Adventures to Antigua

People say that Mahi Mahi are as common as rats in a dumpster.  We had managed to catch every type of fish here, apart from the Mahi Mahi...until today.

We left Guadeloupe for Antigua with a warm 7 knot breeze and a benign north east swell and pointed Toodles to Antigua 40 nm away.  Being fairly uneventful, and with Heidi (the autopilot) in charge, we decided to ordain Toodles with noodles to make it more comfortable at the helm.  After Gary had finished making inappropriate gestures with the noodles, we got to work.

We were in the middle of nowhere when we came across three buoys marking fish pots.  Unbeknownst to me, Heidi was given discrete instructions to sail close by.  Suddenly Gary jumped to attention.  He had seen a Mahi Mahi break the surface about 15 metres from the lure and charge from the buoys right at it.  The Mahi Mahi's bull head was pushing a bow wave as it charged.  Gary began making unintelligible sounds even before the rod began to scream.  I slowed the boat and attempted to interpret Gary's yelps of excitement that were really instructions on turning the boat this way and that.  The fish jumped through the air, showing off its iridescent colours.

We had a brief "discussion" regarding whether the fish was too large to keep.  The rule is that it must be able to fit in the chilli bin (aka cooler box) or it gets thrown back.  

"It's not going to fit in the chilli bin" said I

"I need a bigger chilli bin" he retorts

"You're not going to get a bigger chilli bin"

"Get the knife"

"What for?"

"So I can make it fit in the chilli bin"

With head and tail removed, and with a bit of persuasion, it fits in the chilli bin.

We pulled into English Harbour on Antigua with a fridge stocked with fish fillets and a well scrubbed cockpit.   After offloading some of the fillets to a fellow New Zealand boat, we sat down to a Mahi Mahi dinner - Fish Puccata (fish cooked in a garlic, lemon juice and white wine sauce with capers) and a side of sun dried tomato risotto.  My cooking is improving!

Two days and a rental car

So we blobbed for a few days, then put our tourist caps on and rented a car for a tiki tour of Guadeloupe.  

First step - attempt to speak French and ask for a rental car.  Well, actually this was more like go to the tourist information office and ask where the rental car place is, then attempt to find it, fail, then ask a local shop owner to show you where it is, fail to understand them and require them to take you there.  Accomplished!  15 further confusing minutes later we have a car!  This time it is a little silver Ford focus with what felt like a 300cc engine (still beats Plod the death machine).

Next step - drive around the island.  This is more difficult than it sounds.  The island is in a butterfly shape so it isn't a simple circumnavigation.  Everyone was also driving on the wrong side of the road so we had to swerve to miss them all.  Idiots.  We have found that the maps provided by the rental car places are also negligently insufficient.  There is this thick, usually red line that marks the main road, then a few yellow sub-lines that go off in all directions with no names or approximate distance markings.  

We decided to head to the main town Pointe-a-Pitre in the centre of the butterfly.  By a great stroke of luck we made it there via a very impressive highway.  We attempted to exit the highway to get to Pointe-a-Pitre.  We were confronted by a spaghetti junction.  After taking the wrong exit and re-entering the highway three times, we make it.  This was after we had already tried, and failed, to take the cycle lane there.  Although the car was small, there was no way it was going to make it over the pedestrian/cyclist bridge.

Underwhelmed by Pointe-a-Pitre, we continued on to St Anne, a seaside village, for lunch.  Much better.  I was able to order lunch, a drink and the cheque in French, and was understood!  My french was obviously improving.

We spent the rest of the day driving around the island and taking in the views, deciding on what places were good to explore further tomorrow.  One highlight was when we saw a huge iguana fall out of a tree at the side of the highway.  We debated whether it had fallen asleep or encountered a weak branch, but it was clear that it wasn't the first time (nor the last) that this iguana had fallen out of a tree.  It quickly found its feet and after a moments breather, made its way into the bush.

Day two began with a rainforest walk up in the hills where it was nice and cool.  The sound of cicadas chirping rang in our ears for the full hour.  The cicadas here sound different than at home.  Start with the base sound of a cicada, then mix it with the sound of a baby screeching and the sound you would imagine a small dinosaur would make right before it eats you.  We kept to the trail, to make sure we didn't come across said small dinosaur.

In fact, there wasn't just one trek...there were two.  This time it was to a waterfall.  This walk was a lot less challenging than the first, illustrated by the high heeled shoes of the French tourist in the photo.  Their idea of hiking gear differs greatly to ours.

