Return to Antigua

Here we are, sitting once again on Mowzer watching the sun dip to the west and I am left thinking how surreal the last couple of weeks have been.

At the end of May we arrived in Antigua and put Mowzer on the dock for a two week return to family and friends in Canada. The trip home was absolutely fabulous and included seeing Jim get his hard worked for degree in Chemical Physics from Waterloo. We packed in time with Caitlin, Jamie and Henry's mother in Toronto, stayed with Peter & Beth in Ottawa where we visited my mother, Jim and many friends. We even got in a couple of rounds of golf and ate out more than I could have imagined. A quick trip to Waterloo for Jim's graduation and the two weeks came to a finale with Caitlin & Jamie once again in Toronto. Whirlwind doesn't even seem to start to describe it, but it was so wonderful to see everyone and to have such a good visit. Other than all the personal connections, the one other joy was walking down the sidewalk and running errands without a constant sheen of sweat, although the 10 degrees Celsius we were greeted with was a bit extreme - brrrrrrr.

Our flight back was uneventful but interesting with various views:

We left Toronto flying right over downtown and a view of the CN Tower and the Air Canada Centre.

Now in the Caribbean with the islands laid out below us - first up Anguilla.

We passed St. Martin as well but it was just too cloudy to get a picture.

Next up St. Bart's. So much fun remembering our visits here just a few short weeks ago.

Passing over Jolly Harbour on Antigua we could actually pick out Mowzer on the dock at the top right of the bay.

The interior of Antigua is just parched brown. Will the rainy season green this up or has it just been too deforested to recover?

And there she is at the dock, patiently awaiting our return.

Now, we have put the boat back together, gotten off the dock and plan to leave early in the morning for Guadaloup. Back to the French islands we go!

 

Return to Anegada

After topping up with fuel and water at Leverick Bay this morning, we took a quick turn around the North Sound to check out the local 'real estate' and then found ourselves following the race committee boat and others heading north for the Island Regatta races. These are some pretty serious boats with crews of 25 or more but it was pretty cool to be manoevering out among them as we got ourselves on our track to Anegada.

Off to set the race marks.

Thursday night racing at NSC is a little more affordable but this was pretty cool.

Perfect conditions for full sails.

This is our fourth time on Anegada and each time the beauty of this island strikes me. It is mostly the colours: the green of the whispering pines swaying languidly behind the snow-white beaches and the incredible turquoise and green of the waters. The eye feels almost drunk on it all. The island has a starkness to it though and if you lift the veil just a little, you see that you are on a scrubby desert island of searing mid-day heat as you leave the shoreside and unfortunately as soon as you step away from the touristy bits, there is an abundance of litter, old cars rusting away in the salt air, and unfinished or apparently abandoned houses. It is heartening though to see the same businesses thriving year after year such as V&J's gift shop and car rental, The Purple Turtle, Anjuelina's Boutique and the various restaurants that offer lobster dinner on the beach. Not much has changed in the last four years.

Our welcoming committee.

You lookin' at me?

Mowzer in the anchorage.

We have driven, scootered and cycled over this island in the past so today we decided to hike to the dizzying aerie of the highest elevation. Luckily the whole 26' is found next to a wonderful little place called Cow Wreck Beach. This honour bar sits just above one of the beautiful north shore beaches and today, although there were a few swimmers/snorkelers out in the water and a few others on the beach chairs at the bar, the beach was essentially empty. We helped ourselves to a cold beer, marked our tab in the little book at the bar and relaxed on the beach for the afternoon. Once the heat of the day had abated we hiked back the three miles just in time for a view of the sunset across the anchorage.

Is this cow wreck?

Nope, this is Cow Wreck. You've made it!

Hard to believe the beach is so quiet on a perfect afternoon.

It's those colours.

Return from Anegada

We really didn't get moving too fast this morning but given that the sun comes up and awakes us around 6:30am, a 9:00am departure from the anchorage felt a bit like we'd been lazing about. The winds died last night and the views at Anegada were serene this morning.

Even though the winds were predicted in the 8-10 knot range we headed out and had another fabulous beam sail with winds at 10-12 knots. As we sailed down past North Sound, the big boys that we had seen out practicing in the Sound were out in full form getting ready for what we heard was a race around the island. These guys are big - full complement of crew and loads of sail area and even at a distance are impressive.

