Sail fast, live fast

You might have heard of a slogan "Sail fast, live slow", it is often written on tee-shirts that you can buy in many places here in Caribbean. Well, it was a bit different for us these last couple of days.

Alenka and Grega arrived on Sunday, late in the evening. We did some provisioning in Jolly Harbour on Monday morning and moved to Fryers bay in the afternoon. In the morning we sailed to Montserrat. It was a nice and fast ride, we were already there at one in the afternoon. Alenka and Grega took a taxi tour of the island in the afternoon. We planned on leaving for Guadeloupe the next morning. But not as early as we then actually did. One of the sailboats, that arrived late in the evening, anchored in the channel in front of the jetty in Little Bay. At 5 in the morning a barge came and wanted to tie to the jetty, but couldn't get around the sailboat. So they started honking their horn and shining their lights at the sailboat in the channel, until the crew woke up and moved the boat. Needless to say, everybody in the anchorage was up by then. After all the commotion was over we decided not to go back to bed, so we sailed off shortly before seven. 

We passed Montserrat on the northern side and got some nice views of the volcano.

 Sailing was fast and a bit bumpy. We arrived at Pigeon Island before two in the afternoon. Alenka, Grega and myself went snorkeling, while captain stayed on the boat, slowly drifting near the island. Snorkeling was really great.

After the snorkeling we decided to continue to Le Saintes, it was only three in the afternoon. We reached Le Saintes at seven, already in the dark, and anchored behind Paine de sucre. Next day we did some shopping and snorkeling.

On Friday we sailed back North to Deshaies, with a stop at Pigeon island again. This time we had more time, so we anchored the boat near the "mainland". We were greeted by many turtles, swimming among the boats in the anchorage. So we decided to go snorkeling right there. It was great again.

We saw a Hawksbill turtle...

... and a lot of Green turtles. You could tell they know they are protected and don't need to be worried about anything.

 After arriving in Deshaies we dinghied to the shore and had a nice dinner in La Kaaz restaurant.

Next morning Alenka, Grega and myself went to Botanical garden. We all enjoyed it very much. Captain stayed on the boat, flowers are not really his thing.

 The dark spot left from the yellow flower is a hummingbird (the Antillean crested hummingbird), it is not the best shot, but this is all my camera is capable of.

 Beside all the beautiful flowers, trees and parrots, we saw all three kinds of hummingbirds that live in Lesser Antilles and Grega managed to get some nice photos of them. This is the Purple throated Carib....

... this is the Green throated Carib ...

 ... and this Antillean crested hummingbird.

 From the Botanical gardens there is a view of Deshaies anchorage.

In the afternoon Alenka, Graga and captain went up the Deshaies river. It was already late, so they didn't go all the way to the waterfall. I had enough walking for one day and went snorkeling instead.

On Sunday we sailed back to Antigua. It was a lovely ride, the sea was calm and wind not to strong. We pulled up all the sails we had - main, flock and storm jib. We managed to overtake six sailboats that started from Deshaies before us. It made captain really happy. What didn't make him happy was that we didn't catch any fish - again. Last fish we caught was mahi mahi shortly before new year.

We arrived in Falmouth Harbour at around three in the afternoon. While captain went to English Harbour to do the clearing in, Alenka and Grega went to Shirley heights. In the evening we all met for a dinner. Our favorite restaurant, Trappas, was closed, so we ate at Cape Horn, the food was really good and we had a very nice evening.