Month: January 2022

Sailing has been incredible as the major storm off the USA East Coast moves offshore. That weather system then pushed against the Caribbean Tradewinds blowing from Africa and held them back a bit. The normal winds here are 20-25 knots out of the east, but when  large fronts heads off the coast, the trades die down to 10-15 knots and sometimes clock towards the south. We have been sailing these calmer winds from Antigua north to Barbuda 30 miles, then Barbuda to St. Barth’s 75 miles and then 15 miles to Ile Tintamarre off St. Martin. We sailed 90% of these legs and mostly under our code zero headsail. What a dream. Thank you to all the USA East Coast friends and family who have taken one for the team by enduring that major winter storm. svIslandSpirit appreciates it!

When you see the Southern Cross for the First Time

Classic rock fans who know Crosby Stills Nash and Young will know this lyric. It is in the song SOUTHERN CROSS and is one of the key lines…”When you see the southern cross for the first time, you’ll understand just why you came this way…” Well, as we were preparing to leave Barbuda, it was 4-5 am and the Southern Cross is always up around 2-6 am. The first time we spotted this was when we were sailing south and off of Dominican Republic after 2 nights at sea. There it was right off our starboard bow as we pushed south. That was very very cool.

Here the Southern Cross was even brighter than ever, as there is no light off Barbuda. So, looking south with the dim glow of the island of Antigua on the southern horizon, the Southern Cross was bold as ever pointing the way to the south. This is the guiding constellation for the southern hemisphere just like the Big Dipper is for the northern hemisphere. I took 20+ photos with my Google Pixel 5a set to the “night shot” setting.  Sure enough, I got one good photo. Look at this! For all, you rock fans, listen to and watch CSNY play this song here: https://youtu.be/iuLBhxZUkmU

Sailing Experiment

We are new to using this furling code zero 165% headsail. We have learned that it sails best upwind to 60 degrees and downwind to 150 degrees. Lower than that, it is not happy as it is a reaching sail. For dead downwind, we would set a wing on wing with our jib and a whisker pole. It is a fun challenge learning the best points of sail and wind conditions with this sail.

Today was one of those perfect angles. We set up on a course of a 150-degree wind angle in 12-15 knots of true wind, starboard reach. We set a full mainsail as well.  Soon after we set sail, we thought, why not roll out the staysail? This little sail gave us another 0.25 to 0.5 knot of speed. We sailed 50 miles like this and averaged 5.5 to 6 knots. It was fantastic. Eventually around 1400 hours, we needed to turn dead downwind, or else we would sail right past St. Barth’s. So we furled the two headsails and motored downwind. We wanted to make the harbor by dusk and we just so made it. This was a 12-hour passage.

Autopilot Wind Angle Sailing

I wanted to point this out one more time. We set sails, we trim to course, next we look at the wind angle and then we set the autopilot to hold this given wind angle. NOW, the boat will sail at this angle and the pilot will steer right and left as it maintains the specified angle. Look below at a 1 hour time plot of our wind yesterday.  This is very typical. You will see a low of 078 degrees and a high of 108 degrees. That is a 30-degree wind shift over time. The boat follows this. If you were steering by hand, you would have sails luffing or overpowered because it would be very difficult to follow these wind shifts. We sail with the autopilot set to “Wind” instead of “Heading Hold” or “Navigation” 99.9% of the time. It really works!

Tuna For Dinner

We first landed one barracuda. I saved its life and let it go, but the football tuna we gladly kept and filleted for the frig.  It was pan-seared in olive oil 2-3 minutes per side and enjoyed with buttered carrots. Yum Yum.

Arrival at Ile Tintamarre

This is our first stop at another beautiful beach to anchor near after a great day of sailing. We like to take the dinghy into the surf line, as the beach is steep with waves crashing onto it and landing is not my fav. So, we drop the anchor and swim in from there. Then we enjoy the beach and hikes and swim back to the dinghy and use our great dinghy ladder to climb back in. It is difficult to get into a dinghy from a swimming position when you cannot stand. It is possible, but a ladder makes it so much better.

