With Jordan to Barbuda for Lobsters

Tuesday April 6, 2010, English Harbour.

We arrived in yesterday at 8:00 am, after a lovely all nighter from Statia to Antigua, about 75 miles, in a moderate NNE breeze, a close reach most of the way. We are here for a week or so to tidy up and put Django away for the summer. What can we have been doing all this time with nary a post to the blog?

Well here it is then.

We left you with the promise of pictures and lobsters in Barbuda with Jordy. He arrived on a Friday, the 5th of March, I think, and we took him to the Tot to meet our friends. With not much time to dawdle, we hiked about one of the trails on Staurday then made off directly for Green Island, before the jump to Barbuda, some 20 miles to the North. The guide tells us to arrive at mid day, as the pilotage is largely visual with lots of shallow water and coral heads to avoid. Barbuda is flat and low, like the Bahama islands, a very large sand bar almost as big as Antigua with a very large lagoon on the Western side.

We approached with caution and made our way into a long, large bay on the southern coast, full of barely submerged islands of dead coral. The shore was low and desolate, no habitation other than an hotel on the southwestern end, in the distance. There were only three boats on the bay, separated by great distances. This is nice, sort of, I guess, I thought to myself.

We had read in the guide about George Jeffrey, a guide to the Frigate bird colony in the lagoon, who has also been known to sell lobsters, so I called the number on my trusty Digicel phone and reached his daughter. No, George was not at home, where were we? Down in the South? well George should be around there today. We'll see if we can spot him, says I.

Jordan and I set out in the dinghy to find George. The only item on the beach with some semblance of civilisation was the ruins of an uncompleted building and a large pile of cinder block. We headed for than, went ashore after running the dinghy aground in 6 inches of water 50 feet from shore. Nobody and not much in sight. We crossed the building site and found the road (of sorts, as described in the guide), more a scraped clear area in the scrub, and began walking west through the moonscape dotted with various forms of dung, donkeys, deer and boar, mostly. After not more than ten minutes, we espied two men working digging holes beside the road, with a large truck and a large pot propped over an open fire. We waved, and the man with no trousers on waved back amiably. We are looking for George Jefreys, says I. That would be me, says he, with a large smile. We'ld like to buy some lobsters, says I. Sorry, says he, I have promised all these to my American friend who is leaving tomorrow. With that, he lifted the lid of the huge pot and showed about 10 lobsters and an octopus steaming.

Somewhat disappointed we made arrangements to meet George the next day for a tour of the bird colony and set off back to the dighy, detouring to explore a small salt pond on the other side of the road. Back at the pile of bricks we found George in his truck. My friend don't need all those lobsters, says he, and pulls three lovelies out of the pot, now stowed on the back of his truck. Here you go and we'll settle up tomorrow. Such a nice man is George, we had our lobsters for dinner.

Next morning, K and I and J made our way back to the pile of bricks and met Dilly, sent by George to drive us up to Codrington, where most Barbudans live. There is no land ownership here, all land being held in common by the residents. As a result, there has been very little development in the normal commercial sense, and there is also not much credit and mortgages are rare. People build using saved cash, and do so in spurts, so there a many partially completed houses about. The general sense is one of moderate prosperity, with no unemployment. We liked Dilly and I was impressed by the island, population 1500, mostly descendants of the Antiguan Codrington family slaves. Fresh meat is hunted fresh, rather than bought. In the grocery store, the only meat pruducts I noticed were dry salt beef and salt fish. Barbuda exports sand and lobsters.

The bird colony is certainly worth the trip, as is the lagoon itself, which is an enormous nursery to lobsters and other fish.

Jordan did not have long with us, so the next day we cruised South to the West side of Antigua and laid an anchor down in the heart of St. John's harbour, next to two huge cruise ships, and dinghied over to the dock for a look arround town and some grocery shopping. That was disappointing. No decent groceries in downtown St. John, but we had a nice lunch in the town and Jordy got a tee shirt for his birthday. Lucky for us we caught a fish on the way down from Barbuda and had a lovely seviche for our dinner aboard Django.