We headed down to Marina Cay on the east end of Tortola to fill up on water and top up our diesel tanks. We probably don't need fuel before our return next week but filling up takes all the worry out at the end of the trip. We definitely needed water though with about 1/4 of our tank remaining after a full week out.

Trellis Bay offers a grocery store and in order to keep us happy we needed some more butter for another batch of tea biscuits. Not to be missed, we are making sure we get the most out of our "Drinking Man's Guide to the BVI". We picked up this tome a couple of years ago and included are coupons for half-price and 2-for-1s so we are doing the tour. Today was the CyberCafe for some TurboKillers that were exceptionally delicious.

The evening ended up on the anchor in Lee Bay on Great Camanoe Island where we watched the pelicans fish and the sun set. The end of another perfect day.

This pelican does a great Darth Vader impression

Lee Bay - breezes flow across the saddle from Cam Bay

In Honour of the Baja 1000

Ok, we'll get this little detail over and done with. As planned we rented a little car to tour around on Anegada and the rental agreement distinctly said we had to stick to only roads that were marked on the map. Here is a sampling of said roads.

Needless to say, with patience, the judicious use of some rocks and a 2"x6" we did manage to dig ourselves out. I know we're missing the cold weather back home but we didn't need a reminder of what it's like to be stuck in a snow-drift!

Despite our little adventure, the day was perfect and Anegada delivered once again for it's pristine beauty and the friendliness of the locals. We returned to Flash of Beauty for roti lunch, snorkelled in Loblolly Bay, had a rum punch at Big Bamboo, found the pink flamingos, missed on Cow Wreck beach to our little dig-out delay and then returned to the Reef Hotel for lobster and mahi mahi dinner on the beach. Any other ideas of what paradise should be?

A hard day in the salt mines?

We may not have made it to Cow Wreck, but we found a cow wreck

Flash of Beauty ambassador and roti scrounger

Loblolly Bay

The snorkeling was just fine.

Nope, this chair's too comfy to move

The elusive flamingos in one of the salt ponds

 

Return to Anegada

While we were having a blast in North Sound, in part we were actually waiting for the high winds and unsettled weather to pass so we could hop on up to Anegada, the most northerly of the BVI islands. On the flip-side, the winds are forecast to drop right off later in the day Thursday and through Friday and we wanted to get while the getting was good, and not resort to motoring the crossing. Just as planned (don't you love it when plans work out), we had 10-12 knots of wind on the beam and we had a truly fabulous sail across to "the drowned island."

The morning parade of Anegada-bound boats

SOG = speed over ground. We zipped along and the trip was almost over before we were ready.

Errands on Anegada consist of deciding where and when you'd like to eat your sunset dinner and what mode of transportation you'd like to use to get around the island. Choices abound - by foot (the island may be flat but it is fairly big), by bicycle (did that a couple of years ago with Jim and the powdery sand is pretty heavy-going), by scooter (lots of fun, did it a year or so ago), by rental car/jeep or by taxi. We opted for car rental so we booked one for tomorrow and then given all that strenuous activity proceeded to relax over conch fritters and rum punch at the Reef Hotel. Oh, and by the way, we're having spaghetti aboard tonight and will decide on dinner tomorrow. More than one big decision in a day on Anegada can get stressful.

The beach at the western end of the island goes on and on and rivals some of the best we've seen. The special part is that there is no development (other than a couple of beach houses and a little restaurant) and even if you meet other people you quickly have the beach to yourselves if you walk just a little bit further. We walked all the way to the end, about 3 miles and then turned with the setting sun behind us and a cooling breeze on our faces and made our way home to Mowzer.

These little shore-birds accompanied us along the beach.

Hard to describe perfection.

These donkeys were munching up sea-weed for a dinnertime snack.

Friday: Anegada Day

Forecast:  Winds ENE 10-15 knts, seas 2-4’, scattered showers, temperature 84F

The last time we were on Anegada with Jim we rented bicycles and rode out to Loblolly Beach for lunch at Flash of Beauty.  We wanted to explore Anegada again and perhaps see a little more of the north shore, but knowing the condition of the deep-sand roads decided against bicycles this time.  Sorry Jim, given there were just two of us we opted for scooters.  Yeah, give a couple of newbie scooter-riders machines that are capable of 60+ km/hr and let them loose on roads that mire in sand up to 6” deep.  It wasn’t all bad though because we got to practice first on the concrete road leading out to The Settlement.  We actually got on just fine and had a fantastic day exploring and enjoying this idyllic island.