It wouldn't be a fun day out for Katies without some animals thrown in, so Gary took me to the zoo.  Some of it was rather depressing, although the racoons were cute enough to cuddle...which it explicitly said not to, so I used all my will power to hold back.

It wasn't your average zoo.  It had animals ranging from hermit crabs and cockroaches to jaguars and leopards.  It also had a tree top trail with hanging bridges between the biggest trees.  Gary was interested in the termite trails on those trees, as well as the three ordinary nails that were holding up the bridge wires.

Pickle!

Our final stop was Fort Delgres.  Gary went through a fort phase a while back and went to ever fort we went passed.  I got rather tired of seeing forts, but this one was different.  The fort and its grounds were absolutely massive and largely intact.  It even has its own moat.  Each building we passed we thought of how we could best renovate it, loving each building more than the last - the stables, the officers buildings, the jail and the church.  Gary would also comment "your Mum would love this one!"as we approached each and every one.  Unfortunately we didn't get pictures of all them.

Thoroughly impressed with Guadeloupe, we set aside a further day to gorge ourselves on baguette and red wine before heading on to Antigua.

From Trinidad to Guadeloupe

Okay...there was a brief stop on the way in Grenada to say goodbye to our pals Diana and Lane from Dreams Float.  The best thing about cruising has been the people, but then the worst thing about cruising has been saying goodbye.   We had been following Dreams Float for a long time down the islands before we were officially introduced.  We even spent a week anchored right next to them while we were in Antigua and I was hunkered down with a cold.  They just seemed to show up at every island we went to.  Gary briefly met them in Dominica, but it wasn’t until we got to Grenada that we really got to know them.  Along with John and Linda from Kool Kat, Diana and Lane have been our best buds this trip.  We had dinner at each others boats, movie nights, and went to festivals together.  Lane taught me how to cook and managed to convince me that limes were really small lemons (I am that gullible!).  Diana cultivated my spiritual side, opening my mind to new thoughts and ideas.  I wouldn’t have been able to make it through hurricane season, anchored in one spot for months on end, without such awesome friends.

So after one long days sail to Grenada, we up-ed anchor early the next morning and continued on to Guadeloupe.  This consisted of two days and two nights sailing non-stop.  We were far enough offshore to only be able to see the glow of the islands lights at night as we passed them. We were also far enough offshore to get swells, waves, the odd crazy rainsquall and the opportunity to puke into a bucket...ah the pleasures of sailing life.  But honestly it was pretty awesome most of the time.  The nights were moonless and so the starts shone bright.  There were no gaps between the stars, only bright stars with less bright ones around them.  Shooting stars blazed across the sky.  By day we watched flying fish and listened to loud music.  By night we listened to the thud of the flying fish as they hit the hull/backstay/bimini.

In the very early hours of the second night we arrived at Guadeloupe.  We followed the coast up to Deshaies, mesmerised by the lights of the towns alone the coastline.  We reached the harbour about 3am, anchored then slept for a very long time. 

When we eventually awoke to the sound of the church bells, we went into town and bought our first baguette.

Splash

After 7 days on the hard, we have finally gone splash.  The crane broke while removing our mast, and it was down to the wire whether it was going to be fixed in time for our Monday splash.  The part was being flown in and was promised to arrive Wednesday, Thursday, then Friday.... But a miracle happened and the part arrived Monday morning.  The mast was stepped and we were the final boat to splash Monday afternoon.  

We had spent the day running around like headless chickens doing all the last minute things.  One of the items on our list was to check out at customs so we could begin our voyage up to Guadeloupe at 5am the next morning.  By the time we had splashed and had the rig tensioned, the sun was setting.  We mentioned our need to get to customs to Susie and her spaniels, who just happened to be waltzing by.  She informed us that immigration closed at 6pm.  A quick dash for the clock informed us it was 5.45.  We jumped into her rental car and she whizzed us over to customs and immigration.  Arriving at 5.52pm we breathed a sigh of relief, only to be sorely disappointed.  The immigration officer refused to process our papers as there was another boat ahead of us and she was leaving at 6pm on the dot come hell or high water.  Told to return when the office reopened at 6am, we left immigration dragging our heels and began the long walk back to the boatyard where Toodles was still tied up to the travel lift dock.

We stopped by Rodeo and said our final goodbyes to Pickle then collapsed into bed setting our alarms for 5am.  

