One of the best parts of being at anchor in Falmouth Antigua is the beautiful sunrises. While I’ll admit that I am partial to sunsets, a sunrise over the land in Falmouth is particularly beautiful. Over the years I have taken many photos at that special time of day, one more beautiful than the last.
With many conjuring images of, well, you decide…
I am getting excited about returning to Pandora in a week as we begin to wrap up the activities here in CT. It’s hard to believe that it’s only a few days until Christmas. Time flies as I have been away from Pandora for over a month and yet it seems like just yesterday that I arrived back at JFK. What a whirlwind…
This morning my friend Jay, who has been keeping an eye on Pandora while I have been away, sent me this photo, taken shortly after sunrise today.
Our flight takes us to Antigua next Friday and we will turn the page from the fun but hectic holidays. I do enjoy seeing family over Thanksgiving and Christmas but keeping up with all the details of managing a boat along with a home can be overwhelming at times. Just deciding what we need to bring with us to Antigua is complicated enough but getting the house ready, blowing out all of the water pipes, putting antifreeze in the toilets, washing machine, dishwasher, icemaker, is a real head spinner that takes nearly a half day.
We take great care to make sure that everything at home is immune to freezing as a power failure for even a few hours during a cold snap can reek havoc. One of our neighbors had a broken pipe last winter and their entire kitchen and den were destroyed. The ceiling came down, cabinets and floor destroyed. The only thing out of their den and kitchen that was salvaged was the granite top to their kitchen island. Half of the house was stripped down to the bare studs and a year later the repairs are not yet completed.
Fingers crossed that I won’t forget anything. I have been doing the winterizing for a decade now and even with long outages, we have never had any damage.
Our plan, upon arriving in Antigua, will be to move aboard for the night and than heading to nearby English Harbor for the New Year’s celebration the next morning after I clean the bottom. It is probably a mess after sitting for more than a month.
New Year’s eve in the Dockyard is an amazing experience. To sit on the bow of Pandora watching the midnight fireworks as we ring in the new year is an experience not to be missed.
While we are in the Dockyard we are hoping to organize a group to hang out on the docks after dinner but before the midnight display. It’s amazing to see how many locals show up to view the spectacle.
And, on New Year’s Day, another party in the dockyard. And we will be participating in a progressive cocktail party with other Salty Dawg boats.
They really decorate the dockyard for the holidays.
And, of course, lots of beautiful sunrises to look forward to this winter that will surely rival the New Year’s Eve fireworks display.
No, nothing quite like a sunrise in Antigua from aboard Pandora.
In about two weeks Brenda and I will head back to Antigua and Pandora. Plans are mostly in place for getting some work done on Pandora in Trinidad next summer. After spending many years cruising the waters of the eastern Caribbean, Brenda has begun asking the question of why we have to do this for yet another season.
I’ll admit that I am not all that excited about heading to the same places yet again and frankly was looking forward to heading to the northern islands this season, and perhaps spending some time in the Bahamas again. However, the work that needs to be done, painting the decks etc, is just too expensive to do elsewhere so Trinidad it is. Of course, this whole exercise will be made even more complex due to the fact that I will need to change insurance carriers to one that will cover Trinidad for the summer.
Sure, it does seem a bit bratty to suggest that spending time on white sandy beaches and eating French food while others are up north braving sub freezing temperatures is something to tire of but these are our “golden years” and we want to make the best of them.
In my last post, I talked about the importance of having goals and while this is very common for folks during their working years, I believe that many retire, or perhaps put off retirement, as they just don’t know what they will do with themselves without a job to keep them occupied.
I have always been goal oriented and having goals in retirement is no exception.
So, Eastern Caribbean, been there done that… What’s next?
My dad, who was inspiration for this blog for many years, once said “Bob, wouldn’t it be great to see Gibraltar from the deck of Pandora?”. It’s been a decade since he left us but I have not been able to get that image out of my head and just about every year I turn my thoughts to “what about cruising the Med?”, always pushing it to the background.
Let’s face it, Brenda isn’t all that crazy about living for months aboard Pandora and yet she does, year after year. I am grateful for that and constantly feel compelled to do what I can to make the experience more rewarding for her. However, it does get harder each year. So, where does the Med fit into all this?
