To Antigua and back

On Monday we sailed north to Deshaies. We caught two barracudas, and all the boys, big and small, were very happy.

The big one was luckily not over 1m in length, so there was no danger of ciguatera poisoning and we could keep it.

After second barracuda there was a ban on fishing - we had enough fish for two days, so captain invented new plan to keep the kids happy.

We reached Deshaies just in time to get some fresh baguettes, and to get cleared out, before the sun plunged into the sea. Heron was one of only three boats in the bay.

Next day we sailed to Antigua to Jolly Harbour, where we stayed at the buoy for the first night. The swell outside was the biggest we've ever seen, with waves breaking on the shallow at the entrance, and making the anchorage unsuitable for the night.

Next day we sailed to Carlisle bay, after some shopping of course. 

From Carlisle bay we sailed to Falmouth Harbour. We stayed there for a day and had a great meal in Trappas. 

Next day we sailed to Nonsuch bay. By then the boys were already accomplished sailors, helping out with anchoring, sailing dinghy etc.

This is how empty Falmouth Harbour looked on our departure.

We picked up a buoy next to the Green island and had really good time in Nonsuch bay.

From Nonsuch bay we sailed around Antigua to St John and to Deep bay. We had some bad luck, the swell has brought a lot of moon jellyfish into the bay and swimming was very unpleasant.

On Tuesday we headed back to Guadeloupe. We had a nice sailing, good wind and not much waves. And also no fish.

Next day the guys did the hike up the river (not me, of course). They brought back a huge bunch of bananas, that they "found" in the jungle. Bananas are still green, hopefully they will get ripe.

Instead I did some snorkeling. 

On Thursday it was time to bring our friends to the airport. We were all sad to say goodbye.

Next  two days we were lazying in Deshaies, cleaning, doing small things around the boat, watching turtles and snorkeling. On Sunday the wind was suitable for sailing to Antigua. Sailing was pretty wild, with plenty of dark clouds and showers around us, and some quite strong gusts of wind. So we had plenty of work with the sails. At the evening both of us were pretty tired.

So here we are again, in Jolly Harbour. Taking advantage of free Internet. We plan to sail to Barbuda in a couple of days, and stay there for a while.

Guadeloupe

On Thursday we picked our friends in Pointe a Pietre, we went into the marina for a day to make boarding easier. Next day we did some serious shopping for food, afterall we were six on board.

Friday afternoon we sailed to Islet Gossier for a swim.

Food is good in France - mousse de canard is my favorite pate.

We sailed to Saintes on Saturday. On the way we caught two tunas, especially kids were really happy.

We anchored behind Paine de sucre, but there was a huge swell coming into the bay from north west. So on Sunday we moved to western island, Terre de Bas, to ancor in Grande Anse bay in the east. It was a rare treat, the easterly wind makes this bay untenable for most of the year. And it is such a lovely bay with great snorkeling.

Arriving at the Saintes

We left St Lucia on Friday morning. On Thursday it was raining most of the day, captain had a hard time getting to land dry to clear out, and by the time we were ready, it was too late to start. So we spent another nice evening with our neighbors, Dana and Wayne.

The weather on Friday was perfect, wind at around 18 knots, not a drop of rain the whole day. Even the waves were not big, maybe 1,5m, which is not often seen here. Passage to Martinique was really nice and fast. For about an hour there was a booby (strmoglavec po slovensko) accompanying us, he tried to catch the flying fish that were jumping out of the water around the boat. There were plenty of fish and he was doing a good job catching them, and also entertaining us.

Captain is having a good time...

 We were quite quick, we reached Martinique in good time. On second-reefed main and a small flock... and a clean bottom, it really makes a difference....

 Last hour before we reached St Pierre on the north of Martinique, the high mountains took away the wind and we had to motor. We reached St Pierre at around 4 in the afternoon and had enough time to swim, had dinner, played sudoku and read books and went to bed early.

Next morning we wanted to start early, we had more than 70 miles to go. But it was not so early as planned, we sailed from St Pierre at 7.30. The weather was even nicer than the day before, a bit less wind - around 14 knots, but even less waves. Heron was making good speed again. We only needed to run engine in lee of Dominica (v zavetrju), but it gave us good opportunity to have lunch. North-west off Dominica we caught a small tuna - so not only was the sailing season started, but also the fishing season.

