Vessel Name: | MsChievous |
Vessel Make/Model: | Hylas 49 |
Hailing Port: | Robinhood, Maine |
Crew: | Susan and Jim AuBuchon |
About: | Livin' the life - finally! |
Last night in the islands before we head home for a few days. Susie does great Italian dinners, but we're eating out tonight. (Last night, too - great Mexican wraps aka burritos and margaritas that took us down for the count!) Finished up our pre-departure projects today and had a refreshing dip in the [...]
We've been having such a good time on Antigua that I forgot to keep posting! The clearance was tortuous (2 hours and most of the forms filled out online - and printed - were ignored!) but things got better quickly. English Harbour and Falmouth were filled with megayachts, and we got to see some behomoth beauties sailing. We went to a community BBQ (with reggae and steel drum band) atop a beautiful vantage point (Shirley Heighrs) with two other Hylas owners and ran into other friends we had made several islands ago. They are a delightful young British couple who sailed across the pond earlier this year, and we shared the wild beauty of Antigua's (shallow, reef-strewn) North Sound a few days later. We're now heading to the marina where we'll leave MsChievous for 10 days while we head home for a "vacation" and Summit's birthday.
We've returned to Deshaies (day-hay) in northwestern Guadeloupe - our first landfall south of the Virgins two years ago. We had a delightful three days in the Ile de Saintes and spent one of them on a ferry/rental car adventure to the big city of Pointe-a-Pitre (Clown Point -!!) to their spice market. Got a lot of nice stuff. Had a great dinner at a restaurant on the island we've visited before, and it didn't disappoint our memories. Today was a 12-mile sail to get to the leeward side of Guadeloupe, then a 20-mile motor in flat seas to our destination. This town is far smaller than Terre de Haut but equally charming - and with another spectacular restaurant we'll visit Sunday before heading to Antigua. Saturday, we plan on visiting the lively botanical garden - more fun with old friends!
Ah...after a mid-morning stop at a cafe for filled muffins, lunch was in a delightful garden. Can't get too much foie gras, Susie says, especially when combined with live jazz. (Are we in t h e Caribbean or Paris?) We're in the Ile des Saintes, 15 miles south of the main island of Guadeloupe. It was a beautiful sail from Dominica yesterday (after the rain quit midday) but all the moorings and reasonable anchorage spots were taken by the time we arrived. We retreated to a nearby island (Terre de Bas) for a reasonably comfortable evening. A friend from Dominica was leaving the mooring they had at 0630, so we got up early and are now moored close to town. After an enjoyable stroll, a sit in the park and our repasts, we are returning to the boat for afternoon snoozes. Tomorrow we hope to take the ferry to the mainland big town (Point-a-Pitre) to visit the markets - if we can figure out the ferry schedule!
It's a quiet Sunday morning in Portsmouth, Dominica, made more so by the rain showers that started around 7:30 and are supposed to cease by 10. We'll see - forecasting is more guesswork than science here, and you don't get jungles and tropical rain forests without frequent rain. (Most common time for rain is 5-7 am it seems, but brief showers can come over the mountains at any time. It's warm, so getting wet isn't a real threat. Wearing a raincoat would make one wetter!) At least we can keep our cockpit dry and enjoy the (drippy) view. I did get a little rust removal in before the rain, part of the never-ending battle to make MsChievous look pristine. We are hoping to take the dinghy on a "shore tour" later and then get ready for the big beach barbecue tonight. (Not to worry - there's a picnic shelter on the beach if it sprinkles.)
It is said that Columbus became so frustrated trying to explain Dominica's topography to the Spanish royalty that he resorted to crumpling up a sheet of paper and throwing it on the floor. Dominica is a beautifully verdant and abundantly productive Isle of dizzying switchbacks, deep valleys and sharp volcanic peaks (9 of which are still considered active). The people of Portsmouth toward the northern end of the island have figured out how to turn their beautiful Bay into a cruisers' paradise by providing moorings, security, land and water tours and even a weekly beach barbecue. Everyone is related here (and they all have huge families) so feeling welcomed and at home comes quickly. We took a day-long cross-island tour where we saw every imagineable crop being raised in jungle mountainside settings, hiked through a rainforest, forded a stream to a waterfall, walked on a spectacular ocean promontory and visited a chocolate farm/factory (founded by 2 "Bohemian Scots aristocrats" in the 30s and now run by their grandson). Today's adventure was paddling up a mangrove- and palm-lined river - ending at a "bush bar"! This end of the island seems to have figured out how to recover from a Cat 5 hurricane far better than the other (capitol) end! We plan to do some swimming and snorkeling and depart Monday for Isle de Saintes off the south coast of Guadeloupe. Have been meeting and making friends with more cruisers, many from New England, and trading lots of interesting stories and experiences!