It's hurricane season and as you can probably tell by the lack of action on the blog, we are not moving much. We had a few weeks at home catching up with friends and family, not forgetting the Wokingham drinkers... I mean boaters group that we used to frequent... On my return, we had some visitors - our great friends Robert, Pauline and Dahlia. We had a blast touring the island, swimming and introducing Dahlia to Scuba - she was a champ! We've been anchored in Prickly Bay now for over a month.

We arrived in Grenada just in time for the Chocolate Festival. As paying punters we felt slightly short-changed as the bloggers got hauled around in the better bus, but we still had a great day at the Belmont Estate and Grenada Chocolate Company (where Edmund, the owner, gave us a tour). The cocoa expert from Trinidad university was on hand to explain the full process, from pods in the field... ...to fermentation, then drying slowly in the sun... The manufacturing process was quite inter

Portsmouth, Dominica - looking at the northern end of the bay A ship that ran aground off Bequia. I don't know the story but it looks like it went aground at speed, to get so well wedged! The new way to keep boats from anchoring next to you, ably demonstrated by a French boat in the Tobago Cays.

Its hard to believe that one year ago today, Dad, Amanda and I were heading to London on the train. We met Alistair there and continued on to the boat. The next day, we set off to Cherbourg on the start of our adventure. Since then, we've sailed over 6100 nautical miles. We've carried out a couple of major additions to the boat (new radar and wind generator). We've spent hundreds of nights at anchor, sometimes with hundreds of other boats around us, sometimes alone. We've done many miles in the

We had a great time in Bequia - its a lovely quaint place. Not much going on ashore, but great to relax in the harbour and watch the world go by. We caught up on a few jobs both onboard, and online. I managed to get a bit of work done as well. HotHotHotSpot let us down - the performance was abysmal. Mega Network - the other paid-for wifi service (based on Meraki infrastructure) was much better until it also started giving poor performance. Both times it was upstream of the wifi link, so no real

In Dominica, we arranged to do a couple of tours. The first being Indian River - used as a location in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, it's a lovely trip under oar up into the mangrove. Monty collected us from the boat and took us up the river pointing out wildlife which I got some bad photos of :) Here are a couple of better ones... Next day, we headed off on a tour of the island. Due to some mix up, we ended up with Cobra himself giving us a tour. He was a star! Stopped in pl

It took us 3 tacks to reach St Barts, so not too bad. Would have been far worse trying to get to St Kitts. However, we arrived just as the final race for the St Barts sailing week was finishing. The excitement on the radio was about the new Gunboat foiling catamaran prototype which had fallen over and was being righted. We don't even have daggerboards - I can't imagine foils on a cruising cat! St Barts has an interesting history, worth looking up. Suffice it so say it is now crammed with expens

Saba is one tough cookie. It's hard to visit as there are no all-weather protected harbours, and there are only 2 anchorages both of which suffer some swell. When you arrive, it rises out of the sea vertically, so the anchorages are deep. There are buoys - 10 of them. They are hardly ever full. The dinghy ride is 30minutes from the safest anchorage to the only harbour - Fort Bay. This feels "right out on the edge" stuff. It's definitely worth it though. Even though it cost us a boathook trying

Well, that was a fantastic month! Blogging fell off the agenda as we were having too much fun out here in the British Virgin Islands. We just made it here in time for Andrei and Alina to visit us. We spent time at Marina Cay, Jost van Dyke (bubbly pool, Great Harbour and White Bay) and Sopers Hole. We managed swimming, snorkelling, painkiller sampling and sailing. A great time was had by all! Alas they had to head home all too quickly. We took a pit stop in Great Harbour and I got a quick dive

We had a very busy week in St Maarten. I completed my nitrox diving course and managed a couple of great dives on wrecks. Didn't need nitrox on either, but useful to have the practical experience. The wind generator mast was waiting and the only flaw was that it was 3m tall instead of 2.7m. We didn't get this altered, and mounted it as is. The really great news was that the cross brace reaches our solar panel mount well above head height. We ended up going into Lagoonies marina inside the lagoo

