Voyages from 1998 to 2007



Summary Log #5 Caribbean - Feb. 2006 to 2007

 

Antigua to Venezuela

Veleda IV left Mindelo in the Cape Verde Islands at the end of January 2006 for a swift Atlantic crossing, covering 2100 miles in 16 days downwind to make landfall at English Harbour in Antigua. We spent a couple of months there at anchor off nelson's Dockyard, enjoying the comradeship of the Royal Naval Tot Club of Antigua and Barbuda, as well as hauling out for a few days for replacements of some through hull fittings and bottom painting. We sailed to a couple of other anchorages on the west coast near St. Johns, and up to Barbuda to visit the frigate bird rookery.

Towards the end of March we departed for Montserrat to see the destruction of the southern portion of that unfortunate island. While there we met a couple, Dwight and Stephanie, who became good friends we were to see later in our travels. We then sailed down to Guadeloupe, enjoying it and motoring through the centre of this two-lobed island down the Riviere Salee to spend several days in Pointe A Pitre, where we rented a car to tour the two mountains on Basse Terre. Little did we know that nine months later we would be seeking shelter on the west coast of Basse Terre while heading back to Antigua. We spent a pleasant few days in Iles des Saintes, a group of small laid back islands, part of Guadeloupe, where we enjoyed the fort and museum and learned about the historic naval Battle of The Saintes, where a French fleet was destroyed by the British.

Sailing south with good easterly winds we anchored in Portsmouth in Dominica, and enjoyed a tour of the island's volcanic areas, the tropical rain forest, and a boat ride up the Indian River. As there are few other good anchorages on the island, we picked up a reasonably expensive mooring buoy off Roseau, but did not bother going ashore there as we were in transit to another French island, Martinique. We bypassed St. Pierre on the north part of the island, as we mistakenly thought the shoreline was too deep for safe anchoring, and went directly down to anchor at Fort de France for a few days. While there we took a bus up to St. Pierre to see that town which was destroyed by the pyroclastic volcanic explosion of Mount Pelee in 1902, killing over 30,000 people. We enjoyed Fort de France and like the ambience of the French Caribbean islands. We anchored across the big inlet at Anse Noire before departing the island. Just to the south of Martinique is a big islet called Diamond Rock, also known as HMS Diamond Rock, as the British occupied it for a couple of years to watch and deter any French vessels transiting the south of the island.

However the main British base was 25 miles south at Rodney Bay in St. Lucia. We didn't anchor in the large well protected lagoon, but in the outer bay. We did not do any touring in St. Lucia, and were not impressed by the people we encountered. (No warm fuzzies) We did enjoy the inner lagoon anchorage of Marigot Bay half way down the west coast, but we understand now it is all privately developed and a boat can only pick up a mooring buoy owned by the resort chain. We did pick up an economical mooring buoy off the bat cave in the national park at Soufriere, with a fantastic view of the Pitons, two gigantic cone shaped extinct volcanoes that are the main symbol and attraction for St. Lucia. Again we toured volcanic areas and tropical rain forest preserves.

The only stop we made on St. Vincent, the next island south, was at Wallilabou, a setting for the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. The shore is steep to and so we took a mooring at the Anchorage Hotel, an unfortunate experience because of the aggressiveness of some of the boat boys. Before we left we had an altercation with a boat boy working for the hotel, bitching because he only got a $5.00 tip for providing $2.50 of water to Veleda.

However, the spectacular Grenadines are part of the same country, and we enjoyed our anchorage in Bequia in Admiralty Bay, watching the boats participating in the Race Week there. The Tobago Cays offered a dramatic anchorage for us, sheltered by a reef exposed the force of the Atlantic Ocean, and we enjoyed seeing the iguanas and vegetation on the uninhabited windswept islands of that area. Before leaving we anchored at Saltwhistle Bay on Mayreau for an exotic view over the sandy palm tree lined lagoon. Down on Union Island we anchored in Chatham Bay, and then went over to Clifton to check out. There we met two couples chartering a boat for their holidays who were from our home club of the Toronto Hydroplane and Sailing Club. Small world!

On down to Carriacou, where we checked in at Hillsborough, but enjoyed the anchorage of Tyrrel Bay for several days before heading down to Grenada. Here we anchored in St. George's, then went around to Prickly Bay and the other south coast anchorages, especially Hog Island. We spent from May to August in Grenada, our favourite island, and enjoyed their Carnival in August.

At the end of August we went the 90 miles down to Tobago for a week or so, then on to Chaguaramus on Trinidad where we enjoyed Carifesta. From Trinidad we took a 10 day trip down to the Orinoco Delta in Venezuela where we went 60 miles up the Manamo River, part of the delta system.

Trinidad back to Antigua

Based back in Chaguramus in Trinidad we visited a couple of nearby islands and anchorages before heading north again, as it was now nearing the end of the hurricane season.

In October, we went back to Grenada, our favourite island, spending time mostly in Prickly Bay and Hog Island, and enjoyed the company of Peter and Anne Harris, friends from northern Ontario. In November we started working our way up the Lesser Antilles to Tyrrel Bay on Carriacou, stopping for a night at the small island of Petit Martinique before going over to the Grenadines where we stopped for a few days to anchor in Saline Bay on Mayreau, then back over to anchor in Admiralty Bay on Bequia. While there we caught a ferry over to Kingstown on St. Vincent for a morning.