Sunset time

After a great beach walk and a swim and a tour of the yachts in the harbor, it was time for hot showers and watching the sunset. Caribbean Sunsets never disappoint. This one set over St. Martin as we watched from Ile Tintamarre. 

Live tracking and Tracking Map Archives

We have a live tracking map that shows where we are 24/7. We also pay for and use a service called SpotWalla. This programmer is brilliant as he created a program that allows us to archive tracking pins into individual trips. We feel this is far better than one massive archive like Garmin does. Sure, it is fun to see where we have sailed over the past many years, but, where have we sailed JUST THIS SEASON? That is the solution SpotWalla created. 

1. 1. 1. See where we are anytime here: 
         1. https://share.garmin.com/IslandSpirit
      2. See our Archive Trip Maps here!
         https://new.spotwalla.com/trips/browse/1?un=svIslandSpirit
      3. See our CURRENT SEASON here: Nov Puerto Rico to Maryland June
         https://new.spotwalla.com/trip/029c-222ed31e-ae72/view

Thanks for sailing along, send us a message, we love to hear from you.

Today was so much fun! It was our longest continuous sailing with the code zero sail, 30 nm from Antigua north to Barbuda. The winds were 8-13 knots at 75 degrees off our starboard bow.  We hoisted a double-reefed mainsail because the forecast was for 15 knots. With this sail, the upwind limit for us is 15 knots unless we are sailing off the wind, like a broad reach, then maybe up to 20 knots true. This course was slightly upwind, 15 degrees upwind, and if we had 15 knots, we would be on the edge of safely using this sail. In that situation, we would simply use the jib. 

For the first time, we were able to set this sail and let it run for 6 hours straight. We sail 99.9% of the time with our autopilot set to hold a given wind angle. In this case, we dialed in 75 degrees. The beauty of wind vane steering is that we then trimmed our sails for this angle and the boat and the pilot maintained that angle. The winds are never from a fixed direction. They always veer or back 5-10-15 degrees. You can not see a 5-degree wind shift, but the pilot computer and sensors will, so the boat will steer and adjust to this new wind direction. We love it. We have the B&G Autopilot and we think it is the best of the best.

Here are my photos from this most glorious day of Caribbean Sailing.

Instruments show the data

How we rig the sheet

I get excited taking photos

THE COOLEST Photo ever

Destination Made: Barbuda: Coco Point

Sunset off Barbuda, beautiful

 

 

 

 

 

Jolly Harbor

Sailing dreams

Anchored out in Falmouth is Fun

A new world record set

These three ladies rowed across the Atlantic in 42 days, 7 days, and 17 minutes. They smashed the previous women’s record by seven days! The finish line is in English Harbor at Nelson’s DockYard. Their arrival was amazing to witness.  Take a look at this incredible event here: 

https://www.taliskerwhiskyatlanticchallenge.com/

Left to right: Charlotte Irving, 31 , Abby Johnston, 32, and Kat Cordiner, 42 after crossing the Atlantic Ocean in their 25-foot rowboat, “Dolly Parton.”  Kat has incurable cervical cancer and is believed to be the first cancer patient to row the Atlantic. They are raising money for cancer research in England.

Walking Falmouth to Nelson’s Dockyard is required daily

Boat Buddies at Antigua

Life on a Boat off Antigua

Thank you IslandSpirit

Conclusion

Radeen and I always seem to enjoy the simple life around Antigua. We both agree that this island is our favorite of all the Caribbean Islands. Yes, the check-in and check-out are very time-consuming, but that is forgotten when you enjoy the beautiful beaches and historic towns.  The yachts that call into Antigua seem to agree as there are many that stop here for services and repairs. Sadly, the pandemic of covid-19 has hit all of this hard, as we are seeing so few yachts when compared to years past. People worldwide are hurting from the decline in travel. 

Looking ahead

Our goal is to sail our boat back to the Chesapeake Bay by mid May so we can enjoy the boat this summer.  We find that it usually takes us two-plus weeks to put the boat away and 2-3 weeks to get her back up and running, so we have decided to take these 4-5 weeks and simply keep the boat running. No storage.  For now, these are our well-known destinations ahead.

