13-3-2022 : off to Antigua we will go

Way back in 2020, possibly the worst year of most people's lives and certainly mine, we tried twice to holiday in Antigua. Both times we booked flights, picked a nice house to rent and paid deposits only for flights the be cancelled at the last minute. It's probably that frustration that lead to us formulating our crazy adventure plan. If the airlines couldn't get us there we would just darn well get ourselves there instead. The beauty of a sailing yacht is that it's not range limited by fuel. We crossed the Atlantic using only 10L of diesel between Cape Verde and St Lucia. The main cost is time of course.

Here we are, finally heading for Antigua.

We are passaging from Deshaies in Guadeloupe, home of the Death in Paradise series, to Jolly harbour in Antigua. This was supposed to be a day sail...

   ... Alas we could not complete our customs checkout yesterday (12-3-2022) because the customs office was closed so we had to do everything this morning at 9am. It's 45 Nm from Deshaies (Guadeloupe) to Jolly harbour (Antigua) so at our typical 5 knot speed that's about 9 hours. We didn't want to arrive in the dark so our best plan was to sail overnight leaving at sunset. Bizarrely, as Bluewater sailors we are a lot more comfortable out at sea well clear of land in the dark, than near the coast. As long as the water is deeper than 100m we can be reasonably certain we won't encounter any lobster pots or fish traps.

Slightly annoyingly, a big cat dropped its anchor right over ours about an hour before we left. Cest la vie, we managed to win our anchor, after a bit of manoeuvring. Once at sea we had about an hour before it got totally dark so we just put up our headsail, rigged the tiller pilot and set sail. Wind was very good so we were flying along at 6 knots. Unfortunately this was a potential disaster.. we were in danger of arriving at 4am. We took in lots of sail and trimmed back to about 4 knots. Very comfortable. The passage was good until we arrived just at the southern tip of Antigua where the wind shifted and we ended up sailing into the wind for a while. Eventually we gave up and just motored the last 5 miles. The sun came up.just as we passed over the shoals into Jolly bay. 

Having booked the marina spot in advance we hoped that everything should be plain sailing but alas we reckoned without customs.

To check in to Antigua you need to have an antigen test that's less than 72 hours old, hence our overnight plan. We got the customs dock at 0730 hours after having been directed there by the marina dock master. It had a nice jetty we could moor up at so we waited there until 8am when customs opened. Ah problem, they will not see us unless we have already passed health clearance.. but the health nurses are not there. So we waited, had breakfast, and waited etc... until 10am when they showed up. It then took another hour to get through the health and customs checks before we were free to head for our marina spot.

Finally we got tot he marina ready to moor only to be stumped by strong squalls coming off the mountains which were blowing is away from the jetty. Our plan to moor stern on was fouled by the narrowness of the channel and the wind so here we are moored bow in. We have to get on and off the boat by walking over one of our spinnaker poles rigged as a kind of gangplank. 

Anyway, main thing is that we are here. The marina is quite nice and there's a pool and several restaurants so all set for Kerries birthday in two days, not to mention my dental appointment... But that's another story.