I have mentioned many times that Brenda and I met in high school back in the 70s and I should add that during that time she studied Latin. In college she majored in the classics, both Latin and Greek and as part of her studies, spent semesters in both Italy and Greece. She loved being there and yet we have not visited those places together.
Our boys have commented our time on the water “is a lifetime of Dad trying to make Mom like sailing”. That’s true and as someone who is self-described as “ever hopeful”, perhaps time in the Mediterranean could fill the bill as a next step. And, back to the Classics, I’d say that if Homer thought that the best way to tour the Med was by boat, who are we to say that he was wrong. Right? Yeah… I’m goin with that…
When you think about the nearly 50 years that Brenda and I have cruised together and the reality that I am still trying to find that elusive “sweet spot” for time on the boat with her, some might say that I am just about out of ideas. We have cruised the US East Coast from Maine to south Florida, all through the Bahamas, much of Cuba and most recently the Eastern Caribbean from the Virgins to Grenada.
So far, nothing has quite filled the bill for Brenda once the novelty has worn off. So, what’s left? Beyond the Med, I am just about out of ideas…
Additionally, we haven’t had a lot of success in getting our kids to join us in the Caribbean. Hey guys? Want to visit us in the French Riviera? Na… Oh, well.
I’d say that revisiting our youth and Brenda’s love of the classics. So, I’m thinking, follow in the footsteps of Homer.
It’s worth a try.
The plan, for 2025 although admittedly still in it’s infancy, is to launch Pandora after getting work done i Trinidad next summer, perhaps early winter and work our way north through the Eastern Caribbean. In the spring of 2025 I would run to Bermuda, onto The Azores and finally to Portugal where Pandora would be hauled for the season and relaunched in the fall for a run to Spain.
The run from the Caribbean to Portugal totals about 3,700 miles. Leg one, about 900 miles to Bermuda where perhaps I’d do a crew change. Then across to The Azores, another 2,000 miles and from there to Portugal.
Along the way I would stop in The Azores, a place that I never imagined going and yet have always been fascinated by. There are plenty of YouTube videos about the area but this piece is pretty good and is short, less than 5 minutes. It gives a pretty good feel I think.
The real gateway to the Med is Gibraltar. Brenda and I almost visited there when we spent a month in Portugal a while back. I think that this would be a great place to meet up with her. This is a short piece by Rick Steves, the travel writer.
Looks awesome. Dad was right.
Oh yeah, any video about Gibraltar shows the famous monkeys. When we were in St Kitts a few years ago Brenda had her “monkey encounter”. An omen?
In the Azores video there is a reference to the Pillars of Hercules. There is a rock formation at the entrance of English Harbor by the same name.
Pillars of Hercules in Antigua and Gibraltar? Coincidence? I don’t think so.
One big issue will be insurance and that may prove to be quite a challenge. Even insurance to run to the Caribbean during the “hurricane off-season” has become very expensive. I have been working on coverage for Pandora this coming summer in Trinidad and that’s proving to be a bit of challenge. My current policy only allows me to go as far south as Grenada, about 85 miles north of Trinidad. And, most applications require a survey within two years and my last full survey is only a few months more than that. I guess I should have moved forward on these plans a few months ago.
I know that spring of 2025 is still a long way off but without a plan, you don’t have much.
In spite of all this, who really knows what will happen next but thinking and planning is fun. Right?
As of now though, I do know that we will be heading back to Pandora in about two weeks and the answer to where Pandora is headed next is simple. The Caribbean, a nice place to spend the winter and that’s a pretty sure thing.
It’s hard to believe that Brenda and I are entering our second decade of winter cruising. We have visited so many places along the US east coast, Bahamas, Cuba and most of the islands between the US Virgins and Grenada and I have to say that we feel the most at home in Antigua. For anyone who follows our exploits and this blog, that statement will not come as a surprise.
Antigua has a lot going for it as a cruising destination beginning with its’ physical location, the eastern most island in the Windward and Leeward Caribbean chain of islands where just about any other destination is a reach or down wind.
Aside for those who cruise the area, the appeal of Antigua, and of the other islands south of the Virgins is not widely known. This is because most of the material out there is focused on the Virgin Islands. The simple fact is that advertising is critical to any publishing business and with advertisers heavily weighted toward the charter industry and the vast bulk of Caribbean charters focused on the British Virgin Islands, that’s what they write about. So, as the advertising goes, writers follow. Result: “go sailing in the BVI!”
