AGUA THERAPY with Don and Glenys Graham: 16th January 2015 Departed Antigua for Barbuda

16th January 2015 Departed Antigua for Barbuda around 11:00 its just about 25 nm.

The sail started quite well with 14 to 16 knots but by 15:00 had dropped to a little over 8 k, oh well never mind we dropped anchor in CoCo Bay Barbuda by 16:45.

We came here before and knew there were some reefs and coral heads to negotiate, this is another very low lying island which you can’t see much of until you are on top of it.

The beach is miles long with reefs coming out from it so we snorkelled on it but the visibility wasn’t too good and we hardly saw much at all in fact we saw more from the boat.

Don scrubbed the hull and fish came all around him to eat the shrimp he scrubbed off.

There were lots of turtles around which popped up to say hello.

We just stayed 4 days and noticed the same yachts that either have followed us from Grenada or us them, one of the other yachts are mutual friends of others we know from Ruffian Ian and Fiona came aboard for drinks.

20th January Next Stop St Barts great a downwind sail, so we thought, up went Big Red, down it came, up went the cruising chute, down it came so we had a 77 nm trip with the engine on the weather forecast wrong again.

This place we like and so we dropped into Pte Colombeir another one of our favourite anchorages and were lucky to pick up one of the free mooring balls. The following day we dinghied through the cut to check in with customs and take a look around. This time no big yacht race going on but some of the huge boys were out in strength together with the owners parading about showing off the posh frocks and jewellery.

23rd January off we go again to Sint Maarten, the Dutch side of the island. A short 18 nm sail with Big red up, its such a nice sail when we fly it. By 12:15 we anchored outside the bridge so Don went in by dinghy to check in then when the bridge opened.

Inside the lagoon we found Mark on Balvenie, we have know Mark and Amanda for roughly 3 years since Cartagena in Spain. We met up a few times for drinks, Amanda is back in New Zealand with family at the moment.

Here are the chandlers which Don paid a few visits to and we managed to do some shopping to fill up our supplies.

We found a great Greek restaurant named Barnacles, the food is lovely and has friendly owners and staff.

http://www.barnaclessxm.com/

This place has a few marinas with a selection of very expensive motor yachts, the late Steve Jobs yacht is there, we wonder who owns it now and just how many millions that one cost.

Not exactly pretty but I expect inside is

We feel extremely small sometimes compared to these big boys

He was following us out

Crowds waving us out

27th January We departed through the bridge then anchored outside the bay for our next stop to the Virgin Isles.

28th January 01:00 departure for a 81nm downwind trip.

Up went big red again in the dark but with only between 7 to 11 knots of wind and just 25 nm done we motored for the remainder of the journey.

More technical problems the chartplotter decided to switch itself off then on and off again.

On the way in through the cut we passed by Necker Island which does look very nice but we didn’t see anyone of interest of famous. The island is surrounded by lots of reefs one of which has 3 plastic palm trees on it.