very far away

During our peaceful sailing times, we keep getting more and more birdy visits. The larger of these birds kept swooping down right next to the cockpit on the look out for scraps of food.

Also recently up for dinner was pizza. Little did we know before setting off, we accidentally bought cashew milk mozzarella. It’s okay, but looking forward to opening the real pack of mozzarella we have soon.

We were not very successful in fishing coming east to west due to all of the seaweed. The rods have been out the back of Hannah during the day time since day 3 of this crossing. We had one bite, that came off while being reeled in. Another bit that took the whole lure and leader. But finally today, we reeled in a little tasty Amber Jack for our dinner. We cooked it with some tomato, onions, courgette, lemon juice, dill and butter.

Another evening draws to a close aboard Hannah, as the magic autopilot continues to steer us on.

Tomorrow might be quite a low wind day, and we may end up motoring quite a bit, after which the winds should come back and allows us to continue sailing on toward the Azores.

Still no sign of the other boats we are near, but hopefully we will catch up with them in the coming days.

A Tortula loop

A Tortula loop

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We have been watching the weather looking for the right window to start the Atlantic crossing either to Bermuda or the Azores now for some time now, but no apparent window presented itself. So we must spend some more time exploring the BVIs!

The Little Harbour anchorage that we still occupy was slowly transforming, from our monohull haven to a catamaran party.

In fact, once our 3 monohull friends had left, they were replaced by an 80ft catamaran (that slightly blocked our sunsets 🥲)

Continuing to snorkel the bay, we had one of our best octopus encounters to date.

Octopuses can be difficult to see while snorkeling because they are masters of camouflage and have the ability to change the color and texture of their skin to blend in with their surroundings. They are also able to contort their bodies into tight spaces and hide in crevices or under rocks, making them hard to spot. In addition, octopuses are generally nocturnal creatures, so they may be less active and visible during the day when snorkeling is most common. Overall, the combination of their camouflage abilities, hiding behaviors, and nocturnal nature can make octopuses challenging to observe while snorkeling, but with patience and careful observation, it is still possible to catch a glimpse of these fascinating creatures.

Just as we were about to hop back onboard Hannah after a snorkel session, we saw it! This is a Brazillian Reef Octopus.

As the day drew to a close, the folks on the 80ft catamaran next to us cracked out their electric hydrofoil board to have some fun on too.

Over the next few days, we would sail all the way around the island of Tortula, head off to a little snorkel spot for 1 night, and arrive back in Little Harbour some days later.

We once again met up with Blue Note, Extress, and now also Atlas in Brewers Bay, where we once again enjoyed a floating SUP bar near the beach.

No evidence of this SUP bar, however, there is evidence of other beach and boat-related antics.

We spent a few days in the bay, relaxing, having a beer or 2, and snorkeling around.

Flat fish
Elkhorn Coral – Endangered species

On our last day in the bay, a catamaran that had anchored nearby came over and gave us a bunch of their leftover food from their 2-week trip, as they were about to return the boat (what lovely people). This included desiccated coconut, wraps, red cabbage, numerous limes, potatoes, onions, sauces, seasoning, wine, sparkling wine, some tins, pasta/pasta sauces, crackers, and more…

We took these supplies and tried to split them up a bit among the other monohulls so everyone got something🙂

Even since leaving Portugal, we have had a jar of francesinha sauce that we have been meaning to use. Finally, we had all of the components together, freshly baked bread, the sauce, a strip of steak, eggs, cheese, and some other meats.

Now our creation doesn’t quite live up to the one we ate in Porto, the presentation was hard, but it was damn tasty.

Continuing to sail around Tortula we anchored near Blue Note for another night, sharing the free wine from the catamaran and finally sharing one of our “famous” tinned Fray Bentos pies with them, along with roast carrots, peas, cheesy mashed potato, onions, and gravy.

We then had a leisurely sail around to Norman Island which we had heard had some good snorkeling.

There sure were some interesting caves, but still, nothing to beat the epic snorkeling of St Vincent.

Glassy Sweepers
Tubastraea coral
Southern Sting rays
Giant Hermit Crab
White spotted file fish
Queen Trigger fish

The next day we had another short sail back to Little Harbour, and the total calm and stillness of this great anchorage.

Quite unplanned, but a few minutes later, both Blue Note and Extress arrive in the anchorage as well, with Atlas arriving the following day.