If you pick up just about any consumer marine magazine you will see many articles about chartering, and often they only focus on the BVI and USVI area. As a result, in the popular press there is just not a lot of information about cruising the many islands to the south.
And, after speaking to so many first time seasonal cruisers in my role as rally director for Salty Dawg, I can tell you that there is often “asymmetry” with couples that are planning to cruise, with one, often the women, who is more reluctant to head out, especially to the Caribbean, which is so far from home. An obvious compromise when negotiating about plans, is to say “honey, we had fun chartering in the BVI, how about we go there?”. On the face of it, this makes sense but for practical purposes, for cruising, it doesn’t make a lot of sense as a landfall.
I faced this quandary, or information vacuum, when Brenda and I first began cruising the Caribbean and when we made landfall in Antigua that first time, I had absolutely no idea what to expect.
So, fast forward to now and a lot has happened. Historically the Salty Dawg Rally made landfall in the BVI and now is fully focused on Antigua. I have covered the reasons why in past posts but the simple fact is that Antigua has a lot going for it with the cruising set, beginning with the geographic location as the most eastern island in the chain.
Antigua’s location east of other islands means that whether you are heading south to Grenada, to the islands to the north or west of Central America, a reach to most anywhere, which makes for much better sailing. By contrast, if someone chooses to make landfall in, say the BVI on their way south, getting to other islands down-island means heading directly into the wind for hundreds of miles, a decidedly unpleasant business. The better option for visiting the BVI is to do so on the way home in the spring as it will be a down wind sail.
Nearly half of the boats that make the run to Antigua each season with the Salty Dawg Rally are heading to Antigua for the very first time and they have no idea what to expect, any more than I did the first time I headed there. This means that our group, SDSA and me as port officer for Antigua, find ourselves in the role of “concierge”, guiding skippers on what to expect and what sorts of services are available to them when they get there. I focus a lot of my efforts to this end, trying to cover everything I can think of to help them better understand what’s in store.
To this point, I have become a sort of self styled “Antigua evangelist”, constantly looking for ways to bring boats to Antigua.
Beyond the physical location of Antigua, the next most important aspect is the protected harbors, mainly Falmouth and English Harbors. These are arguably the two most protected harbors in the Caribbean and Nelson’s Dockyard perhaps among the most iconic places to make landfall anywhere. This is English Harbor off-season, a fully renovated British Royal Navy yard from the age of sail.
Make landfall here and you will see for yourself why the Royal Navy make this wonderful harbor it’s base of operations in the Caribbean for hundreds of years. I was smitten by my very first visit.
As Salty Dawg brings so many boats to Antigua, and do so early in the season, our presence has an outside effect on the local economy. We have loads of special events and hundreds of skippers and crew bring money to spend.
The third reason to choose Antigua is the availability to get stuff fixed. A long ocean passage puts a lot of wear and tear on a boat and when we arrive in Antigua, there are businesses that can come aboard to fix just about anything that needs to be addressed. Take 80 boats onto the ocean for up to two weeks and that’s a lot of broken stuff. While I am always careful to be sure that Pandora is in top shape before heading out, there are some things that can be put off until Antigua where labor rates are less than the US by about 30% or more. It is still more costly than Trinidad where may boats stay for the summer.
As president of Salty Dawg I have often been called upon to talk about why our rally comes to Antigua and on three occasions now I have been interviewed by the local TV station to talk about Salty Dawg and our relationship with the island.
Last spring before heading home to the US I was interviewed live on the morning news to talk about Antigua and why we have come to think of the island as our home in the Caribbean.
When I retired my goal, and nobody should retire without one, was to focus my energy on something that I was passionate about.
Surely, sailing is a passion and has been for decades but Antigua and my desire to spread the word about this island and it’s people has also become a focus.
While many cruisers desire to head to warmer climes when they can, very few know much about the islands in the South East Caribbean and getting that word out has become a passion of mine.
And, to that end, one of my friends told me a few years ago that from his perspective, “the real Caribbean, begins in St Martin and the islands to the south”. I have to agree.
I feel blessed to be able to say into the second decade as “retired guy” I am blessed with a passion and the time to spread the word about Antigua and the islands of the eastern Caribbean.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been 8 years, since Brenda and I first visited Antigua.