The anchorage was nasty, smoky, smelly and buggy. In the morning K covered herself in yellow slime lifting the anchor, so we agreed not to repeat the experience, and pushed off for Jolly Harbour to anchor under Mosquito Hill, in hopes of a show of dinoflagellates after dark and a dinner ashore. In the afternoon, Jordy and I took the kayaks around to a beach in the Five Islands Harbour, and surfed the swells in to the shore, back and forth. Good fun.

Next day, we piled Jordy into a taxi for the airport and made off for English Harbour in time for the Tot.

Monday March 1, 2010, English Harbour Antigua

How time has flown, here we are at the beginning of March and no blogging since Feb 2. My nails are covered in crazy glue drying slowly, so the typing is peckish.

The last of Guadeloupe has faded into the dim past, we will lleave it be.

On return we were faced with a good deal of maintencance and repair. First, as is sometimes the case after having Whit aboard, the windlass failed, this time for good. The motor, the reverse side of which is shorted out, wrung itself free of the driveshaft of the windlass. It had been binding badly for as few days previously. After some exploratory surgery, I declared it beyond repair and ordered a new one from Budget Marine in Jolly Harbour. During the two weeks it took to arrive, we tackled several other jobs

- refurbishment of the davits, with new bearings made up at the Slipway from delrin stock.

- tracking down and repairing the Cetrek auto pilot which has been intermittent in its duty since we have had the boat.

- removal, dismantling and repair of the watermaker, which ceased functioning shortly after our Guadeloupe tour. The damn thing was installed in such close quarters that we decided to reinstal it in a more convenient location, involving the drilling of a 3" hole in a bulkhead to accomodate the membrane enclosure. This latter job took nearly two days to complete, using two rechargeable drills in series, cooling them on ice between uses. All rather intense and non-conducive to blogging.

Finally, our new Lofrans Tigres windlass arrived and K and I installed it without serious incident, leaving a day of rest before the arrivaL of K's son Dan, Genevieve and Maya for a ten days holiday.

Five on Django is a bit of a challenge, and our guests are not sailors, so lots of learning needed inre water consumption, getting in and out of the dinghy and so on. But, however, they did very well and had a pretty good time messing about in English Harbour, hiking up to Shirley Heights, escorting a solo transatlantic rower into the harbour in the dinghy, horns a'blowing, and attending the start of RORC 600 Caribbean yacht race from Fort Carlotte across the way. They took over 400 photos, some of which you may see.

We made one foray out to Green Harbour for clean water to test the watermaker out, and to give a sea trial to the refurbished Cetrek autopilot. All worked very well indeed.

Later in the week, Jordy comes and we hope to make a run up to Barbuda for some lobsters.

A Cruise through Guadeloupe, Part two.

At 2:45 am K's cell phone alarm went off. Between setting the alarm and it going off, the phone had reset the its time to local. At 3:45 am, my watch alarm went off, and we arose to a full overcast underlit by the lights of Point a Pitre a few miles distant to the South. K made some coffee while the rest of us carefully unanchored fore and aft, and set off slowly down the river towards the first lift bridge. We had conflicting times for the opening, either 4:30 am or 5:00 am, depending on the source. As we came near the bridge, we saw the operator cross in his car and park by the side, then walk slowly to his cabin and turn on the lights; 4:30 it is. The opening is fairly narrow, but not as tough as we had expected. Perhaps in a strong trade, the navigation might be a bit trickier, but we had no trouble at all. It is another 20 minutes down to the bridge at Pointe a Pitre, then out through the shallow harbour, past the container port to the West and anchor down outside the Pointe a Pitre marina and a breakfast of bakon and eggs. Then we went back to bed.

The morning weather was gloomy and wet, blowing hard. A cold front had settled over Guadeloupe, a first in my experience. As we considered dinghying in to the marina to make our official 'clearance', the lovely 42 ft sloop next to us set off dragging her anchor, crossing the main ship channel and continuing on into the shallows on the other side. There was little we could do but report the drift to the marina office. As we landed the dinghy, we passed the owner and his wife coming out. When we returned to Django later in the afternoon, the sloop was back in her proper place.

The Marina at Pointe a Pitre has an abundance of restaurants, shops and grocery stores. The road from the marina into town is depressing, run down, dumpy. One hovel is painted with red text announcing the ascendency of the Crips.

