The passage north has taken us from the Windward Islands to the Leeward Islands and, unfortunately the only discernible difference is that, on this occasion, we have had rain and I mean heavy, relentless rain with absolutely no wind.
We ended up motoring up the West coast of Guadeloupe, close inshore for the best possible mobile signal to pick up the radio five live rugby commentary – sad maybe….. Strange what drives our decision making!
Our chosen anchorage before our final step to Antigua is Deshaies (pronounced “Day-Ay”), on the north west corner of the island. The large bay is very busy and, with all the mooring buoys taken, we decided to anchor ‘deep’ beyond the melee. With 100 metres of chain we can still anchor in 20 metres and achieve a 5 to one ratio and it is re-assuring to have this option.
John adds his bit:
Never mind all the techo-nautiguff, it’s pissistantly rained for much of the day, I even had my Gore-Tex on while keeping watch for the plastic lemonade bottles that mark lobster pots. This morning leaving Saintes Isles the little clumps of bottles appear quite suddenly out of the murk, and we had to dodge them or get the rope caught around the propeller.
The predominant colour today is grey, the grey silhouettes of the receding Isles replaced by the grey bulk of Guadeloupe ahead. Occasional bursts of sunshine sent the temperature soaring again to what I’d paid for. But then more cloud and rain, and not a breath of wind.
Highlight of the day so far: Dolphins playing a couple of hundred metres to starboard. But even they must have got fed up with the rain, because they soon dived and were lost to us.
Then we were at Deshaies Bay, lots of moored and anchored yachts and now with more boats arriving behind us, it’s a bit of a waiting game to see whose anchor chain is too long/short, which may be entertaining at about three tomorrow morning if the wind gets up as it’s renowned to do around here and all the boats start swinging around like massive glass-fibre conkers.
Hey! Hang on! All this grey talk, anybody would think it wasn’t a good day today. It depends on your perspective, for a Solent sailor like me, it’s warm, the sea is as smooth and well behaved as Cowes entrance but without the tide and Commodores to worry about, and when the sun did deign to show his face the water is the most amazing blue.
All that and Captain Finicky has been as nice as pie today, and so I can’t even take the Mick out of him today.
What’s he planning?
Hmmm, something must happen soon…
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