I recall being smitten with the island when Brenda and first visited in 2017, after having made my original landfall in the BVI. From the BVI to the next island to the south (east actually) St Martin, was a terrible slog, directly into the wind, for nearly 100 miles. I recall being told that the run south to St Martin from the BVI, directly east and into the trade winds, “was fine if you waited for a cold front”. Sure, as long as you have time to kill, which we didn’t, so slog we did. It was a terrible way to inaugurate Brenda to cruising the Caribbean.
I have always said that the BVI was a perfect place to spend a week long charter but for the cruising set, not great. It’s crowded and most of the popular spots loaded with moorings. And, for most of our cruising friends, avoiding the charter boats, as they really don’t know what they are doing, is our goal. Anyway, I loved visiting the BVI when we flew there and stayed in a hotel years ago but as part of the cruising community, not so much.
When we visited Antigua the first time, I had no idea at all what to expect as I actually had never met anyone that had sailed there. That first visit to the island was in February of 2017 and I wrote about the final leg from St Barths to Antigua, my first post about the island that would become our favorite place in the Caribbean.
From that visit on, I made it my mission to convince the Salty Dawg board to send the rally to Antigua. I’ll admit that my first attempts did not go well. “Nope, the rally will continue to go to the BVI.” More than once I was accused for being too aggressive about pushing Antigua.
But I persisted. And, as luck would have it, if I dare call it luck, two hurricanes thrashed the BVI less than a month from when the 2017 rally to the Caribbean was to begin. As the BVI had sustained so much damage, we had to do something so I took the opportunity to set up a fairly large number of arrival events in Antigua, more than we had ever been able to muster in the BVI, and did so within a few short weeks. If the truth was to be told, for the last few years that the rally went to the BVI it was becoming increasingly difficult to get supporters there to welcome the fleet.
The real problem with the rally and the BVI is that the businesses there are more focused on the big spending one week charter and not on the slower paced cruising community.
The simple fact is that in order to have a partnership work, both parties must have goals that are in sync. And, there was always a bit of a disconnect with that the Dawgs wanted verses what the businesses in the BVI were looking for. The Dawgs were the tortoise part of the Tortoise and the Hare, and the one week, “slam bam, thankyou mam” approach of the charter crowd, was what they were looking for. The fact is that while cruisers spend plenty each season, they do not spend as much in a single week as charter boats spend.
It took another year or so but eventually the rally gave up on the BVI and now heads to Antigua every year.
Fast forward to this fall and amazingly, of those supporters that hosted events for us in the first few years, all but one have continued to host events every year since then. And, the one that skipped a few years, has again expressed an interest in doing something with us in late December. She’s a small art gallery and the pandemic hit her hard.
The simple fact is that what the Dawgs want from Antigua and those on the island want from us, are in sync. Our early season arrival is key as having 80 boats descend on them weeks before anyone else shows up is important to many businesses on the island. And many, probably most, of us arrive with broken stuff on our boats that needs to be fixed.
Having skippers and crew arrive ready to party with boats that need repairs is a magical combination for Antigua. Their season is short and to have hundreds of visitors come to the island to spend money a few weeks early, make our presence of outsize importance to the economy.
My friend Tom, who arrived on another boat a week before our rally showed up sent me this photo of the dockyard. Nearly empty…
Less than two weeks later the Dockyard filled to capacity, and nearly all the boats were from our rally.
I have gotten to know a lot of people on the island and have developed some nice friendships. Last spring, before I headed north and back to the US, I met with my friend Zoe for a wide ranging interview about Salty Dawg and my views on Antigua.
Not surprisingly, Zoe, like so many in Antigua, has a lovely British accent.
It’s always nice to show up in Antigua and have so many say “hi Bob, welcome back”.
This year the very first welcome was by my friend Isabella, who runs a lovely little French restaurant in English Harbor. While I was waiting to be put on the dock that first morning in Antigua, I heard “Hi Bob” and saw Isabella waving wildly from the dock in front of her restaurant. A moment later she sent out a skiff with some still warm croissants. Here is a photo that she took of her skiff visiting Pandora.
So, here I am, home in CT on the last day of November, busy visiting family and enjoying the holidays. Lots to look forward to in the coming months. (I won’t talk about the terrible cold that Brenda and I have)
Oh yeah, it’s cold outside and I am wearing a sweater.
Next step, after a few weeks of whirlwind visits to family, back to Antigua in time to see the New Year’s Eve fireworks from the bow of Pandora.