• • • Barbuda
    • St. Barth’s
    • St. Martin
    • British Virgin Islands
    • United States Virgin Islands
    • Puerto Rico
    • Turks and Caicos
    • Bahamas
    • USA, Florida to Maryland
    • Home

We really enjoy pulling into Falmouth Harbor, Antigua and then taking a dinghy ride around all the billionaires’ yachts. We have seen big yachts in Annapolis, MD, our home waters, but nothing like the yachts in the Caribbean where there are deep harbors. The hub of this location is the Antigua Yacht Club and Falmouth Harbor Marina. Our boat is far too small of to dock at these facilities, there is no way we would ever even try to dock here. It’s amazing to see a sailboat that is 90 feet long with a mast of 150 feet with 5 spreaders look like a dinghy and is dwarfed by the yachts on each side. FORGET IT.  Here is a photo essay to show the scale.

SUPERYACHTS are charter yachts

That is right, you can charter many of these yachts for a vacation and the rich do rent them. By making the yacht a charter yacht, for rent, the owner can use the expenses to offset their income. So, these yachts help the owner pay fewer taxes.  It really is amazing. If you want to see the inside of these yachts, here are links to some of them. 

https://www.superyachtfan.com/yacht/anna/

https://www.superyachtfan.com/yacht/nero/

https://www.superyachtfan.com/yacht/athena/

https://www.superyachtfan.com/yacht/moonrise/

https://www.superyachtfan.com/yacht/mayan-queen/

Thanks for sailing along

Antigua, what a great place to sail, explore, sightsee and simply enjoy. We really do like this island. I hope you enjoyed the superyacht tour of the yachts here on the island in Jan 2022.

ONE LAST TEASE….

If you have AMAZON PRIME and or shop with AMAZON, then maybe you might like to see JEFF BEZO’s yacht. We saw this off Sint Maarten at Christmas time. Yacht FLYING FOX is reported to be his, but it is not confirmed. It is only 446 feet long!!!!!!!!!!

https://www.superyachtfan.com/yacht/flying-fox/photos/

 

 

Our days here in Antigua are melting together as we have been enjoying life on anchor off Deep Bay and Jolly Harbour. Added to this, joy has been the full moon rising at or very near sunset, making for beautiful moonlit nights. We really do need to make ourselves up anchor and move to Carlisle Bay and Falmouth and then re-explore Nelson’s Dock Yard. For now, we are spoiled with this peaceful life here off Jolly Harbour.  The best part is we have cruising friends here working on their stored yachts prior to launching. Trust us, we will up anchor and move, but for now, it is peaceful right here. Allow us to share some photos.

All is Good here

With all yacht systems running, life is good here on anchor. The Epicurean is a very, very nice grocery store only one block from the dinghy dock, we have a fuel dock, and we have several beaches to enjoy. The upscale neighborhood of beautiful homes on the beach with their boathouses across the street on the harbor side makes for interesting daily walks. Plus,  we have fun friends here to visit!

Covid Data for Antigua

Covid cases are reported every day on the VHF radio net. Today they have 74 new cases and 1 death, Wednesday there were 305 new cases, with no deaths. The population here is 61% fully vaccinated.  In all time, Antigua has had 5800 cases with 122 deaths and a population of 98,000. 
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/antigua-and-barbuda

We are staying isolated and we only visit our 4 boat buddies. We do not eat out,, except for pizza on the porch at Al Porto, we do not hang out at pubs, or go to happy hours. Covid has changed so much and the last thing we want is to get covid in a remote country.  So, we are simply enjoying the cruising life, walking, swimming, beaching and dining onboard with our own happy hours. Not a bad thing at all. 

From Here?

After exploring Anitgua, we will sail north to Barbuda where there are about 500 people. We will stay anchored off the pink sand beaches and enjoy that for a few days, Then we will turn downwind and sail northwest to St. Martin French side, Marigot, and from there back to the USVI and BVI. We hope to spend most of Feb in BVI. After some time there, we need to move west to Puerto Rico and then make the offshore two day jump from PR to Turks and Caicos. Then onto the Bahamas for April. May 1  we will sail to the USA east coast. From there it will be a reach up the coast to Annapolis, MD / Rock Hall MD, HOME by mid May. This is our current plan. Now to keep all these boat systems all running.

