We decided our time in St Anne was up and we pulled anchor on the 27th and moved around to the west side of the island to Petite Anse. It was one of those special days when it all comes together, a downwind run then one tack to the bay. We took the opportunity to play with holding the headsail out with the whisker pole since we foresee doing that on later in the trip. Petite Anse is a small anchorage where there is a small community, an old church, a bakery, good snorkeling and more. Once we were anchored Cori took the dingy to a beach to look for sea glass and I dove in to check our anchor and swim over to the main snorkeling area. On the way there I was passed by a big turtle.
The next morning we checked out the town and the fish market and decided to move on. The anchorage had an uncomfortable roll. We tried sailing but the island was blocking the wind so we motored up to St. Pierre, at the northern end of the island. St. Pierre is one of our favorite spots. The town has a very interesting and sad history but the beach is one of the best for finding sea glass. We anchored by Arctic Vixen and the next day Dreamcatcher caught up with us. We spent several days wandering around and collecting sea glass. The other two boats left to move up-island but we planned to stay over the weekend. Those plans changed when we checked the weather forecast and decided if we were going to make it to Antigua we needed to leave Sunday.
At 5:30 Sunday morning the alarm went off and we were on our way by first light. We had a combination of motoring and sailing to Dominica. Along the way Cori saw a whale but I was too slow getting on deck to see it. We pulled into Portsmouth harbor in the afternoon and picked up a mooring near Arctic Vixen and Dreamcatcher. We were planning to stay just the night so we skipped checking in and just settled down to visit and rest. We are not sure when we will see these friends again. The next morning the alarm went off at 5:30 and at first light we headed out. We need to do three fifty mile days so we needed to get an early start each day. Once we cleared the top of the island we had a near perfect sail until we got into the wind shadow of Guadalupe and then started motoring. We stopped for the night in the little harbor of Deshaies and settled in for the night.
Thursday, the fourth, we pulled anchor again at sunrise and started off on the final leg to Antigua. We had visited these stops before so we didn't feel we were missing out. We have not been to Antigua yet and were eager to check it out. I got a momentary look at a whale as it dove down but couldn't tell you what kind. We arrived in the afternoon at Jolly Harbor and anchored in one of the best shallow sandy anchorages we have visited since the Bahamas. We spent the night, checked out the community in the morning and then motored around to Falmouth Harbor. There is an additional fee if you check in at Falmouth or English Harbor so that is why we stopped at Jolly first. Falmouth is protected almost 360 degrees so it is a popular anchorage. I also has several marinas that cater to the mega yachts so there are some unbelievable boats here.
The winds have been howling, we get a little wet going ashore but we are enjoying our stay. We have been getting together with Gary, Deb and Jack from Angel Sea. Jack is somewhat famous, check out his Instagram page at "Jackthesailingdog", he has over 10.5k followers, I have 109. It is a short walk over to English Harbor which is the home of Nelson's Dockyard. In the 1700-1800 the British had a repair yard here and Lord Nelson was stationed for a while. The buildings have been restored and is now an international heritage site. There are several nice hiking trails that lead you to various defense sites the British built to defend the area. Along the trails you run into a lot of wild goat which are fun to watch.
We plan to stay here until the winds let up and the seas calm but it may take a week. Once that happens we hope to get further around the island to check out some of the other anchorages.
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