We finally escaped Antigua. It was a productive stay in Jolly Harbour - not only did I have a great time with Alistair, but I managed to service the generator, re-wire the electrics ready for the wind generator and do a number of internal jobs that had been on the list. I also managed to get some scuba diving in with the fantastic Indigo Divers - my rusty skills are back where they were (that is to say, not great but no longer embarassing!). Unfortunately a cold prevented me from doing my last d

Unfortunately, Amanda has had to head home for a memorial service, so whilst she's there, I'm attempting to make headway on the boat jobs. Getting the halyard sorted was pretty easy, as Ashley at A & A Rigging was able to remake the splice despite the halyard having been previously loaded up. That was the good news. A & F Sails completely failed to show to discuss awnings for the foredeck. This isn't that surprising as the Caribbean 600 race was coming up - but they've not even bothered to call

We left Deshaies in light winds and managed to sail most of the way to Little Bay in Montserrat. We managed to catch a really nice dorado but whilst I was filleting it, the mainsail fell down. We furled it manually into the boom and took a look at the main halyard. The splice had failed! This splice was less than 3months old and done by the rigger in Marina Rubicon as he declared the old splice "no good". Lesson learnt - don't trust the rigger! Looks like he hadn't done a long enough bury by any

The observant amongst you will have noticed my deliberate mistake a couple of posts ago. We did of course continue clockwise from Pointe-a-Pitre :) We had a great time at Isles des Saintes. We can recommend Ti Kaz La as a great place to eat - the mango soufflé is stunning! We hiked up to Fort Napoleon in the heat and got some great views of the bay from there. From there we headed to Terre en Bas for a night at anchor before returning to Deshaies which was a great sail though the wind was qui

We hear a lot about damage caused by anchors in places like Studland and though the scientific evidence suggests that there isn't an issue in Studland despite what some claim, it's clear that poorly designed moorings can cause issues. Here in Deshaies, the moorings are free which always makes us a bit suspicious. Who is paying for the maintenance if there is no income? Out here it's always easy to dive and check as the water is lovely and warm :). This is what I found: It's really nicely done

After a night at Deshaies, our plans changed. Once again, the port engine wouldn't start and that battery would not hold charge. So we decided to head around to Pointe-a-Pitre as that was where we could likely find a battery. From there we would continue our tour of Guadeloupe going anti-clockwise. We'll stop in Deshaies for a few nights before we leave Guadeloupe and head for Montserrat. We opted to anchor out in the bay. The spot near the marina was packed so we tucked in behind a small reef

We're briefly leaving Antigua. We have to return in three weeks as Amanda is flying home for her Aunt's memorial service. However, we have a few weeks to head south to enjoy ourselves on our own. Our last night in Jolly. Harbour was spent onboard Bianca Rosa, as they'd invited us to share the last of their epic marlin capture from the rally. It was very tasty! We've become firm friends with all on Bianca Rosa and we hope to see them all again at some point. They will be heading onwards soon, b

A lot has been going on and we've been tardy in updating the blog! We returned to Jolly Harbour and met up with Bianca Rosa and Escape again. A good time was had by all at an impromptu "last supper" at the Crows Nest. Bianca Rosa left to continue cruising the next day. Very reluctantly we said goodbye to our crew. Barry had been with us longest, but Anthony had been with us a fair while too and it had been great to have them onboard. They were flying back to a cold and snowy UK. Rather them t

After a couple of nights anchored by Great Bird island, we fancied trying Deep Bay. We planned to go into Jolly Harbour for a week and Deep Bay is on the way. Also, our friends on Bianca Rosa were anchored there having returned from copying our Barbuda itinerary :) When we woke up there was no wind, but we needed to charge the batteries anyway, so we motored the 13 miles around the top of Antigua. As we passed Dickenson Bay we saw a yacht very far aground - not sure of the story there but it lo

After a couple of nights at Low Bay, we moved around to the beach we'd seen on our tour at Coco Point. It was quite a windy day, and we had over 30knots of wind on the nose at times. In one squall, whilst we were approaching the reef, we lost all visibility, so anchored on the spot to wait for the sun which is essential to see the reefs! It soon returned but not before Mandy, Anthony and myself had got soaking wet in the rain. We were soon dry though :) Coco Point was lovely, easy to get ashore