Sailing the Caribbees

Vessel Name: MERIDIAN
Vessel Make/Model: Concordia Custom Yachts/Chuck Paine 45
Hailing Port: Boston
26 April 2014 | Charleston, SC
31 March 2014 | Fajarda, Puerto Rico
27 March 2014 | Virgin Gorda
10 March 2014
01 March 2014
05 February 2014
27 January 2014 | St. Barth's
02 January 2014 | Anguilla
26 December 2013 | St. Barth's
19 December 2013 | Gustavia, St. Barths
15 December 2013 | St. Martin
08 December 2013 | Gorda Sound, Virgin Gorda
Recent Blog Posts
25 May 2014

Bahamas and the rest...

May 3, 2014

26 April 2014 | Charleston, SC

on our way!!

Sorry for the lack of updates. We had a funtastic, if brief, stint in the Bahamas and I will be sure to post a write up of that time as soon as I can.

31 March 2014 | Fajarda, Puerto Rico

The Spanish Virgins

March 31, 2014

27 March 2014 | Virgin Gorda

The Bitter End

March 21, 2014

10 March 2014

Antigua

March 9, 2014

Antigua

10 March 2014
Jeff
March 9, 2014

Antigua and Barbuda

It would be 13 years come this April since Mege and I last departed Antigua on SPRAY heading north for New England. Mege flew home with a new life growing in her belly and I sailed the boat back to Newport, finding out about my new impending fatherhood during our layover in Bermuda! Now at last, we have returned to the island we spent so much of our time during those winters running boats in the Caribbean. Some things, of course, have changed but much remains the same here. There are some who have passed away, taken by cancer, including our favorite varnisher and friend Obadiah. We were both very sad to hear that Obadiah had died last year. Of all the people I was looking forward to seeing during our visit here, he was at the top of the list. Obadiah was a Rasta with seven children, soft spoken and extremely kind hearted. He and his sidekick Simon, or Ras Heart, as he was known locally, were our varnish duo who helped us keep the intense Caribbean sun from ravaging the abundance of varnished teak on deck. Shortly before our departure in late April of 2001, he and his family hosted a beach barbeque over in Freemans Bay, English Harbor for us and our friends Robert and Gina on WINDCREST.
As I said, some things have changed and some remain the same. One thing that falls in both categories is that English Harbour and especially Falmouth Harbour remain the focal point for the superyacht base in the Caribbean. The difference is that the boats continue to get bigger and there are much more of them! 13 years ago, a 70' boat was still big, but definitely among the smaller professionally crewed yachts in the harbor with a bunch of 90-100 footers and several 150+ foot sailing yachts and a few 250+ foot motor yachts. Now the 90 footers are among the smaller yachts with the 150 footers more common and the gigantic 200' sailing yachts taking up most of the dock space at the yacht club and marina in Falmouth Harbour. The top .01% definitely has not diminished over the last decade and a half!
We arrived the day before the start of the RORC Caribbean 600 - a race around 11 Caribbean islands for 600 miles with a lot of reaching and some serious upwind legs as well. Initially I thought an ocean race around the Caribbean would be pretty light weight with the warm temps, consistently good breeze and predictable patterns, however, upon closer inspection, this race gives all sorts of challenges both tactical and physical to make it one of the most popular in its class. There were plenty of serious race boats in the 60-boat fleet and also a mix of a few classics (Dorade and Mariella) and a couple superyachts (Adela and Athos). Unfortunately we missed watching the start from atop the cliffs at Shirley Heights but we were able to watch the first three boats finish (in just over 2 days!), all three within a time frame of just a few minutes from each other!
As a result of our timing with the race, we were able to see our good friend, Steve Tofield, from Maine, who was racing aboard the 180' schooner Adela. We also were able to spend some time with some newly made friends, Jason and Rosy White and their little baby Griffin who crew a Maine built boat called Sonny. We had heard of Jason, Rosy and Griffin through mutual friends near Barney's Joy in Dartmouth, but didn't meet them until just after Mege and the kids arrived when we were in Nanny Cay, Tortola. Unfortunately our arrival to Antigua came on the same day some other Dartmouth friends, T and Ellen, flew out after visiting with the Whites for a week. Even though our stay was relatively brief we managed to share some quality time over dinner, a game of Catan, fun at the beach, some scuba diving (for me and Jason) and a very informative debrief on cruising the Bahamas.

