No 5: Passages 2025 - Antigua

 

Nelson's Dockyard.

Hello from Antigua. We have been in Falmouth Harbour, Antigua for 2 weeks now experiencing a variety of weather conditions.

I mentioned in our previous blog entry that we were hoping to anchor in Freeman’s Bay/English Harbour as we had not anchored there in our previous sailing visit to Antigua. When we arrived in

Falmouth Harbour.

Antiguan waters from St Barths, we headed straight to Freeman’s Bay. We had read various reviews on the few sailing apps, that anchoring in Freeman’s Bay can be a challenge due to the shifting winds and rocky floor bed. We thought it was a much bigger anchorage than what it was when we arrived there. What we soon realised was that the main channel had been extended out into the anchorage, a holiday resort had been established along part of the beach area, thus reducing the anchorage area even more. We tried anchoring in a vacant spot twice but soon realised why it was vacant. The seabed was rocky, so the anchor did not hold. After our second attempt of anchoring and motoring around the anchorage, we concluded that we would have to anchor in Falmouth Harbour, like in our previous visit to Antigua.

Arriving at Falmouth Harbour was also a bit of a surprise. Where we once were allowed to anchor, there are mooring balls. In Falmouth Harbour, there are also patches of coral and rocky spots. We also knew that being close to the opening of the harbour can lead to a bit of a swell, but we eventually found a place to anchor after our anchor dragged a bit until it found a nice sandy spot to dig itself in.

When we were last here in August 2014, there was only the Antigua yacht club and the Falmouth yacht club. They were quite small and hardly had any docks. There were a few shops along the water’s edge

English Harbour and Falmouth Harbour
from Shirley Heights

and the main dinghy dock but nothing major. Quite simple and rustic. Well now there are docks for mega yachts and powerboats. We now must pay a daily fee for anchoring and if you take a mooring ball, it can cost you $30/40 US a day. The whole of English Harbour and Nelsons Dockyard is beautiful and still has a wonderful charm but so are the prices. As Mel and I say, we must remember the good old days and suck it in if we want to be here.

It is wonderful to see how clean and tidy the place is and that small businesses are thriving. We just hope that all the fees we pay, go to the correct people and places.

A ‘must experience while in Antigua’ is Shirley Heights. We had been there on our previous visits but decided to go again, taking Dave, and Monica on the boat Evy with us. (We met Dave and Monica in St Martin). Sunday and Thursday afternoons/evenings are the days to visit Shirley Heights, when there is a steel drum band, live music, food and drink in plentiful supply. The food is done on open fires. You can catch a taxi up to Shirley Heights or be more adventurous and walk up. There are two trails. We have been on both trails, but this time decided to take the quickest (and steepest) trail up. We had a wonderful time, enjoying the lively music and of course, the rum punches. The views of the whole of Falmouth and English Harbour are breathtaking.

Dave, Monica, Mel and I
 walking up to Shirley Heights.
 It was HOT!

Here is a website for Shirley Heights:

Best Restaurant & Bar in Antigua & Barbuda – Shirley Heights Lookout

As mentioned at the start of this blog entry, the weather has not been great. For over five days, we had winds averaging 24/25 knots with gusts of over 30 knots. Thankfully, our anchor has been holding firmly in these gusts. We have also spent quite a few days on the boat, making sure Passages was okay in these weather conditions. At times like this, we do odd jobs around the boat. Mel does some maintenance, and I tend to do lots of cleaning and polishing. I have also been busy making an Australian flag for Passages. Our current one cannot be fixed anymore. I have tried several times, but I have now run out of material for the flag to sew with. We bought a British Ensign flag – it’s red with the Union Jack in the top left corner. I then put the 6 white stars onto the red portion. It was a challenge cutting material for the four 7 pointed stars for the Southern cross and then the bigger 7-pointed star for under the Union Jack. However, it came out well, although much smaller than we would have liked. Courtesy flags are expensive, sometimes close to $70US – that’s why if I can make them, I will.

Julie and Alan

During one of our times off the boat, we were walking along the road when a couple asked Mel about his leg. In the past week, he has stopped covering his wound with a HUGE Band-Aid. We struck up a
conversation with them and introduced ourselves. Their names are Julie and Alan Marsh from the U.K. Over the next few days, we bumped into them in a few coffee shops/cafes here in Falmouth Harbour. They had not been up to Shirley Heights, so we arranged to take them, so they could experience the wonderful entertainment and food. So, Mel and I went to Shirley Heights, two Sundays in a row and in total, four times now.