Anegada lies tilted slightly from south-east up to north-west, with continuous powder white sand beaches running along the whole of the north shore and western end of the island.  All told, Anegada is only about 11 miles long and there is one main road on the south side and one sand road on the north side so it doesn’t take long to explore at 30-40 km/hr.  We headed up to Loblolly Beach where we placed our order with Monica for lunch at Flash of Beauty before heading off for a walk along the endless north-shore beach.  This beach is renowned for snorkelling within the fringing reef but we found we didn’t even have to get our feet wet to see the fish feeding on the reef! 

 

Flash of Beauty is an open-air restaurant where your fish, lobster, conch, roti etc. is made to order and we happened to be the only customers there that day. 

To the accompaniment of the local cat we enjoyed a beautifully prepared lunch and encourage anyone who is exploring the island to come here.  We visited the next place down the beach, Big Bamboo, and while it is was definitely busier and provided many services to its guests/visitors it hadn’t the charm of FoB.

Once our bellies were comfortably full, we headed off to the west end of the island to Cow Wreck Beach.  This beach is named for the boat-load of cow bones that were wrecked here way back (and that’s all I know). 

It is now home to one of the most laid-back bars we have ever visited.  We wandered up and were served our first drinks (the specialty Cow-Killer and an excellent Painkiller) but after that we were on our own.  A clip-board was provided to record your purchases and when ready to leave you settled up with whomever was behind the bar at the given time.  How fantastic is this!

  

I love this island and its laid-back charm; as the t-shirt slogan so rightly proclaims:  Anegada – hard to get to, harder to leave.

Thursday: Spanish Town to Anegada

Forecast: Winds ENE 0-15 knts, seas 3-5’, isolated showers

Today is Thanksgiving in the U.S. and it’s a strange sort of dichotomy here in the British Virgin Islands – there is no tradition for Thanksgiving here and yet because so many of the folks who come here are American, the holiday is somewhat observed.  Not so much in the commercial establishments unless Black Friday can be put to use, but upon talking to one shop-keeper on Anegada today she said her family and others celebrate because they like to eat; and yes, they eat turkey.

Sitting in what we northerners think of as paradise it is not hard to come up with things to be thankful for – warm caressing sunshine, just the right amount of tropical breeze, powder-white sand beaches with swaying palm-trees; all rather like a post-card. 

However, now that we are here in Anegada after a wonderful sail from Virgin Gorda, I am reminded of other things I am thankful for.  Jim – this place brings back great memories of our first trip on Mowzer when you were with us and we came to the ‘drowned island’ for the first time; we hope to head up to Loblolly Beach tomorrow where you had so much fun a year and a half ago.  Caitlin – I thought of you yesterday at The Baths as I watched a young woman about your age scaling one of the massive boulders (but with no broken arm like when you were here .)  Family, friends and colleagues of course but I promise not to get too maudlin so here are some other things that came to mind today:

• Perfect wind and seas for a single-tack sail from Virgin Gorda to Anegada

• The best pedicure you can get for free (walking on the beach)
• Walking so far down that beach that your ‘up-hill’ leg starts to hurt so you have to turn around, but regretting that you’ve only walked a short portion of this seemingly never-ending completely uninhabited strand of white
• Meeting a guy in the local bar who also has a dream – in this case to start a micro-brewery in the islands, but not before he has just one more to take on the road with him (literally)
• Anchoring on the fringe of a crowded anchorage, that still only contains about 40 boats which is nothing compared to some of the anchorages down-island.  This place feels almost like you’ve reached the end of the world.

• Joining your fellow boaters at a restaurant on the beach for a meal of fresh-caught lobster and shrimp and a chilled glass of wine as the breeze blows through and you actually need to be covered up because it is getting a little chilly
• Knowing that it is just fine to be sitting in that open-air restaurant in the best clothes you posses but that your bum is soggy from the dinghy ride in and your flip-flops are full of sand

• Juicy anticipation of the next day’s explorations around and across this little island – 11 miles long, 2 miles wide and only 25 feet high (yay, no hikes up a mountain-top)
• Watching dark skies and looming clouds develop through the evening only to have them blow by with nary a drop of rain or gust of wind and the reward being the best of sunsets

• The skittering sound of a sand-piper running across the deck as you awake to calm waters in the anchorage.
• Sharing the fun and adventure with your best friend.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!