Once through this purgatory, the town center is gay, with a great fish and vegetable market on the edge in the square inner harbour. We had a sandwich and beer close by, between showers of rain. We plan our sail the next day the the Saintes, hoping for better weather, although the wind is in a good direction, if a bit strong. In the evening, we come into the marina to dine in the restaurant. The heavens open as we eat and the rain eases before we dinghy back out in the gloom, lit by the bright lights of the container port across the way. Many large ships come in and go out, passing close by us anchored just off the channel.

Next morning dawned with holes in the slid overcast, sun bursting through. Whit and I dinghied in to the fish market early to find lobsters for the grill for our first evening in Les Saintes. We found four beauties at exorbitant price, and palced them in our new cold bag, a gift from Frisha and Whit, with some ice and came back to prepare for sea.

Out through the ship channel, the to port, staying outside the drop off to avoid the fish pots, we had a great sail down to the Saintes, some 20 miles to the South west. Big seas and a strong breeze aft of the beam, with the sun often breaking through the clouds, hopefully trailing our fishing lure astern, we enjoyed this sail very much.

Les Saintes is a beautiful little archipelago South of Basseterre, the remains of a small volcano. There are several entrances to the inner harbour at Bourg Les Saintes on Terre de Haut. We burst past the green mark at the northeastern entrance and hooke a small mackerel as we carreened past the mark. We met a Quebecer from Montreal, who saw us coming in and remarked on the sight we made. It is hard to anchour by the bourg. We tried twice to the left of the ferry dock, but ended up to close to the others; we tried to the right and ended up outside the boundary marks. Finally we set the hook between to yellow cross markers and decided this was good enough.

Dinner was a major event, fresh pumpkin and ginger soup follwed by lobsters on the grill with rum butter sauce, sun chokes and a salad with fresh baguettes. It was a dark and windy evening as we put the lobsters on to grill and retired below to enjoy the soup. K remarked on how she found the giant motor yacht coming into view astern objectionable, as I came to realise that we should not be seeing said yacht from our anchored position at all. A quick check from the cockpit confirmed that we were no longer attached to the bottom of the bay.

What fun we had, upping anchor between courses, quick checks on the grilling lobsters and motoring around the bay in the pitch dark, looking for a better set. Coincident with the removal of the lobsters, the hook went down and set hard. They were done to perfection and a somewhat rattled crew returned below to the second course of a wonderful meal.

'Nuf for now.

A Cruise through Guadeloupe, Part one.

Frisha and Whit arrived more or less on time on Thursday afternoon, Jan 21, in time to stow their gear and enjoy a sundown rum punch in Django's cockpit before dinghiing over to Johnny Coconat's for a delicious pizza on the waterside. We laid out the plan: Friday out to Green Island on Antigua's Southeast corner to pick up a better line into Guadeloupe's central bight, and the town of Port Louis; a day in the shallows snorkling and lolling, then a night in the mangroves in the Riviere Salee which divides Grand Terre from Basse Terre and leads into the city of Pointe a Pitre on the South coast; a broad reach down the south east shore of Grand Terre to the islands of The Saints to spend a couple of days, then up the west coast to Deshaies before the 42 mile slog back up to English Harbour, where on Saturday evening we would take them to the Tot at 6:00 pm.

Friday worked out as expected, wind out of the East, and an hour or so bash into it to Green Island. Great barbeque of spare ribs for dinner and anticipations of a fine reach down to Guadeloupe on the morrow. Whit was beginning to cause trouble already. Our head, which has been the center of a great deal of attention, thought and work, began to repeat its reflux bad habits. Its hard to know precisely what Whit did to cause this annoyance, but given his history, we are sure he is involved somehow.

Then he managed to screw up the weather. The trade winds, which blow dependably out of the East day in and day out, failed. We left Green Island in a very light South breeze, motoring toward Guadeloupe. Our new Volvo-Penta folding props worked very well, and the weather was grand, but not quite right. We pulled into Port Louis and after abortive attempts to anchor off the beach, we pulled into the seawalled harbour and set anchors bow and stern close to the entrance for the night. There is a very good fish market, still open at 17:00, where we picked up some red hind (grand gueule) for supper. A brief walk up and down the main drag revealed a very quiet town, mostly closed up for the day. This is not a haven for tourists or yachtsmen, but there are a lot of solid fishermen.