Thanks for sailing along!

Hayden & Radeen

One of the great aspects of Antigua is the sailing. Antigua Sailing Week, the Antigua Superyacht Challenge, and the RORC Caribbean 600 Race are based here. plus the Classics and the mega-yachts all call into Antigua. Since 1700 when the tall ships sailed into Nelson’s Dockyard to be serviced and careened, Antigua has been the yacht service and premier sailing area of the Caribbean Sea. What we like best about Antigua is that there are fantastic harbors on the west side, like Jolly Harbor and Deep Bay.  When we want to go sailing,  we simply up anchor and roll out a sail and go. Now we beam reach on the west side of Antigua until we have sailed enough, then turn into one of the harbors and drop the anchor in flat calm waters. PERFECTION, ANTIGUA….

We Rolled out the Code Zero…

We have a really great furling spinnaker called a code zero and almost always get to roll this out and sail it on the west side of Antigua. This sail is about a 165% jib and it will sail downwind to 160 degrees and then upwind to 50-60 degrees. It is such a versatile sail. In winds 15 knots or less, this is the dream sail. We keep it hoisted and secured, ready to unfurl anytime the winds are right. We love this sail.

Anchored in Deep Bay, Antigua

It would be very tough to beat this harbor, Deep Bay, Antigua. A near-perfect beach, plus Fort Barrington to hike up to, and to top it off, a sunken ship in the harbor to snorkel. Welcome to Deep Bay….Look at this view.

Sailing Back to Jolly

After sailing back to Jolly Harbor, an easy beam reach, we dropped off laundry and provisioned a few items. Ashore, most businesses we remember were open or reopened with new names. For example, the fabulous Crow’s Nest Restaurant is now called Sea Dream. The very large Jolly Beach Resort has closed and so has the fun bar there. It was a sad surprise to count only 22 cruising boats anchored where we have always seen more than 100. 

We also wanted to check in with our buddies, Dean & Kim of IP38 DreamCatcher and Jim & Gerry of IP445 Watermark III, to see how they were coming along preparing to launch their boats. Plus, Jolly Harbor is a dream anchorage because it is so calm.  We enjoyed a special full moon rising at sunset. Beautiful.

Thank you for sailing along

Thank you to all our friends and family for sailing along with us. This has been a lifetime goal, a lifetime dream of living on our boat and sailing to remote locations. Now, here we are and every day we reflect on this goal accomplished. We are appreciative of our strength and good health that allows us to do this.  When wake every morning, we recognize how lucky we are. Thank you for allowing us to share this joy with you. 

We have been enjoying St. Martin since arrival here on Dec 24th. We spent a week plus on the Dutch side buying up boat repair items. Then we spent a week on the French side eating baguettes and drinking fine French wine.  Now, we really needed to set sail and move to a new location, Antigua and Barbuda. Radeen and I both might agree that Antigua and Barbuda could be our favorite Caribbean Island. But then again, it has become a toss-up with the FRENCH vs the ENGLISH. I mean, really, Martinique, St. Anne, can you beat that? But wait, Antigua has 365 beaches and many of them are on the protected downwind side of the large island which provides easy beam reach sailing anytime you want to sail. Ahh, the Caribbean Islands, so many to explore and learn and so little time. We are lucky to be here.

75 nm St. Barth’s to Antigua, course 120-130

Here in the Caribbean sea, the winds are all driven by the never-ending Tradewinds, that blow from Africa to Florida. These winds are from the EAST usually at 20 to 25 knots. The course from St. Martin to Antigua is 120-130 heading which means on an East wind of 090 this places the wind 30-40 degrees off your port bow. Well, that is not sailable for most “cruising boats.”  So, we wait for the tradewinds to shift NE even if it is just 10 degrees or more, this is what you hope for. 

What shifts the trades? Large massive cold fronts that are Nor’easter storms, snow storms coming off the USA east coast and blasting out to sea in the North Atlantic, these are the fronts will pull the trades north or push them south. This is exactly what we had, a massive storm off the USA east coast. But, like most of these predictions, the winds were pulled NE briefly and then, the darn trades took over and won. See this outline….