Time for some more relaxing time in Little Harbour, waiting for the weather to do something… Currently, there is very little wind for multiple days on the trot, we might however be able to use this to our advantage and have a break a few days into the sail.

The little harbour convoy

The little harbour convoy

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After our little beach party, we all wanted to move anchorage to find somewhere slightly flatter and to explore the BVIs some more. Some of our boat friends such as Danae and Vela had already spent quite some time in the BVIs and had recommended a spot called Little Harbour, come to think of it SV Zoe whom we met back in Portugal also recommended this anchorage to us, as we have a waypoint set form them.

So our little convoy set off to Little Harbour.

Despite our best efforts, Blue Note, Extress and Escapade all beat us to anchor, but no worries, there was plenty of space to anchor and tie to shore (though that wouldn’t be the case in the coming days).

Escapade put their drone up and got what might be one of our favorite shots from the whole trip so far…

The water in the BVIs is super clear, as you can see in the drone shot above. The one downside of Little Harbour is there is not much beach, and what beach there is is rather stoney.

To get around this while enjoying the cooling sea we created a floating SUP bar for 8!

Little did we know, this was the start of a magical 4 days anchored in Little Harbour, including joint meals switching between the 4 boats, and 3 day trips out all on 1 boat per day.

Outing number one took us to The Indians aboard Extress where we picked up a buoy and snorkeled around some lovely rocks. There wasn’t much wind so motored there and back again, so taking one boat really made sense!

The snorkeling here included a bit of a drop-off filled with sea life, and a cave that we could swim through.

The second outing took us to Salt Island to snorkel around a wreck. The weather for this sail wasn’t so nice, and we ended up sheltering down below aboard Escapade to hide from the rain for most of the journey to the moorings.

Once getting in the water at Salt Island we found a fairly strong current dragging us past the wreck (just about okay to swim against), but snorkeling on the wreck was quite a bit of effort and it was fairly deep.

The wreck is of the RMS Rhone, which was a Royal Mail Ship that sank in a hurricane in 1867. The size of the propeller on this wreck was rather insane.

Thirdly we headed to Road Town aboard Blue Note to visit the chandlery, throw out some trash, do some shopping, and fill up a bunch of water jerry cans. To make this easier, as we would be shopping, we actually took 3 dinghies with us!

We even managed to sail on the way back to the anchorage!

That night the dinner was Paella aboard Hannah Penn for 8, one of the largest paellas we have had to make ever, let alone on board Hannah with smaller hobs and pans. It was delicious, but we were also apparently enjoying ourselves too much to have any foody pictures.

Fun was had, and as the night continued many hats came out…

Escapade were the first boat to leave Little Harbour, setting sail once again to Saint Martin where they would be restocking, picking someone up from the airport, and also leaving for the crossing from.

Extress and Blue Note also headed off to other anchorages one by one over the coming days.

For us aboard Hannah, it’s boat job time…

  • Rig check
  • Fitting the water flow switch for the UV light
  • Adding string to mast steps
  • etc…

Some of this will be covered in future posts, and we can wrap this post up with the great turtle we saw with a shark sucker on its back in the bay.

We also went snorkeling and saw some Yellowhead Jawfish under the boat. These little fish swim backward into their holes in the sand when you approach, but also have these funny little faces.

The Adventures of Saint Martin

The Adventures of Saint Martin

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On recent islands, we hadn’t necessarily explored everything the islands had to offer. It’s been a long time since we rented a car, and we knew we wanted to explore Satin Martin more.

Our aim for this day was to go and see some parrots in the parrot park, we were prepared to walk the whole way, or maybe get a taxi, bus etc, but as we were walking to get some cash from an ATM we saw some quad bike rental!

For $100 USD for 24 hours, this seemed like a bargain, as it would easily get us to all of the parts of the island that we wanted to see. (Don’t worry parents, yes we had helmets and this is just a posed picture).

We lapped the whole island, but let’s take you through the journey step by step.

On the way to our parrot park, we found a lovely high viewpoint called Bell’s lookout point. Bell’s Lookout Point in Saint Martin is a popular attraction that offers stunning panoramic views of Philipsburg, the harbor, and the Caribbean Sea.

Heading further inland we made our way to Parotte Ville Bird Park, one of the main things we wanted to try and see on the island.