We then sailed the length of St. Vincent directly up to the north end of St. Lucia to anchor in the lagoon at Rodney Bay. After a couple of days we went up to the French island of Martinique to anchor in Marin, an enjoyable cruiser friendly town. It was now December and we wanted to be in Antigua for Christmas, and so sailed past Dominica, planning a 200 mile direct passage to English Harbour. However heavy weather caused us to put in after only 113 miles to Riviere Sens, on the southwest coast of Basse Terre on Guadeloupe. From there we put in at Deshaies on the northwest coast of Basse Terre, as the weather was still too heavy for the crossing to Antigua, which we did the following day, arriving in English Harbour Dec. 6, and anchoring up the harbour in Ordnance Bay, a quiet well sheltered lagoon.

After an enjoyable Christmas Eve dinner with the Royal Naval Tot Club and festivities at Nelson's Dockyard at Christmas, we were joined New Year's Eve by Doug Caldwell who had sailed with us before and likes passage making, as we were planning a direct 1200 mile passage from Antigua to Cuba. However, it was not to be!

Attempted Passage to Cuba

We set sail Jan. 4 in the new year of 2007 from Antigua in brisk force 6 winds. Doug is a welcomed crew member as he not only can stand his own watch (usually the morning watch from 0400 to 0800), but insists on taking us out to restaurants for meals when at anchor, or at least making tea and coffee for us in the morning and doing all the dishes after each meal. However, next day when we were 120 miles out, Doug scalded his wrist with boiling water while making coffee.

We had passed Montserrat, Redonda, Nevis, and St. Kitts, and returning to any of these would have been to go against 25 to 30 knot easterly winds. We initially thought the closest port with a hospital would be Puerto Rico. However on checking our C-map we realized St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands was only 75 miles away, another half day's sail, unfortunately getting us in at night. The entrance to Christiansted is a twisting shoal-strewn passage, especially tricky as there was no moon, and we have no radar or working depth sounder, but we managed. We got Doug to the local hospital next morning where it was recommended he return home to get ongoing treatment involving debriding the severe second degree burns. We were sad to see him go, but it was necessary.

On we went two days later, along the north coast of St. Croix with another 1000 miles to go. We continued sailing east, south of Puerto Rico and as we transited the Mona Passage between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic 50 miles south of the DR, with good NE winds from 10 to 20 knots for the next three days; then the wind picked up to blow from 25 to 40 knots (Force 8 gale conditions). We double reefed the main and genoa, and a Dinghy Tow bracket fractured from the incessant pounding of 12 to 15 foot following waves. We got it under control and lashed securely. Then our Raymarine self steering system started to act up, spontaneously shutting down. We were being badly pounded by quartering waves bashing against the hull. We wanted to find shelter, and so as we were passing the southwestern end of the Dominican Republic 20 miles away, we made for the southern cape, called Cape Beata, and anchored off a small hamlet just west of the cape, after 400 miles from St. Croix. We just rested, happy to be out of the gale force winds and did not go ashore. However the surge came around the cape and made for a very rolly night, causing us to go a few miles up the coast next day to anchor in a more settled bay off a national park and bird sanctuary.

Next day we motor sailed another 25 miles up to anchor at Cabo Rojo in the DR a few miles from the Haitian border, as Judy wanted to call her dad to assure him we were OK. She was unable to do so, and so we left next day for the last 400 miles to Cuba.

However, after the next 100 miles, our Raymarine self steering really acted up and we had to constantly handsteer, hour on hour, off for the rest of the trip. What to do? Repair or shipping to the USA for repairs was not likely in Cuba, and so we modified our course for Jamaica, still 185 miles away. We tried to make a night entry into Port Morant, on the SE coast of Jamaica, but as the lights indicated on our electronic charts were not operational, we anchored outside the bay, after 36 hours of hour on hour off watches at the helm. Next day we went to Kingston Harbour to stay at the Royal Jamaica Yacht Club for three weeks while the unit was sent back to the U.S. and returned, repaired under warranty. We enjoyed our stay in the RJYC and went to several of the cays outside of Kingston Harbour, as well as taking a trip into the Blue Mountains and out to Port Royal of piratical times.

Cuba by this time was out as we had to be back in Antigua with plane reservations, and we faced 1100 miles upwind if we returned directly. However we instead set off up the Windward Passage for the Turks and Caicos Islands in order to get a better angle of attack towards the Dominican Republic north shore. The passage up the Windward Passage was the heaviest and most uncomfortable we have experienced as we had to tack, motor sailing against wind and current. We travelled 515 nautical miles to go a straight line course of 380 miles over a five and a half day very uncomfortable motor sail to anchor in Sapodilla Bay on Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands on Feb. 13. After a few days there, we sailed 45 miles across the Caicos Banks to Big Ambergris Cay for two nights awaiting weather, then another 34 miles to Big Sand Cay, an uninhabited cay, as a staging point for our 83 mile stormy and rainy trip over to Luperon in the Dominican Republic, completing our first year in the Caribbean.

Incidentally, we had no paper charts or pilots for St. Croix, the DR, Jamaica, or the Turks and Caicos Islands; relying on our C-map, GPS, and Van Sant's book, "Passages South -The Thornless Path to Windward".

Judy is unhappy with major passages and for the next year we will plan mostly single day sails from anchorage to anchorage as we work our way back down the Caribbean for next hurricane season. The attached map shows the basic routes we took over this past year.

Summary of distances travelled (at 5 miles an hour)

- Mid Feb. 2006 to end of Feb. 2007 in the Caribbean

Antigua to Venezuela to Antigua to Jamaica and the DR ` - 3,391 Nautical miles

plus

- Atlantic crossing from Cape Verdes to Antigua (Feb. 2006) - 2,196 Nautical miles

Total for Feb. 1 2006 to Feb. 28 2007 - 5,587 Nautical miles

Total distance traveled since departure in July of 1998 - 36, 325 Nautical Miles

Total distance traveled in Jan. and Feb. 2007 - 1,719 Nautical Miles