It is always a bashing to Antigua

We have made this run 3 times now, and every time it is like this. A bashing into the East trades and waves which break over the bow and roll up and over the windshields. The boat becomes a total salty mess and we even take salt spray at the helm. Yes, we have an enclosure, and it stops most of the waves, but with the engine on to push through the waves, we need to crack the windows to let the air push out the exhaust fumes. It is not pretty and we always want to divert to Nevis or St. Kitts as they pass our starboard side. The forecast for this trip was that the east trades would resume at 0900-1200 and by that time we would be in and anchored. that is why we departed at 1800 sunset off Anse Colombier, St. Barth’s. Well, the east arrived early at 0200, so we bashed into this until daybreak when the winds usually die down.

The first part was a dream

We had a beam reach from St. Martin down to St. Barth’s where we went for a nice swim before dinner in the harbor of Anse Colombier. 

Then at sunset, we dropped the St. Barth’s mooing ball and headed out to sea for a perfect night. The sunset was amazing, and the course of 130 with a beam NE winds made for a spectacular sail set and a comfortable ride.

Then at 0000 to 0200 the winds moved forward to ENE about 075-085 and we had three squalls up to 25 knots. Of course, these storms always arrive at night. But as CAP’N RON says, “They come up on you fast and they leave you fast, Boss!” and so they did. Lucky for us, our digital radar with watch alarms caught the squalls 4-6 miles out and we were ready when they reached us. The radar sees the rain that is associated with the squalls. As for sailing full speed ahead into the night, this is what you see at night…..look at this flash photo!

Arrival into Jolly Harbor, Antigua

This is such a great harbor, it is wide open to the west, no danger, no channel to run, simply head east into the harbor and drop the anchor in 10 feet of water everywhere. There is room to anchor hundreds of yachts. Sadly, on this day, Jan 12, 2022, there are only 20 yachts on anchor. The covid pandemic has hit the cruising community and travel community hard.  It is very very obvious to us as we return to all these places.

Re-Exploring Antigua

Our time here will be shared with cruising friends Dean and Kim IP38 DreamCatcher and Jim and Gerry IP445 Watermark III and others as they sail in or thru. We hope to be here another week, with a stop in Marigot, St. Martin. Then we plan to get up to the BVI and USVI islands for all of Feb. For now, we will enjoy Deep Bay, North Sound, Falmouth, English Harbor, Nelson’s Dockyard, Shirley Heights, and BARBUDA with the Pink Sand Beaches! So much to explore and enjoy, so little time. Welcome to Antigua! Thanks for sailing along. Please leave us your comments, they are emailed directly to us.

Facebook Page

Here is our public Page, so please bookmark it and follow along there. Of course, if you want to “comment,” ” like,” or “follow,” then yes, you would need a Facebook account. Welcome…

https://www.facebook.com/svIslandSpirit

 

I have been having trouble with my Mailchimp being on strike. The CHIMP needs more bananas I guess.  For some reason, since Jan 3, the CHIMP stopped sending out my emails announcing the new blog updates. Now, with old posts, I am making this new post to see if the CHIMP will find this and email this new post.

If the CHIMP wakes up and finds this new post, then it is scheduled to send the email at 0900 NY Time. Well, that is 1000 Antigua time. SO, now I wait yet again.

Meanwhile, here are the latest posts that did not send….

https://svislandspirit.com/new-yamaha-15-enduro/

https://svislandspirit.com/christmas-2021-simpson-bay-sxm/

https://svislandspirit.com/st-thomas-to-st-maarten/

https://svislandspirit.com/departure-season-20-begins/

Thank you to my fellow CHIMP TRAINER, Greg Kerlin who is helping endlessly with trying to get my chimp back to work and off strike. Greg and Kate are running a BEAUTIFUL LAND YACHT and Greg writes a fantastic blog with amazing photos here. You should subscribe to his blog as well and enjoy the land yachting scene. Thank you, Greg!

http://eilean350.blogspot.com/
https://tailsfromthehighway.com/