Neither of us has ever experienced something quite like the bird park. It’s kind of similar to a butterfly house, but bigger and for all kinds of parrots and parrot lookalikes.

You get a little cup of birdseed, and within moments of entering through the doors, you’ll have a bird perched on the edge of your cup nibbling away.

We took far too many pictures to show you them all, but here are some of our favorites…

We spent quite some time here and ate our packed lunch of tasty wraps here before continuing on a big loop of the island.

On our way we saw a rather beaten-down marina, we assume all broken due to the recent hurricane.

Looking it up online now, it’s called Oyster Pond Marina. It was severely damaged by Hurricane Irma in September 2017. The marina suffered extensive damage to its docks, facilities, and infrastructure, and many boats and yachts were destroyed or damaged.

Continuing around the island counter-clockwise, there were many other lovely protected and shallow coves with crystal clear waters.

One of the best ways to get a view of an island is often from the highest point. (The lowest points of places are also often great, but the lagoon ticks that box)

As far as we could tell the highest point was called Pic Paradis at 424 meters. We headed straight there and encountered an interesting sign on the way…

Lucky for us we are not in a car! So we continued on our all-terrain quad bike!!!!

It turns out a quad bike was perfect for this little trail and in around 5 minutes we had made it to the top.

Once again, some great views

From the top, you can see many neighboring islands including the Saba, St. Eustatius, and Anguilla.

Also, this very interesting round marina.

We were late for a drinks gathering with Blue Note, Extress, and some other Dutch boats, so sped back down the hill as the sun set meeting them at a bar, then dinghying to a br for some food, moving to another bar, and so on… Wanting to make the most of our quad bike hire we made sure to end our night early enough to get up and do things the following day.

In the morning we got a SubWay (a rare occurrence) and headed to a beach called Maho Beach. This is a popular tourist attraction due to its unique location, as planes taking off and landing at Princess Juliana International Airport fly low over the beach, providing a thrilling experience. (You have probably seen videos of people here)

Fortunately, before needing to return the quad bike, we were able to see a plane landing.

And also taking off…

Now, that’s plenty of adventure for one blog post, so let’s leave it here with us returning the quad bike mid-way through the day!

Barbuda

Barbuda

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Our guests left a couple of days ago and we spent some time tidying the boat a fixing the floor which had dropped making it feel like you were going to fall into the main bathroom when walking into the front cabin!

Barbuda is a sister island to Antigua and only 25 miles away so we heaved the anchor up again and had a fast sail over there on a close haul.

It was such a nice sail, Kathryn even had a little nap in the reefed main.

We arrived to beautiful sandy beaches and a calm anchorage on the southwestern tip of the island.

The next day we spent on land walking from the southwestern tip to the most southeastern tip totaling a 15km walk, mainly barefoot along the sandy and rocky southern coast.

It seems Antigua and Barbuda harvest a lot of conch at the beaches were what you could describe as a conch shell graveyard all of which had a distinct trait of an elongated hole presumably for prying out the snail inside.

We also saw another interesting sea creature which we have not come across before, a West Indian fuzzy Chiton. It’s armor and shape making it look like a prehistoric relic of a bygone era.
And on looking up this creature we found it’s present form hasn’t changed since the Mesozoic period, meaning their morphology hasn’t changed in at least 65 million years and potentially up to 245 million years!

We eventually made it to the other side of the island where the Atlantic swell was smashing the rugged coastline.

We ate lunch in the baking sun as there was no shade and then carried on to look out over the ocean.
The rock formations here were fascinating with some places eroded so much that the rock was sharp and spiny, most of it was very porous and as the waves crashed over, the water quickly dissipated down holes creating little whirlpools as it went.

The walk back felt long and even hotter as we took the inland more direct route, but by the time we reached the dinghy again I was desperate to get in the sea!

After a little drink at the beach bar we walked the dinghy into the sea but didn’t get in, instead we swam back whilst the dinghy floated along next to us.

The sunset was a beauty.

Next, we sailed up to the southern end of a beach that was previously called 17-mile beach. This incredibly long beach used to fully enclose a very large saltwater lagoon but after a 2017 hurricane called Irma the beach has been broken in the middle allowing access to the lagoon for shallow draft vessels (not us!)

The beach was still lovely, lightly strewn with driftwood it made for some cracking photos!

