Friday 30 April 2010

10 fun-filled days with Andrea


Andrea arrived on Monday afternoon sadly missing the last of the racing in the morning. On Sunday we watched the gig races and enjoyed a cream tea on the lawns of Admiral’s Inn in English Harbour. The next day we rented a car and toured the island ending up at Shirley Heights for its spectacular sunset view across both English and Falmouth harbours.

Our next stop was Deep Bay where we snorkelled on the wreck seeing lots of angelfish, a turtle, barracuda and a ray. We were plagued by mosquitoes at sunset and dawn so were relieved to sail up to Barbuda and anchor on the stunning Cocoa Beach. We then moved around to Low Bay and had a great beach BBQ with another boat, Belle.

After a long walk along the 11 mile beach we hired Clifford to take us by boat across the huge lagoon to do our check out. This involves 3 stops, the one for customs is actually in someone’s house! Clifford is definitely the man to use for this if you are planning to visit Barbuda – 25 EC for 3 of return and he helpfully escorts you around all the offices. He also does visits to the frigate bird sanctuary.

Our sail the next day to St Barts was a slow one. We arrived after dark and anchored in Baie Colombier to avoid the swell running in Gustavia. Under the full moon we could clearly see the bottom as we dropped the hook in 7 metres of water. The next day we snorkelled with the many turtles and had a lovely walk to Baie Flamands before motoring around to Gustavia for drinks and dinner. It was then up to St Martin in readiness for Andrea’s flight out on 30th April - another passage with no wind necessitating employing the iron sails. We went through the the 17:30 opening of French bridge into the lagoon.

No comments:

Post a Comment