Antigua to Virgin Gorda

Well, here it is February 2, 2009, and our last Blog entry was at Christmas!

We were in Antigua for both the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, since the weather was not cooperating for us to move on northward. Nelson’s Dockyard was a great place to be during those two weeks.

In the Caribbean, “Old Year’s Day” is the correct terminology for our accustomed “New Year’s Eve” celebrations. There was an evening concert on the marina grounds, and a marvelous fireworks display at midnight. We had front-row seats from our boat. We slept in a bit on New Year’s Day, since the next leg of our journey was starting in the afternoon.

We departed Antigua on January 1st, at 3:00pm, for the overnight run to St. Martin, arriving at 6:00am. Since we had enough crew aboard for four-hour watches, we bypassed Nevis and St. Kitts, and made the 111 miles to St. Martin in 15 hours, averaging 7.4 knots per hour. We dropped the hook in Marigot Bay on the French (north) side of the island. We also knew there was a big “blow” coming into the area from the Northeast, and wanted to get some sea miles in before it hit. After a short rest, we moved the boat into the marina, and cleared in thru Customs and Immigration.

The town of Marigot is small, quaint, and very crowded, but we were within easy walking distance to everything we needed, except for the major grocery shopping trip. For that chore we walked to the store, and got a taxi back to the marina, since we were stocking up the boat for awhile. Internet service in St. Martin was almost impossible from the marina. Skype was definitely inaccessible.

The thing we like best about St. Martin is the wonderful bread! Restaurants are also a cut above average. Even the hamburger joints are excellent. The French and the Dutch definitely take food seriously!

Teffany and Carol signed off our crew list in St. Martin. They were signing onto another boat on January 15th. Bryan stayed aboard with us.

Weather kept us marina-bound until January 9th, when we made the 80 mile run to Virgin Gorda, British West Indies. This was a 10 hour leg, and as we had the wind and waves behind us traveling northwest, we averaged a very respectable 8 knots per hour. We anchored in Gorda Sound overnight, and I (Walt) took our documents over the mountains to Spanish Harbor to clear Customs and Immigration.

That’s when the s---t hit the fan!