One of the few extremely relaxed sails of a good 50 miles. Towards the end the waves got a bit nasty but nothing bad really. The wind was never more than force 4-5. There was a full moon all night and it was so bright that everything could be seen. Almost like a winter’s day at home 🙂 I weighed anchor under sail in Guadeloupe and was able to sail all the way into English Harbour, Antigua where I picked up a mooring and rowed ashore right in to the UNESCO world heritage of Nelson’s dockyard and cleared into the country.
This is obviously the Caribbean of the rich and famous. There are huge and shiny yachts and super yachts everywhere you look and the bay where I’m moored is surrounded by mansions and resorts. Towards evening a dinghy came by with two gentlemen who told me that I was tied to their private mooring. I guess everything had been a bit too easy for Amy to be able to sit amid shiny yachts with royal family on board. It was getting dark and I was not at all looking forward to leaving this place and wait outside for 12 hours until dawn to find something else. I was also tired from the night before. I excused myself and said that I didn’t know the moorings were private and that I would leave immediately. But then one of the men said that they were anchored someplace else and they wouldn’t be back for a week or so and I was welcome to use the mooring until then. I couldn’t believe my luck. The bay was very quiet and there were no waves so I had a great sleep.
The next day I applied for my ESTA in order to visit US territory like the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico and also to stop in Florida on my way home. Actually I can’t enter US waters on an ESTA with my own boat but there is apparently a workaround … more on that later. The ESTA was granted only a few hours later.
As I sat in the cockpit with only my underpants drinking coffee and eating scrambled eggs another gent came by in his dinghy and called over: “living the dream…” he then asked where I was from, and after my reply said “I guess you must have really made it over there”. I didn’t know if he was making fun of me. Amy was clearly the smallest yacht around and not as shiny either. But the way he said it and looked made me think he really meant it. And I was in the best of moods and smiled and said thank you.
For going ashore I thought for a moment if I should wear a polo shirt and my real shoes but decided against it and took the dinghy to the supermarket dock and walked around Nelson’s Dockyard in my new shorts and a fairly little used t-shirt and my flip-flops. I took a shower and got water from the pontoon and took a small hike up to the old battery.