Late at afternoon we reached Les Saintes.

 The sun was just going down.

 This was probably the longest passage that we made in Caribbean in one day.

 We dropped the anchor in the bay at Paine de Sucre and have a quick swim before it got dark. Next morning the bay looked pretty as ever, I almost forgot how much. We took advantage of lots of hot water and had a laundry day. Captain got us some fresh baguettes from the town and I went snorkeling in the afternoon. Yes, this is the way life should be in France...

 This morning captain again dinghied to town to clear us in (and to get fresh baguettes again - French might be bad at anchoring their boats, but they sure know how to make bread!). And this is a new method how to get dinghy to the boat if one turns off the engine too soon....

Time to sail north

Since we're in the water again, we've done so many boat projects, that I can't even remember all of them. The sails are ready, almost everything in place, checked, cleaned and replaced if it was needed, so Heron is ready to sail again.

Last week we also had two laundry days, just before Rafael reached us. Actually, at the time it reachet St Lucia it was not named yet, it got the name and the status of tropical storm right after it went over us. Nothing bad happened, the wind gust barely reached 30 knots couple of times, which we had plenty of times in winter months last year - on Montserrat, in Deshaies in Guadeloupe, even in Jolly Harbour in Antigua. But Rafael also brought plenty of rain, we managed to fill out water tanks in half an hour. We were reading a lot and playing sudoku. And even in all that rain, Gregory was still delivering fruits and vegetables out to the boats, there was only one day he didn't come. Tough guy! 

It was very educational to observe the development of Rafael from so close, we were following weather reports couple of times per day and it was interesting to see, how accurate (or not) the reports were. We weren't frightened at any time, we felt we were able to flee - inner lagoon is so close, but we are still happy that Rafael developed to hurricane only after passing the Caribbean islands. But I wouldn't like to be on north-west Atlantic right now (if you like, check nhc.noaa.gov ).

Otherwise, nothing much happened, this boat came by one day and we thought it was funny - it's the boat for those forced to live at sea and sail a boat, but would much rather drive a car!

And here is the Unicorn aka Black Pearl again.

I was so glad the other day, when in all the rain that was coming down, I saw a turtle swimming near our boat. It was the first turtle in St Lucia! And with exception of Tobago Cays, which is a natural reserve, we've only seen one more in all the time we're south of Martinique. I'm so much looking forward to Leeward island (the islands north of Matrinique), with all the turtles!

And as it seems, we're sailing north tomorrow. We will sail directly to Guadeloupe with maybe one overnight stop at Martinique. Hope we'll have some good wind and nice weather.

Getting boat back in shape

Living in a boatyard is not my thing. Especially not in a weather like we had - almost no wind, 36 deg C during the day and 30 at night, 28 if we were lucky. And since there was no wind, there were mosquitoes. But luckily we were back in the water after four days. And in the meantime...

Captain was watching every move, every detail, every thing that was done to the boat. Here is Heron coming out of the water.

The bottom of the boat was like a coral reef - barnacles, anemones, crabs, you name it - it was all there.

The boat was first roughly scrubbed and pressure-washed, right there in slings. After that it was too late to move us, so we spent first night in slings.

Next morning the first thing was removing of rudder. It had play at the lower bearing, it wasn't "sitting tight" any more, so it was time to "retighten" it.

Then the boat was moved to more "permanent" location, away from haul-out pier. It was interesting to watch how precise the guys from boatyard moved such a big thing through other boats. There were moments where we thought - this doesn't fit, it will not go through...

... but then it did!

Then the boat got sanded. The captain personally cleaned and polished the propeller - he wouldn't let anybody else touch it.

After that the boat got two coats of anti-fouling paint and rudder got tightened. After some "diplomacy" (and some additional money) we were "splashed" = put back into the water on Sunday noon. The other option was to wait till Tuesday (Monday was a holiday). After seeing that the slings from travel lift took away quite a lot of our new anti-fouling paint, which obviously wasn't dry enough, we were sorry, we didn't go in a hotel for two days and wait till Tuesday. It wouldn't have cost us much more. Well, we'll be smarter next time...