Mel and I were also keen to visit St John’s, the capital city of Antigua. We had been a few times in our previous visits to Antigua but of course that was 11 years ago. We found the details of the main minibus schedule and mentioned this to Julie and Alan. They were keen to tag along with us, so on Wednesday 19^th early we were on our way to St John’s. Let’s just say that we were relieved to arrive at the main bus station in St John’s in one piece as the mini van’s suspension was not sound. It is all part of the experience.

For the past week and for the next week (end of February) there has been lots of activity in and around Nelsons Dockyard and Falmouth with the RORC Nelson’s Cup Series, Class Globe 5.80’s and the RORC Caribbean 600.

Blistering Start to the RORC Nelson’s Cup Series - MySailing

On Sunday 23 February 2025, the 5.80 Mini’s set off on the around the world race, which starts here in Antigua on Sunday and finishes back here next year. All the boats and participants are currently at the Antigua Sailing Academy, waiting for the start. We have seen many of these fragile looking boats, sailing around the anchorage over the past two weeks.

Class Globe 5.80 - Class Globe 5.80 Mini in 23 Countries!

Then on Monday 24 February 2025 is the start of the RORC Caribbean 600. These are the HUGE Maxi yachts that can go at incredible speeds. We have seen a few sailing past the opening of Falmouth Harbour. It is an amazing sight to see.

RORC Caribbean 600

Another amazing race that finished here in English Harbour, over the past two weeks, has been the world’s toughest row. The final boat came in on Friday evening. We would here hooters and horns going off, every time one of the boats arrived in English Harbour. What some people would do for a challenge. Crazy or amazing -  I don’t know.

worldstoughestrow.com – The World’s Toughest Row

As far as our plans are concerned, we have decided to stay where we are and watch as many of the sailing events as possible. The weather has improved over the past few days although the direction has not – the wind is not true east or north of east unfortunately, but more south of east and we will be heading south to Guadeloupe. We are hoping that by the end of next week (28 February) we will be making plans to leave Antigua for the very last time in Passages and make our way south towards Guadeloupe.

BTW – for anyone who watches the T.V. series ‘Death in Paradise,’ this is set in Deshaies, Guadeloupe, where we will be heading to.

Until next time – take care and keep safe.

Best wishes always.

Mel and Caryn

P.S. If you are interested in the Class Globe 5.80, there are many clips on YouTube. Here is one clip - of the start of the race. Mel and our friend, Alan, feature a few times in the clip. (2:10 mins)

"Round the World Mini Globe Race: Start Day Highlights" on YouTube: 

https://youtu.be/IyDxdVbq5WA?si=69FRGGGn2suqH6yt 

👉Our time in Antigua

👉Antigua a few Boat Races

No 4: Passages 2025 – St Barth’s and Antigua.

 

Anse de Colombier.

Well, here we are…. It’s taken us two years to eventually find ourselves anchored off a lovely beach, swinging on a mooring ball enjoying the beautiful clear waters with wonderful sea life around us. (I started writing this blog entry while we were in St Barths, in Colombier – I am finishing this off in Falmouth Harbour in Antigua, now that we know we can use our Starlink)

However, before I get carried away… lets go back a few days when we were still in St Martin.

We eventually moved from Simpson Bay Lagoon out into Marigot Bay where we could start making water and go for swims off the boat. (FYI – Simpson Bay Lagoon is the largest inland lagoon in the whole of the Caribbean). Mel was shocked by the state of Passages’ hull, rudder, and prop with all the barnacles. After just 3 weeks, there was some serious growth, enough to slow the prop down. Since Mel has been given the ‘all clear’ with his leg, he has been taking every opportunity to spend time in the water.

While we were anchored in Marigot Bay, we were lucky enough to see two HUGE motorboats. One, we

were familiar with as we saw Bravo Eugenie in Lake Worth, Florida back in June 2023. It is such a beautiful boat as it seems to twinkle and sparkle at night.

Passages: No 10: Lake Worth, Stuart, and Fort Pierce.

Another boat we saw is owned by an extremely wealth person who has dealings with Google’s Meta sphere. Of course, we could see all the details of the boat on our AIS and on Marine Traffic.

Croissant Royal

Back to reality……. Mel and I visited one of our favourite places in Marigot, Le Croissant Royal, where Mel enjoyed their coffee and of course the buttery croissants.

