Hooray SAILING!! Antigua 

Nonsuch Bay is flat. Kite surfers hit the water just after breakfast and slide back and forth through the anchorage inside the reef all day. We slept as if offshore yet on a pond. It’s a magical place with a full moon. Reefs breaking and roaring yet Madame still, rigging whistling, morning rainbows.

Morning had us tightening up for offshore. We left out of the bay with 2 yachts more than twice our size rolling over the long swells less than a quarter the size of the York Bank just 48 hours earlier. We decided to keep encouraging Quinn and his new indefatiguable sea legs  by taking a right out of the bay and sailing the long way, downwind, round Antigua to the main port of St John to have the fridge re-re-re-repaired before we found ourselves in the less service oriented Montserrat or French -lost in translation- Guadeloupe.

This is how Kelly eats lunch in Nonsuch Bay!

St. John is commercial and empty of transients so we dropped into Deep Bay just south and anchored upwind of the shipwreck in ten feet of water surrounded by some 15 sailboats, both charter and international. Fridgeless, we went ashore to forage for dinner and wound up taking a very expensive taxi to a very expensive restaurant that was all too pleased to have children (the bit about the children is sarcasric, the rest…nope).  It was fun to meet up with Kelly’s high school classmate Kim, her husband and 2 sons who are living in Antigua for school. Dinner was good and the ride back to the beach where we left our dinghy – then the ride back to St. John’s to an ATM – because apparently I don’t listen well when Kelly asks if I have cash for the taxi-all fine. Just late and dark and tired.  An epic day of sailing on all points of sail. Main reefed then shaken, genoa in and out, gybes, wing on wing sailing inside the reef. Fantastic and great fuel for a hard sleep on the hook.

School at anchor the following morning followed by a very short ride back to Jolly Harbour so we could re-re-restart our refrigeration reclamation repair and reconstruction reruns. We found a mooring and called my new friend Marlon.

One and a half days of squirting various gassses, vacuums, heat lamps and the generator running for 20 hours straight we SEEM to have refrigeration again. St Maarten, St Bart’s, St Kitts, Nevis, Guadeloupe and Antigua with no perishables for more than a day or two. We actually were getting used to it but it’s a pretty big problem long term for a family of 5. Especially as we’re headed to more out of the way spots like Montserrat. Really hoping this will be the ticket. It’s cold as I write this (fingers crossed).

Sooooo, tomorrow morning we need to clear out of Antigua & Barbuda, fuel the boat, dinghy and the jerry cans, break down the dinghy and lash her to the deck, provision while we have our favorite grocery store across the street and set sail for a volcano!

Apparently Montserrat has a deeply Irish heritage and the best St Patrick’s day festival in the Caribbean. The party starts at 5am to celebrate the slave revolt then goes all day full speed Irish style. There’s only a few thousand residents and a large part of the island is forever frozen in lava so we’re in for quite an experience. Plus, our forecast is for 20-25 knots aft of the beam with 5-7 foot seas. It’s going to be a fast and fun sleigh ride to St Patrick’s day!!

I’ll leave our report on all things Irish to our “potatoes in the blood” correspondant Kelly O’Dougherty after the dust settles. Wear green and hoist a pint to Madame Geneva!

Stay tuned. Much love!

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