Week 38: Guadeloupe to Antigua (82nm)

We settled into the anchorage just south of Guadeloupe’s capital, Pointe-à-Pitre, as our base on the island. The highlight of our week was exploring the jungle-y interior of the western part (Basse-Terre) with our friends on Seahawk, with lots of laughs and even more mud! Then, it was off to Antigua, which turned out to be a harder sail than expected.

ANCHOR DOWN IN Pointe-à-Pitre

Following our usual manic marina day, we anchored up just outside the Pointe-à-Pitre channel for a few days to relax, do some jobs, eat all the pain au chocolat we could find and, most importantly, take some time to explore the island.

We parked Serenity right in front of our friends on Seahawk, who were busy installing their new solar panels. I have endless admiration for M and Sam, whose old batteries and panels were letting them down (to the extent they completely lost power to their navigation equipment at one point while crossing the Atlantic) but were so nonchalant about it. I would have lost my head if that happened to us! They are sailing across the Pacific this spring and, since that means being very remote most of the time, had decided to invest in new panels and batteries to ensure they will have reliable power anywhere they go. Installing new electrics is never easy, but we remembered how excited we were the first time we plugged in our panels, and were looking forward to seeing that happen for our friends!

We had a few nagging boat jobs to do ourselves and, especially with the proximity to the marina’s delightful bakery, this was a perfect spot to bed down for a few days to tackle them. Alec had a laundry list of electrical projects, while, for me, maintenance on our genoa was top of the list. One area on the foot of the sail where it sometimes rubs on our bow platform had worn through, plus we’d lost a few telltales (little bits of wool that help you see how air is flowing over the sail) and there were a couple of other little niggles that merited attention. Now, sewing a sail on board is always an interesting challenge (as discovered in Lanzarote when we installed the foam luff), but sewing at anchor was the next level up! We also had intermittent rain, which meant sewing downstairs in the saloon. We got the genoa down from its home on the forestay easily enough, but wrestling it down (and later up) the stairs was particularly tough. In any case, we eventually wrangled it into position, and I set about patching and fixing. It took me the better part of a day, but we got there in the end! By sunset, the spruced up sail was back in place and we collapsed in front of a film to celebrate.

LAURA’S MUDBOGGING ROOTS RE-EMERGE

Jobs sorted, it was time for some fun. We rented a car with Seahawk and took a day to explore the island together. I was particularly keen to try a waterfall hike up one of Basse-Terre’s mountains, and luckily everyone was equally up for that! After an hour’s drive to escape Pointe-a-Pitre’s traffic, a long, windy road led us slowly up into the national park. I had to get a good run up to get our little rental car up some of the bigger hills (a few times we thought we might have to get out and push!), but it was well worth it for the views and the incredible jungle vegetation around us.

Though it hasn’t been as devastated as other islands, Guadeloupe has still had a fair amount of hurricane damage in the last couple of years. This has made the steep slopes of some parts of its mountains unstable, and I was sad to find this meant the waterfall hike I’d hoped to do was closed. We were still able to walk a short way to see one of the lower falls (still pretty amazing) but were definitely sad we couldn’t do more.

As we were heading back to the car though, we had a stroke of luck in discovering another marked trail I hadn’t originally seen. It looked well off the beaten track, which is the best kind of hike, so we couldn’t help but want to check it out. It climbed the opposite side of the gorge, snaking across a myriad of mountain streams and through a dense forest of unusual trees and plants. It was truly a jungle environment, and everything was soaking wet. The ground itself was mostly deep mud, so we progressed by climbing along the exposed roots of the trees. A truly unique hike! In theory, the trail culminated at a small lake (called the Cistern), but after an hour of tough climbing (and several falls into the mud by yours truly) we’d probably still not hit the halfway mark. We paused at a lovely spot where we had a great view of the upper waterfall (the one we’d come to see!) and decided this was a good spot to turn around.

We slipped and slid our way back down (daintily I’m sure), which left the whole crew pretty mucky. This gave us the perfect excuse for a celebratory swim – and we’d heard from one of the park rangers that there was a great swimming hole nearby. A short walk down from where we’d left the car, another trail dropped off to our left, and we followed this down to a lovely deep rock pool. We all jumped straight in and had a great, cleansing swim! We even managed to climb behind the little waterfall.

By now it was well and truly time for lunch. We drove / careened back down the mountain and proceeded to the nearest beach, where we set up shop and ate our delicious packed sandwiches while marvelling at the black sand.

DESPERATELY SEEKING ICE CREAM AND INTERWEBS

Next on the agenda was a visit to an archeological park that boasts prehistoric cave paintings. We carried on down the coast of Basse-Terre towards Trois Rivieres, where the park was, enjoying the lovely views of the sea on our left. We arrived to find that the park was closed, which was a shame, but we had a lovely little wander around the village. After all this walking, we felt we deserved ice cream, so hopped back in the car and retraced our steps towards Pointe-à-Pitre, hoping to find somewhere along the way.