Sunday morning broke clear and flat calm. After breakfast, we made our way down towards the entrance to the marshy shallows which stretch for miles out from the entrance to the Riviere Salee. We started up the channel, then sheered off to starboard near tiny Isle Colas, to drop the hook in shallow water and explore the shallows and the shores of the mangrove island Isle a Fajot. I had hoped to find oysters in the mangroves, but the water is crystal clear, no food for the oyster. It is a sparkling gorgeous place in the bright sun. After swimming and lunch, we made our way down to the entrance of the river and began scouting for a suitable place to anchor for the night. There are two lift bridges on the river (not really a river, but a salt water channel in the mangroves running North South).


They open only once per day, early in the morning. Moving South, the first bridge opens at 4:30 am. We scouted the river down to the bridge and settled on a spot at the entrance to a bayou some 15 minutes North of the bridge. After some messing about and getting stuck in the mud, we set anchors fore and aft, safely out of the main channel. Now this is the spot for oysters. The mangrove flat oysters, which cling to the mangove roots in the same way as mussels, are abundant. Less common, but far sweeter and tastier are a small oytser, in the shape of the northern oyserts but smaller, which grow on the roots and hold on by depositing shell material and cementing themselves solidly. This was our quarry.

With Frisha and K in charge of moving Boffo around, I was the hunter. After messing around in very shallow muddy water and digging the prop into the mud too many times, I suggested we paddle to the likely spots. With grumbling crew, we headed in and spotted the oysters. The crew had to push hard to get Boffo close into the roots where I could pick off the oysters and throw them into the bucket. There were a few no-seeum; my adreniline level must have been a tad high from the thrill of the hunt, as they didn't bother me much. Not so with the motive crew, who, after 10 or 12 minutes of vain swatting and swearing, mutinied and demanded return to Django. We had a pretty good haul, but I was keen to continue and Whit offered to replace the bedraggled crew, so off we went again. Of course, having Whit on board was not the blessing it might appear. We went to a spot where there was not one of the desired species of oyster, and where the no-seeums were so fierce that even I had to concede defeat.

We returned post haste to Django just in time to see rum punches pouring into ice filled glasses, and set to scrubbing and shucking oysters. With a drop of lime and perhaps a hint of hot sauce, these little oysters are wonderful.

Enough for now, more later.

English Harbour

Watermaking, inter alia.

Antigua is wet and rainy this morning, a blessing for this parched nation.

We hear tales of drought here, the reservoir will dry up by the end of the month. After spending three weeks in the frozen North, no sun in sight for weeks on end, the sun and warmth on our return Friday was a blessing. As we upped the anchors, we covered Django in grey sticky mud, so off to the fuel dock for water to fill the tanks and rinse her off. We did buy some beer as well, but not enough to justify the bill of EC$350, a staggering sum.

While away for Christmas, I looked into how to get my Pur Survivor 35 watermaker up and running. Watermakers have reverse osmosis membranes which must either be used every day, or be pickled in a growth inhibiting chemical, so as not to clog up with algal flora. Ours was in the pickled state when we bought the boat in Jan 2008. The note on the intake filter said she was put into storage on August 7, 2007. The watermaker has been low on my list of things I need to become an expert at, so it has remained much as we found it. A bit of reading on the Katadyn watermaker internet site revealed that Pur was taken over by Katadyn some years ago, that the maximum safe storage period for a membrane is twelve months, and that I would be able to order up spare parts and a new membrane, to be delivered in Montreal before we left for Antigua. So that's what we did.

The Pur 35 is squeezed into a small space beside the starbord water tank. I would take a picture for you, but we have left the camera behind in Montreal. This is a challenge for me, although not for K, who has been unable to reliably upload photos to her blog, and to whom the lack of a camera may be felt less keenly. I will have to make up with verbal accuity.