We were initially anchored in Freeman's Bay, English Harbour but ended up moving to a stern to spot at the Dockyard for three days. We were rudely awoken one morning in the anchorage when another boat's stern anchor dragged and they bumped into the edge of our transom necessitating some minor paint repairs. Unfortunate as this was, it gave the kids some independence to come and go from the boat at will. The entirety of Nelsen's Dockyard is a museum, with most buildings from the original naval dockyard restored and intact. The yachts are all moored stern to the dock with their anchors set outward so that the yachts sit in a semicircle around the perimeter. Besides checking out all the boats up close and exploring the grounds, the kids spent a considerable amount of time in the dockyard museum building, which had all kinds of artifacts, pictures and explanations of the make up and workings of the naval dockyard during Admiral Nelsen's time. Orly also spent some time each day sitting at the café just behind the boat using the Internet to communicate with her teachers and her friends while having an ice cream and listening to the West Indian ladies chitchat behind the counter.

We stayed for exactly one week in English Harbour and then cruised up the windward coast a short way to Nonsuch Bay and anchored behind the reef off Green Island right across from the exclusive Mill Reef Club. We spent two days here swimming, snorkeling and exploring before heading off to Barbuda to the north. We had a great beam reach sail up to Barbuda with one night anchored at Coco Point in front of the abandoned K-club resort (where we collected an ample supply of coconuts) and a second night up in Low Bay along an amazing 11-mile stretch of beach where you could anchor almost anywhere along the beach in 10-12' over a sandy bottom. We spent an afternoon with a guide exploring the nesting Frigate Bird colony in the lagoon amongst the mangroves and though it was well past the prime of mating season, we were able to still see plenty of male birds with their bright red pouches inflated, doing their best to attract a mate. We also were able to witness some mothers feeding their young. The mother, or in some cases the father, stores the food deep down in its throat and when they return to the nest, they sit and do a sort of waddle with their heads up to gather the food and then open their mouths very wide and the babies stick their entire head inside the throat of the parent and feed! This is no small baby, either - the birds are quite large. The adults have a wingspan of 6 feet and can fly at speeds up to 50 miles per hour. They are called frigate birds after the British man'o war ships because, like our seagulls, they are very aggressive birds and will snatch food out of other birds beaks.
Barbuda reminded us a lot of Anegada, absolutely stunning white/pink sand beaches as far as you can see, but not much going on ashore. The main town of Codrington is quite small and where the majority of the population (about 2000) live. Their main livelihood is fishing and lobster (they used to export sand until they mined their vast dunes down to nothing). The island was leased from England to the Codrington family back in the plantation days. The Codringtons owned a vast plantation on Antigua and used the island of Barbuda to raise food and livestock to supply the plantation. Now, none of the land is privately held on the island, but is all leased. The island is about half the size of Antigua with a tiny population so there is plenty of land to go around. We didn't have enough time here to really get a feel for the Barbudian people, but our impression was that they were quite independent and seem to resist any move to develop the island and give in to the easy road of catering to tourists - no cruise ships come in here. Reefs surround the island and even the anchorages are littered with coral heads. Navigation around Barbuda is probably the most difficult in all the Windward and Leeward islands.

We left Barbuda early Friday morning for the downwind sail to St. Barth's and spent all day Saturday visiting our favorite spots including some significant wave time at Gouveneur beach. After a relaxing Sunday morning in Columbier, we're off to St. Martin to get supplies and provisions in the large chandleries and Grand Marché, enough to last us through the Virgins and beyond. We will be handing the boat over to the Taylors on Friday the 14th of March and getting back aboard on the 21st. We will be staying at the Bitter End Yacht Club for our week off the boat and all are looking forward to taking full advantage of the extensive watersports toys! Mege used to work on the watersports staff as a teenager. Her superior who ran watersports back then is now the managing director of the resort. Hopefully, it being spring break time, Orly and Asa will have lots of kids to play with! That's it for now!!

Much love to all!
Jeff, Mege, Orly and Asa
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