At first light we got up and began the task of re-attaching the sails, then moved Toodles over to the customs dock.  At 6am we were ready and waiting at the door of immigration.  6am passed and so did 6.30, then 7am.  Just after 7am, the immigration officer arrived to process our papers.  After two minutes he had finished processing and now demanded the overtime fee as today was a public holiday!  In our last few days we had spent all our Trinidad and Tobago dollars, which cannot be exchanged anywhere else in the world.  We paid up and hoped the customs fees would be low.  They weren't.  We were $70TT short (just over $10US).  We searched the boat for extra $TT or $US and came up with $5.45US and $10TT.  Gary ran to the cash machine to get the remainder, a 15 minute jog each way.  When we arrived back at customs we were told they didn't take coins!!! Luckily the cash machine only gave multiples of 20 so we had enough.

Finally, at 8am we cast off the lines, hoisted the sails and set a course for Guadeloupe.

Provisioning for the Pacific

We are told that Trinidad is the cheapest place in this part of the world to buy food, so we have been stocking up LARGE.  We emptied one of the cabins, filled it with plastic crates, rented a car and started buying.

Here in Trinidad there are a number of bulk buy supermarkets.  If you are from NZ, it is like going to a Pak’N’Save on steroids.  One of the stores, Pricemart, is a huge warehouse, at least 4 times larger than any supermarket I have seen in NZ.  You push your oversized trolley around warehouse isles with no fancy shelving in sight.  One side of the store is dedicated to household goods, ranging from 50inch LED televisions, digital cameras, refrigerators and barbeques to socks, prams, beds and Christmas lights.  On the other side is bulk food.  You can’t just buy one pack of muesli bars: they come in packs of 64. 

After 6 trips to various supermarkets, filling our poor rental car to the ceiling until it scrapped over every bump, we think we are done.  We have filled one cabin and every shelf, cupboard, nook and cranny with more than 4 months worth of food and water.  I feel like I am living the “Tomorrow when the war began” dream – if there is a world crisis anytime soon, we are good to go!

Another tick on the Bucket List

Few people may know that Katie, as a child, was deprived of every child’s right – to ride a bike.  Yes Katie’s parents did not even let Katie have a free bike from the neighbours.  They deprived Katie of the joys that come with being a child free to ride around wherever their mind takes them.  They also deprived themselves of hours of bonding time as they nurse a wailing child after they scrape their knee/foot/hand after hitting the tree/pavement/kerb, or just falling off, or removing the plaster after it has stuck to the wound. I was fortunate enough to give my parents many bonding moments over my years of bike riding escapades.

Anyway, about a year ago I took it upon myself to teach Katie to ride a bike.  It was a very stealth mission as we could only advise Katie’s parents post tuition, in case there were any accidents.  To keep this part short, it was a success and Kate was able to ride in a straight line, change gear, and even ride along the long driveway without trainer wheels or being held, although circles were still a challenge.  Well done, Katie.

Kate has decided now that she as a proficient bike rider she is ready for the next challenge – a motorcycle...

Hayden (aka Boo) arrived on his motorcycle a few days ago to help us with some boat maintenance. Ever since, Kate has been lusting over the bike and was desperate for a ride, insisting that it has secretly been on her Bucket List.  This morning I took matters into my own hands and asked Boo to take her out. 

With a massive smile on her face and a few jumps for joy, Kate got her ride on a motorcycle.

I’m hoping that Kate’s new found fondness for motorbikes will mean she will finally allow me to get one when we get back to our land life.  Fingers crossed.

 (Gary)

Goodbye Pickle

Yesterday we said goodbye to our crew mate Pickle the cat.  She returned to her boat Rodeo, set to travel further south to Brazil. 

Pickle has been great entertainment for us.  Not a night went by where she didn’t wake me up by tapping my nose with her paw, licking my back, or bitting my toes.  We taught her how to fist pump like the locals, drink out of a glass, and pretend to use the toilet (classic!).  We tormented her with numerous unwanted cuddles and received many scratches in return.  She chirped at birds and jumped through hatches unexpectedly. She sat in her litter box when we sailed anywhere and gave us a look of utter humiliation.  She sat on or in every bag or box she could find.  We only lost her once, which just so happened to be seconds before her owners arrived to pick her up!  Luckily we found her squeezed into a cubby-hole amongst books and computer cables.

We will miss you Pickle!

Pickle fist bumping