The afternoon proved a bit of a wild goose chase, and we never did find a proper ice cream. BUT, we did find the largest supermarket I’ve ever seen, so we took the opportunity to do a big restock for the boat. This supermarket happened to also be attached to a mobile phone shop, Digicel. Both Seahawk and we had heard from other cruisers that Digicel offered a very competitive data-only SIM card deal that covered all of the islands of the Antilles. It would give us 40Gb of 4G data per month, which would release us from dependency on wifi cafes! Both boats had decided it was a must have. However, it was clearly not a common request from non-locals and in the end we had to go to THREE different Digicels before we final got our hot little hands on the right SIM card and package. But, by the following day, internet access was ours! We celebrated by binge watching YouTube, as you do :).

Jobs done and internet in hand, we moved the boat to an anchorage on the other side of the Pointe-à-Pitre channel in the marine reserve for a few more days to just relax. This is part of our “do less” plan, which I have to say has really made the cruising experience for me. Not feeling pressured to sprint around is just the best! Once we’d got ourselves parked up there, we took our time reading, reflecting, and enjoying a few films from our hard drive 😊.

Our friends Seahawk were blazing a trail ahead, having left a few days before us for Antigua where their new batteries were waiting for them. They told us about their experience, which involved a slog into the wind on one day to get to the windward-most tip of Guadeloupe followed by a lovely reach (wind on the beam of the boat) the next up to Antigua. That all sounded good, so we planned to follow a similar route, though we figured we’d do the majority of it in one big day rather than two fairly long days. So, we set out for an easy first leg to one of the couple of sheltered bays along the southern coast of Grande-Terre. When this “easy leg” turned into a heck of a schlep (barely making 3 knots even with the engine on high revs), we should have perhaps reconsidered our plan, but we remained optimistic. Our chosen spot for the night, just around the corner from Sainte Anne (another bay name repeat from Martinique), was lovely and we had a relaxed afternoon readying for the next day’s adventure.

A HOME FOR HERMAN

We were pottering around the boat when I suddenly noticed movement. We had a stowaway! An adorable little gecko had somehow found his way aboard. This was extra impressive given we’d been at anchor for the best part of a week, so he must have gotten into one of our bags during a trip to shore! We fell in love with him immediately and named him Herman. Times were about to get tough for poor Herman though, because it had got dark by now and the dinghy had already been packed away for the next day’s long sail. So, he would just have to accompany us to Antigua!

Actually, it turns out he was a she… this species is one of those oddities where they’re all technically female. But by now the name Herman had stuck so, that was that. We fashioned him a temporary terrarium out of some Tupperware and mosquito netting, and did our best to make it homey with bits of paper towel to hide under plus water and honey for sustenance (we read they like nectar). Alec even tried to catch him a few flies, but they must not have been quite the right type as he didn’t eat them. We had a lovely few hours watching him as he was very active and inquisitive! I must admit though that I don’t think he liked sailing the next day… but frankly neither did we!!

THE WEATHER MAN LETS US DOWN

Our forecasting tool ensured us that we had sunshine and a lovely beam reach to look forward to the next day for our long sail up to Antigua (55nm for the day), with a moderate sea state. This, it turns out, was completely inaccurate.

Big waves and inconsistent winds in squally conditions. We’d have 30 knots one minute and 7 the next. It meant keeping the sails reefed right down so we didn’t get slammed when the wind gusted up, but that then meant we made painfully slow progress. It quickly became apparent that there was a reasonable chance we’d not make Antigua before dark. And, with the coral-laden waters around the island, this was not a place to try to enter at night! We had an agonising couple of hours trying to decide whether or not to turn back (though this was not a great option either given there were no nearby anchorages on this side of Guadeloupe). Eventually we decided to get Mick involved so we could motor sail through the periods of low wind and were able to fly towards Antigua at 8-9kts. Even so, we’d come up with that plan relatively late in the day, and it was still not looking like a sure thing. We had a few discussions about what we might do in the event of arrival in darkness, eventually agreeing we’d have to do circles at a safe distance off the island until morning – absolutely not ideal!! Motivation was high to arrive in the light.

The sun dipped below the horizon at 6:30 and the light quickly began to fade, but we were closing in fast. With maybe 15 minutes to go before dark, we sprinted into the channel, having decided we had just enough light to see us safely in. We quickly readied the anchor, figuring we’d just chuck ourselves somewhere and find a proper spot come morning.  But then our friends on Seahawk kindly came out to meet us in their dinghy and showed us to a great spot just behind them – win! So, we were settled in short order, with perhaps 5 minutes to spare! A huge sigh of relief followed, and we promised ourselves that this would not be an experience to repeat. Learnings: allow more wiggle room on time in case the weather is very different to the forecast, and don’t try to squeeze a >55 nautical mile passage into a single day unless there is an easy back up option(s).

Whew! After such a whirlwind sail, we were beat. We crawled into bed not long after 20:00, looking forward to exploring our new surrounds by the light of day after a solid night of shut eye 😊.

BLOG REJIG

Hello! Are you still reading? Thanks for making it all the way to the bottom of the post!

We are planning to experiment with the way we do the blog. Now that we are in the Caribbean and have slowed down, the rhythm of our weeks and experiences has changed, and we’re not convinced the current long form structure of the blog is the best format for capturing it. So, we’re going to try to rejig it a bit. Is there anything that you wish we’d write more about? Or write less about? Would you like to see more pictures vs. prose? More videos? Longer/shorter posts, or more/less frequent publishing? Please comment with any feedback – we’d love to hear it!