28th March – We eventually left Antigua mid
morning after filling the boat up. All our fuel and water has to come from dock
in jerry cans which is exhausting in 30 degrees of heat! As we motored sailed
away from Antigua the winds were a moderate 10 knots, half an hour out we were
able to turn off the engines and enjoy the peace of the sails. The waves were
small and so the girls enjoyed sitting on the front looking out for
sealife, unfortunately there wasn’t much
to see this time. Isla still managed acrobats despite being strapped on!
The wind dropped to
below 10 knots and we decided to motor sail for the middle 20 miles. As we
neared Guadeloupe Dave had given up hope of catching a fish on this passage, as
he was winding in the line by hand a Spanish mackerel took the lure, nearly
pulling him overboard! Lesson learnt, always tie on when pulling in the fishing
lines! Journey three, fish number three, can’t complain.
Dave portioned the
fish up and some went in the freezer, which is a real luxury. When Dave and I lived
onboard ten years ago we only had a tiny fridge so we had to give quite a bit
of fish away to other boats. I had my first attempt at Sushi which went ok but
we definitely needed some wasabi and pickled ginger to accompany it.
The passage took 7 hours from leaving Antigua and anchoring
in Deshaies, Guadeloupe. The girls did really well on the journey as they had
to stay mostly in the cockpit, they tend to feel sick in their cabins. We
played a lot of eye spy! Deshaies is the first bay in the north of Guadeloupe,
it is a beautiful French fishing village. The first morning we took the dinghy
ashore in search of pain au chocolate. Sitting on the village street drinking
coffee and eating pastries was heavenly.
Just outside the village of Deshaies is the most stunning
botanical gardens. We rang them up and they kindly came to pick us up for free
from the dinghy dock, you certainly wouldn’t get that service in the Uk. I’m
sure some of my floristry friends may appreciate the pictures! I was in my
element surrounded by wild orchids, bird of paradise, ginger flowers. There
were some very friendly parakeets and flamingos which entertained the girls.
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| Wild Orchids |
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| Not sure what it is, but stunning |
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| Pink bananas! |
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| Very friendly parakeets |
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