I was daunted by the apparant difficulty of accessing our Pur Survivor 35, but not enough to make me read the instructions which came with the membrane right away. Dicking around is always more fun. Anyway, the thing was done, the pre-filter drained, washed and reassembled, and the switch thrown; I watched the first product pee slowly out into a bottle as a test sample. I let the bottle fill several times to clear the pickle juice and flush the lines, then shut down and tasted the result. Pure clean salt water, so that didn't work. After the second try at disassembly of the membrane, I twigged that one of the O-rings on the new membrane assembly was damaged. Luckily, I had ordered the spare parts kit as well and found a suitable replacement. Now it works, and K and I are getting used to the low level heartbeat of the pump as it squeezes out a thimbleful of pure fresh water with each cycle.

English Harbour is full. We are squeezed in close to shore with an anchor set off the stern to keep us from swinging onto the rocks. Terry is always useful. He tells me he set a mooring in Freemans Bay, just the other side of the harbour entrance, under the lee of Shirley Heights, which has not been used for years. It is a Perkins 4-236 diesel engine, the very thing we had aboard Weemelah in Bermuda and plenty large enough to hold Django. He says we can use it if we can find it in 6 to 8 feet of water. That's another project, such fun. It would be good to have all set up and ready to go before Frisha and Whit arrive on Friday.

The price of oil has been dropping off; a very good thing, in my opinion, although I would like it to fall another few dollars, if it please the powers that be. Next week will tell. There is really no good reason for it to be so high. I have been reading "The Wayfinders, Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World" by Wade Davis, produced as a series of lectures and presented as the "2009 Massey Lectures" across Canada. Really good stuff!

Tuesday December 15, Guadeloupe South East Coast

So, I am a bit behind. We came up the coast of Dominica to Portsmouth and spent the night. As usual, we picked up one of the moorings in the North end of Prince Rupert Bay, managed by the guide association, for which we pay 26 EC (US10) per night. The moorings are in good shape, and

the guides patrol the area at night. Our feeling is we should support this operation and feed some cash into the local ecomonomy. Other cruisers are not of the same mind, and want to anchor for free, in the midst of the moorings, feeling there rights to free access to the ocean bottom are being violated by the placement of moorings in their anchorage. One such fellow, of the french persuasion, had placed his anchor almost directly upon the mooring to which we were directed by a rather irate guide, who cast several well chosen words in his direction as he passed up our lines through the loop on the mooring tether.

I realised we were being used as a pawn in this political gambit when said skipper arrived half an hour later to ask if we would move, as he was planning to leave shortly after sunset, and our boat lay directly on top of his anchor. Explaining that we had just finished paying for assisitance in our present placement, I gently reinforced the guide's position. The upshot was that the skipper of the offending yacht was reduced to fetching up our lines in the repositioning effort, which he managed with some difficulty.

As intended, we passed a quiet night before the sprint for Pointe a Pitre the next day. We were blessed with a decent wind direction and were able to have a pretty good sail in a fairly strong breeze.

Point a Pitre is the commercial and industrial heart of Guadeloupe. There is a large container port opposite the entrance to the large marina in the Lagon Bleu. We pulled up outside the marina entrance and dropped anchor in time to clear customs and find a grocery store. After a rum punch with the last of our Dominican rum, we went ashore for dinner at one of the many restaurants in the marina.


Our plan is to cruise up the south east coast, Le Gosier, Ste. Anne and St. Francois before rounding the souteastern tip of Guadeloupe and head NNW for English Harbour. The distances are not large, but the wind and sea are dead on the nose. Although very pretty, with swaying palms and lovely beaches, these towns are not of much interest. We travelled over the weekend, Le Gosier on Saturday, but we were anchored in the lee of the island and no shore leave opportunity, by Sunday in St. Anne, little was open ashore. Even in St. Francois on a Monday afternoon, everything was shut up tight. It is interesting that almost all commercial establishments along this coast, which is in the tourist center of Guadeloupe, close for two full days a week.

Tuesday we rose early for the bash down the remainder of the coast and thence up the windward side of Guadeloupe to Antigua. I had twice calculated the distances involved. The first time, I figured the distance at over 50 miles. The second time, I made an error and came up with only 30 miles from the southeast tip up to Antigua. We set off at about 8:00, anticipating reaching the turning point sometime after 9:30. The seas off the cape were treacherous, heaving and chaotic. Added to the East wind induced seas, which carromed off the rocky cliffs at the cape in a back chop, there was a large NE swell coming down out of the North Atlantic. By the time we had set sails and settled in to the broad reaching course, it was 10:00. Now video game we use for navigation had a bead on English Harbour and K annouced we were going to be late arriving. We were doing a respectable (and comfortable) 5.5 knots, which over 30 miles should get us in well before sunset. Only trouble was, the distance had grown back up to 50 miles.

