Antigua - English Harbour
10 June 2014
Stewart Regan
17/04/2014
17 00 70'N 061 45 87'W
Finally Thursday arrives and we leave Deshaies at 5:30am and head for English harbour Antigua, the sail is exhilarating with twenty to 30 knots all the way. We average over 7 knots and arrive just before 12 mid day. This always happens, if we do not allow plenty of time there will be no wind and we will be entering an unfamiliar anchorage in the dark, but as we allowed plenty of time we get in early and could have spent extra time in our bunks. The check in was a nightmare as it is done through E Sea Clear which is an online check in, very confusing as we had already registered with a rival online system called Sail Clear. It would be a good system if the whole of the Caribbean was on the same system or could use the info so that we would not have to continually have to input the same information.
English harbour is well protected and very picturesque, it has an outer harbour and an inner pool surrounded by mangroves. We anchored in the outer harbour and the holding was not good in stony ground, add to this all the yachts seemed to swing round in random directions made us slightly apprehensive. We moved to the inner harbour which is very secure and good holding in mud but the mosquitos could take a leg off if you are not careful. Eating ashore seems expensive here but the rum is again cheap, so it is rum punches for sundowners!
Early evening sees the pelicans hunting again which is slightly disturbing as they are big birds; they wheel around until they spot a fish and then dive straight in kamikaze style. The noise as they hit the water is distracting especially if they spot fish close to your boat. Pelicans seem to have a very short take off distance for such a large bird, three feet and they are airborne again. I have often watched swans take off like an overloaded bomber wondering if they will ever get to takeoff speed.
We are looking to explore a bit and then go round to Jolly harbour which we could not miss for the name alone.