Due to the hurricane, the infrastructure on the island is poor so although we wanted to do to the Darby sinkhole and coastal caves on the northeastern side we decided it wasn’t worth the hassle or expense of trying to get there, instead, I’m writing this as we sail along on a speedy beam reach back to Antigua to check out, grab some fresh veg and fruit before shortly carrying on to Monserrat.

Before leaving, we had one of our most fun-to-date fish interactions while at anchor. We had some crisps that had gone bad and were slowly leaving them to float out into the sea to get eaten. Little did we know there were some shark suckers right underneath the boat that apparently really liked the crisps.

They would swim around coming to the surface, gobbling up a crisp before swimming around some more. They were there for so long that we managed to get this great little underwater video.

Antigua, for 5

Antigua, for 5

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We arrived in jolly harbour on the … after a slow motor sail from Guadeloupe with about 2-3 knots of wind.

Check in here is very strict and it’s the first place that’s actually asked if we have a courtesy flag, luckily we had one already and after a while of doing paperwork and $80XCD we were free to explore the island.

The anchorage at jolly harbour was picturesque with turquoise waters but the water was actually pretty murky so we didn’t go in the sea at this point. But we did go out and have a nice lunch, explore a beach and generally walk around.

3 of our friends were due to fly in to Antigua for a weeks holiday onboard Hannah Penn with us so we set sail for the eastern side of the island to be closer to the airport for pickup.

With fairly strong winds we flew round the northern end of the island tacking every 10mins or so to stay inside the reefs. Another boat was doing just the same and we were able to catch up with them in a little unspoken tacking race before entering a shallow and narrow channel which took us into …. Bay.

After a good boat tidy and clean we went to pick up Tom, Harriet and Ollie in the dinghy, somehow we managed to fit all 5 of us plus luggage, including the extra hold bag of things they’d brought for us from home in our 2 person dingy and got everyone back to the boat without getting wet!

Some spag bol, garlic bread and a catch up later we all hit the hay ready to start a fun week of sailing.

The first day was exciting and memorable, starting off by sailing off anchor in very little wind in very protected waters, then the wind went from 5knots to 20+ in a matter of seconds as we left the bay, we quickly put a reef in the main and Genoa and dropped the mizzen.. this was the expected wind for the whole week, but after turning down the east coast we levelled out on a broad reach

Out of nowhere Adam spotted a huge splash to our starboard side and to everyone’s surprise it was humpback whales! A mother and baby we think, breaching and tail slapping over and over. I don’t think we could have had a better first morning.

By lunchtime we arrived at ‘StingRay City Antigua’ which is a semi captive population of Southern Stingrays (fed for tourist attraction)

We didn’t want a tour but did want to see some rays so went for a snorkel when the tour boats left.

The same day we sailed a little further south to a protected bay on green island as we knew some big swell would be rolling in from the northeast.

We took the free mooring buoy there and I decided it was in acceptable condition if we put a back up line down to the stake itself in the seabed as the buoys chain was in a poor state and lashed together with rope!

After a windy but stable night we braved the swelly ocean to get to Falmouth Harbour on the south of the island, it was an uncomfortable sail where at one point Adam who was on the helm got thrown across the cockpit by a wave hitting us side on, he stayed mostly upright and still holding onto the wheel so no harm done.

On arrival we all had a break and then decided it was a good time and place to do a little belated birthday celebration for Tom and Adam by going out for dinner at a place called Cloggy’s

The next day we moved from the northern part of the bay to near the entrance to go snorkelling, the water was nice and clear and we got to see a spotted eagle ray and some colourful fish, even got an underwater selfie.

Sunday came around and we’d heard … lookout in English harbour puts on a bbq with music a couple nights a week, so we upped anchor again and set off on the very short journey to get to English harbour ready for a big hill climb to get to the lookout in the evening.

After anchoring in the most popular outermost anchorage and not being happy with the bay we moved further in to find an alternative and what a great one we found, we shore tied to the mangroves and had a wonderful peaceful spot.

The view over the bay from the lookout was stunning even if we were a bit late for the sunset, the bbq was tasty and the music was fun, a lonely evening spent with lovely people.

We spent some time exploring the area and Nelsons dockyard and went for breakfast at a local cafe as well as getting part of the Genoa re stitched by the sailmakers of a good speedy job done by ….