Maybe you don't recognize this one - it is called Unicorn, and is better known as Black Pearl. Yes, the one from Pirates of Caribbean. It is "parked" in boatyard in Rodney Bay. It looks nice, even from up close.

Our friends Dana and Wayne, that we met in boatyard, and their boat Journey, went into water on Saturday, one day before us. When we came out on Sunday, we anchored in Bay right next to them and we had some nice evenings together.

Returning to Caribbean

We had such a great time in Slovenija. We managed to do almost everything we set out to do, to see almost all the people we wanted to see and spent quite some time with our families. We are so lucky to have such loving and generous families and friends.

While in Slovenija we stayed at our house. The grapes were just getting ripe ...

and everything was lush and green ....

With my parents we made a trip to Balaton lake in Hungary. There was a cute little marina in Badacsony ...

... and some ducks right next to it.

This is a Little Balaton, a bird sanctuary. All the birds were either hiding in the vegetation or were to far for a good photo.

Ten weeks were over too soon and it was time to return to Heron, our other home. Saying good byes was very hard and emotional, but we both started to miss the sea and warm Caribbean weather.

Journey back was long, Air France changed one of the flights and made us travel through Paris from one airport to another by bus with all our luggage. I almost swore never to fly with them again, but then they made up for it on the flight from Paris to Martinique - with unlimited quantities of red wine, good food and lots of space to sleep in half empty plane. 

In Martinique we were lucky to find tourist office on airport still opened and the nice lady made some phone calls for us. First she found out that the ferry that brought us from St Lucia wasn't operating due to low season. That meant we would need to take the big regular ferry, but to Castries and not to Rodney Bay. She also booked a hotel for us in Fort de France, right next to ferry dock, so we wouldn't have too far to go the next day. Hotel was not very good, but we were really tired and slept well and long. Next day was Sunday and everything was closed in Fort de France. We finally found a cafe to have a drink, and then had a snack in McDonalds !!! The only other restaurant that was open was way to pricy. I never thought i would eat in McDonalds, let alone in France!

The ride to St. Lucia was bumpy and lots of people were sick. Not us, of course. After spending at least an hour in customs and immigration, we finally made it to marina at 6.30 in the evening. Marina office was already closed and only security people were around. And noone with the boat to take us and our suitcases to the buoy to Heron. After a while captain found a water taxi. The ride was expensive, but cheaper than hotel, which was our only other option.

We found Heron in great shape, we were happy that all was ok, there were hardly any traces of mold. All the cleaning and preparation work we've done before leaving certainly paid of. 

Next day we spent on floating dock in marina. Here is Heron, still without sails, but already with bimini and sprayhood - shade is essential - and anchor.

The rest of our floating dock.

On Tuesday we moved out to the bay, to have clean sea around us to swim. We had two beautiful days, with perfect caribbean weather.

And today we are "on hard" - early afternoon Heron was lifted out of the water, was scraped and pressure-washed. In next days she will get two new coats of anti-fouling paint. Hopefully we will survive couple of more days living in the boatyard.

Back to land life

How time flies..... It is now four weeks since we left St Lucia. Last days there were filled with work, we did or best to prepare the boat as much as possible for hurricane season. Even the captain was happy with the results.

On Friday, 13th, we traveled the first leg of our journey with this speedy boat to Martinique. 23 knots of speed is something we will for sure not see on our Heron.

In the evening we flew with Air France from Martinique via Paris to Ljubljana. Food was good, wine also :-) and i was watching movies all night, among them also Some like it hot, one of my favorites - i had some catching up to do after whole year without tv!

First days were a shock for us - weather was rainy and cold, and we just couldn't get over jet lag.  It took quite some time until we got into new rhythm and started to function normally. We have been very busy - there is a lot of work and cleaning to be done inside and around the house, there are some legal things to be taken care of, doctors to be visited, finance and tax matters to be solved....

But there are also much nicer things - like meeting family and old friends, visiting places, spending time with our cats... And a lot of good food everywhere. We are enjoying every moment of it.

Tinka....

... Bela...

... and Schnuki.