On Wednesday, 29 January, we eventually checked out of St Martin and decided to sail north to Grand

Case. In our previous time in St Martin, we hired a car and drove to Grand Case, but this time we sailed to the bay. It is well known for all the elite and fine dining French restaurants and is often referred to as the ‘gastronomic capital of the Caribbean.’ We went ashore for dinner but knew we did not have the leisure of time on our hands to enjoy any of the fine dining restaurants, so enjoyed the wonderful and tasty authentic Caribbean Street food outlets. These outlets are known as’ lo – los’ (Locally owned, locally operated)

Early Thursday morning, 30 January we set sail to St Barths. We had to tack several times to reach the opening between St Martin and Ile Tintamarre. Ile Tintamarre is a protected nature reserve island surrounded with white beaches and snorkelling spots and a popular spot for tourists and locals of St Martin.

Once we had sailed passed Ile Tintamarre, we made a beeline for St Barths, to Anse de Colombier, to be precise. The capital of St Barts or St. Barth’s – all short for St Barthelemy is Gustavia. It is an extremely busy and full harbour. Plus, in St Barths you pay for everything, nothing is for free, even anchoring, which we have noticed is becoming the usual trend in the Caribbean. Gone are the days when you can anchor off one of the islands and enjoying the surroundings. Oh well!

In St Barths, anchoring off Anse de Colombier was 10 EU a day whereas off Gustavia it was 40 EU a day and it was crowded. In Colombier, there were mooring balls on the north and south sides of the bay. We moved three times in the space of two days when we realised that the north side was far better than the south side. On Thursday afternoon when we arrived, we saw that there were only a few mooring balls quite far out on the south side, so we grabbed one. However, that night, the fetch from the shore made us rock and roll most of the night, so on Friday morning we decided to move closer inshore where some spots had become available. Well, that night was slightly worse as the wind in the southern alcove of the bay, swirled around making us, swirl in circles with the mooring ball hitting against the side of the boat. We were becoming quite exhausted from the lack of sleep, so when we saw that the boats on the north side seemed to stay in the wind AND a mooring ball became available, we headed across to the north side of the bay and spent the next two nights enjoying our time in Anse de Colombier with many turtles frolicking around us. We spent part of Saturday snorkelling around the boat and as mentioned at the start of this entry, we now felt as if we were back cruising and enjoying our time on Passages.

Going back to Friday, we took the long dinghy ride into Gustavia to check in and enjoy the place. Despite feeling tired, it felt so good to be walking. We checked in first, then walked up to the famous lighthouse of Gustavia, where we could watch the small planes landing at the airport. It looks as if the planes are going to crash into the mountainside but of course they do not. We walked to Shell beach, which is, as its name suggests, full of shells. We also walked to both Forts – Fort Carl and then to the main fort, Fort Oscar, which unfortunately we could not go into as it is the main Police Headquarters. Pity as it had lovely views of the whole bay. It is a beautiful, clean town with many expensive and exclusive shops. Even the coffees were a lot more expensive than at our wonderful Le Croissant Royal in Marigot Bay. There are flowers and lush trees, everywhere, plus there is a sense of

Shell Beach

order that we did not see in St Martin. The traffic actually flows here.

 Here is a publication we receive monthly – it is called the Caribbean Compass, and it had an informative account on St Barths, this past month – Enjoy!

St. Barths: A Fantastic Destination for Sailing Cruisers - Caribbean Compass

On Sunday, we walked along one of the nature trails into Flamand’s, which is on the east side of the island and where a number of secluded houses for the rich are located. The walk was along the coastline, and it was quite beautiful. We saw goats, cheeky tortoises who were not afraid to approach humans, obviously begging for food, iguana, cockerels, hens, and their chicks.

We noticed in the weather forecast that there were going to be high winds in the area later in the new week (Monday 3 February) and that Monday evening/Tuesday morning looked the best possible time to sail to Antigua. We knew it would take us up to 18 hours to get there.

We left Anse de Colombier mid-morning Monday and anchored in Gustavia, where Mel then went to check us out of lovely, clean, up market, beautiful Gustavia and we took the anchor up and set sail for Antigua at 2.00pm.

Well, as seems to be the norm, the weather was quite a bit different to what we had seen on Predictwind earlier that Monday morning. There is a saying in sailing communities – “Boats manage the weather; it’s the people on board who don’t” – That is so true for me. Thankfully, Mel is so relaxed and capable. I managed to do a few watches, but Mel did the lions share.

We were hoping to go to Freemans Bay/English Harbour but that did not materialise – more in our next blog post. So here we are in Falmouth Harbour once again, 11 years between our stays.

Until next time when I write more about our time in Antigua and where to next, keep well, travel safe.

Best wishes always.

Mel and Caryn

👉Gustavia, St Barths

👉Trail walk and Anse de Colombier