Next we snorkelled at Cade reef where we saw more rays and some fish called ‘shark suckers’.

Our goal was to circumnavigate the island in the week so next we pushed on to Jolly Harbour and then to Deep Bay where we snorkelled an interesting wreck of a British three masted sailing boat which was carrying barrels of tar to Chile when they started to overheat, the boat caught fire and sank in …. All crew survived and the wreck is in outstanding condition, you can see the bow sprit, whole hull super structure and masts with intact lookout point.

<We might insert a wreck dive video here soon, but we are currently at our daily YouTube upload limit…>

With our guests due to leave in two days we headed back to the first bay to climb up bird island for one last spectacular sunset and some scheduled ‘dicking about on a boat’ time where we SUP boarded behind the boat. Tom took this opportunity to look like he was walking the boat like a dog on a lead whereas Ollie had more of a water boarding than a paddle boarding session.

We had completed an entire Antigua lap, and that was quite satisfying, even if we forgot to turn the Garmin on to track the route sometimes….

The following day we said farewell over a last lunch and waved them off in a taxi to the airport.

Quite the week of sailing and exploring!

Guadeloupe – the final chapter

Guadeloupe – the final chapter

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We had just had a lovely light wind sail over to Marie-Galante, which is a round island just south of mainland Guadeloupe, on the lookout for some crystal turquoise waters we went to Anse de Mays, an anchorage on north west of the island.

It looked very picturesque so after anchoring I took the waterproof camera and jumped in. Immediately I was greeted with some of the most inquisitive fish I’ve come across. Later I found out they are juvenile Highfin Amberjacks and all they wanted to do was say hello and follow me around🐟 they were so friendly I could almost touch them.

There was also a huge shoal of Bigeye Scad, and swimming through them I was engulfed in little fishies! It was really quite cool.

A few other things were starfish, a gold spotted eel, and a perfect sand dollar.

The next day we went for a sail, probably in the least wind we’ve ever sailed in! Was about 3knots of wind, we were able to pull up anchor without the engine, hoist sails and get going though, probably thanks to our ultra clean new antifouling gliding through the water!

We pootled along at 1.5knots and really enjoyed the tranquility, we could see every starfish on the bottom and Hannah Penn’s shadow on the seabed was really cool too.

Even had a go standing on the bowsprit whilst sailing.

During the sail we kept hearing loud splashes but could never see what was making them, I had to go and investigate, Adam kept sailing I leapt in with snorkel and flippers, it didn’t take long to see huge sea turtles swimming around, I took hold of a line out the back of the boat and got towed along whilst looking at these magical creatures 🐢

We eventually arrived at the next anchorage, which was only about 3miles away and I think it took us about 2.5hrs and got ready to go to land, there wasn’t much to do there but there was a fun looking bar which had some very tasty fruit cocktails 🍹
We took a table in the sunshine and the bar dog came and laid down next to us in the sand, a few moments after getting our drinks a brave little Bananaquit bird came to try and steal the sugar off the rim of my glass!

We realized Björn and Linda off SV Sirena were in the bar sitting behind us, we didn’t really know them so thought we’d say hi, and had a lovely time chatting before heading back to Hannah for dinner.

The next day our plan was to go to an anchorage called Petite Terre.

It was on a reserve so we needed to book and pay in advance, we sailed over in very nice conditions, not much swell or waves and a little wind, which we thought was going to be perfect for the approach. This anchorage is notorious for dangerous approach conditions due to breaking waves across the entrance to a lagoon like area protected from reefs on the east side

So we arrived and got our sails down and engine on ready to go in about a mile out, we could see though that the little swell that was outside was growing in size due to the shallower waters around the little island and the effect of the wind coming from the other direction whipping up the waves into steep peaks.

We were counting the swells coming in and watching from afar to see if we could get in, in-between the waves which were really quite large, we inched closer to find most of these waves were breaking all the way across the entrance and quickly looked behind us to see what was coming

At that moment we both thought the wave bearing down on us was far too big to purposefully surf down so we quickly spun the boat around and throttled down to ride up the wave, it was quite an adrenaline-filled moment as we both held on as Hannah Penn’s nose rose up, we reached the peak and smashed down the other side dipping the whole bow under the water before popping back up again

And at that point, we agreed it was a terrible idea to continue going in so we put our sails back up and headed out.. this time not back to Guadeloupe but to Antigua!!