Of course, there was a solution, involving a bit more carbon dioxide off gassing, but neccessary in the event. With 17 knots of wind and one engine, we pushed Django's speed to 7 knots, setting an ETA English Harbour of a little after 5 pm, all things remaining equal. Well 7 knots is not as comfortable a ride as 5.5 knots, but there you are. We pushed hard all day, and as we passed the North-east corner of Guadeloupe, wind and current moved against us. Still about 30 miles to go, so on went engine number two. I like our new props, they drive very well. At 2300 RPM with the current against us and less wind more abeam, we were able to maintain our VMG at 7 knots to within the last 7 miles of Antigua. In the end, a line of squalls forced a reduction of sail, and produced a radical wind shift against us. Heavy rain doused the boat nicely, but our wonderful progress was dented. In any case, we managed an entry into the Harbour 10 minutes before sunset, and the anchor was down and set within minutes after. It was a hard push, and Django's fastest passage over that sort of distance. Quite exhausting.

Thursday December 10, Carib Territory, Dominica

We left you hanging in Roseau, Dominica, after a harrowing night of thief chasing. On the day of our tour with Sea Cat, we bumped into three french cruisers coming into the dock. They, too, had been boarded in the night, but noticed the man before he had a chance to come below. After shrieks from the two women, the t'ief fled. It turns out they were looking to do a tour to the Carib Territory and the Emerald Pool, and had not yet set it up, so we all trouped up to Sea Cat's and shared the tour. GG (Gerald), his wife Coco and Clotilde, from La Rochelle in a 37' nondescript monohull. Gerald is 66. Clotilde is visting for a few weeks. GG and Coco had a larger boat before, 39', which they sailed from France out through Panama, across the Pacific, and sold eventually in New Caledonia. They had nothing but good things to say about their voyage through the South Sea islands and the people they met on boats and ashore. It all sounds like too much fun.

Sea Cat did his best to show us a good time, but he can't climb the trees to pick the oranges and grapefruits along the way. I filled in where I could and managed to shake loose a nice bag of lovely pink grapefruits. We visited some of his friends along the way, and sat with an old Carib indian and his wife while he slowly shelled roasted cacao nuts, one at a time, in preparation for making chocolate sticks. He also had coffee roasting over his wood fire, enough for perhaps a can of ground coffee.

The Caribs of Dominica are the last survivors of the group which dominated the Caribbean at the time the Europeans arrived at the end of the 15th cetury. They seem to have a thriving territory, including several small villages on the East coast near Castle Bruce. There seems not to be the depression and despair we see in the North amoung aboriginal people. Their basketry is lovely and can be found in many a Caribbean market or nick-nack shop. Every woman does her own baskets, there is no central workshop. In the old days, there was a law banning interracial marriages, but With time, the Caribs have mixed with the black population, especially around the edges of the territory. A recent candidate for chief proposed reinstating the marriage ban, but was not elected.

The emerald pool is beautiful and dark, at the foot of a high thin waterfall in the rain forest. It is a short hike from the car park, where Sea Cat rested his leg. Part of the trail is the remains of an old Carib path, laid with stones, like a tiny highway through the forest.

We had lunch, GG, Coco, Clotilde, K and I, in a creole restaurant set out over a precipitous drop overlooking the sea and a small village in the bay. I had salt fish stew with provisions and beer. GG and Coco continued with tales of the Pacific and the Panama canal. They had not intended to go across, but after helping two boats transit the canal, and waiting in vain for weeks for a weather window to sail North east for Florida, they decided to give it a go themselves.

We arrived back at Django as the sun set, having had a really good tour of another sector of Dominica.

Friday we set off for Portsmouth, and thence set sail for Pointe a Pitre in the nexus between Terre de Haut and Terre de Basse, in Guadeloupe.