For sure, Antigua still loves the Dawgs and the Dawgs love Antigua.
It’s hard to believe that Pandora is back in Antigua and I am here in NYC visiting family for the holidays. The fall was a whirlwind getting Pandora ready for the big run south to Antigua and after less than a week of fun, back home…
I have been doing the whole “snowbird” thing for a decade now and I’ll admit that I am tiring of the process, the weeks of back and forth each spring and fall. It’s a big bite out of our year.
With that in mind, this coming summer I will be taking Pandora to Trinidad where she will have some much needed repairs and maintenance. The good news is that I will have much less time consumed with running her back and forth and hopefully can do more of what Brenda wants to focus on instead of me being gone for a month, or more, each spring and fall.
Our plan is to spend a few weeks in northern Europe in September, which should be fun.
So, after a chilly start for the run south. a shot of Pandora’s crew on the dock in Essex prior to departure.
A little more tropical in Antigua.
Pop quiz: Can you tell for sure, which photo was taken in Antigua?
The passage was not particularly bad or good, just sort of average. We took about 12.5 days and sailed 1,850 miles from when we left Essex CT until we arrived in Antigua. We were bucking strong adverse currents much of the way until we passed Bermuda so that accounted for the additional miles, about 250 more than the actual point to point distance.
This is a highlighted graphic of our actual track, along with all of the other boats in the 96 strong fleet. Notice that everybody jogged to the east for a few days. This was to avoid a nasty low with very strong winds.
We often struggled to keep our speed up due to very light winds behind us but for the last 700 or so miles we really flew, logging nearly 200 miles each day. All and all, in spite of the fact that I am pretty sick of the run, we had a very successful passage.
We arrived around midnight last Sunday and picked our way into Falmouth harbor. After anchoring we had rum punch, two actually, and went skinny dipping. After two rum punches who wouldn’t?
Early the next morning we moved over to English Harbor and anchored to wait to be called to the dock. It is a lovely harbor. The building in the background dates to the time when the Royal Navy called the harbor their home in the Caribbean.
And then onto the dock.
The view. That place is the Galley Bar, a very popular watering hole. However, we didn’t drink water…
We stayed on the dock for much of the week, along with some local wildlife. Glad that they weren’t pooping on Pandora. I believe that the scientific name of this particular species is “pooping plovers, Exodosus”. Not confirmed but aptly named I think.
While I had to leave Antigua before the events were over, I did enjoy a number of them.
One highlight is the happy hour at The Admiral’s Inn. A group photo. 135 in attendance, a record.
Our boats completely filled Nelson’s Dockyard. Not an open spot to be had. A big contrast to a week prior when the place was basically empty.
The arrival of our fleet begins the season for Antigua a few weeks early and they just love having Salty Dawg in town. It is very rewarding to me to know that they want us there as much as we want to be with them.
Lot’s of fun, with events every day for nearly two weeks. Check out this link to the latest on what’s planned. And, I’ll be preparing more events for December and January to keep everyone in sync. After mid January much of the fleet scatters, and there are many other events in planning for elsewhere in the Caribbean and Bahamas during the season.
The run this season was not without challenges. One of our boats tried to bail into Oregon Inlet, near Cape Hatteras, ran aground and was damaged. This is a terrible inlet and unfortunate that they tried to get in that way.
Another boat tried to leave from Florida, bound for Antigua and was forced to turn back, for the second time in two years. Even though he wasn’t able to make Antigua, there are worse places to spend the season than the Bahamas. We do encourage boats to head to Hampton before heading south, as the wind direction from that departure point is much more favorable. Leave from points south of Hampton or Beaufort, just south of Hatteras, and you will end up sailing NE to Bermuda anyway, so better to start from farther north and avoid a lot of issues. It is pretty much a case of “you can’t get there from here” when it comes to a south east US departure. Better luck next year for him.
And yes, we did have a number of “issues”, which is expected when you are running nearly 100 boats into the ocean for a long voyage. However, this year we had an unfortunate “first” a death at sea. One of the crew fell ill and died on passage. I suppose that after 13 years, something like this is bound to happen but it does not make it any easier. In this case, the cause of death is not totally clear.
After several days of nausea, the crew member seemed to be recovering only to pass away in his sleep. Fortunately, tragedies like this are very rare but tragic.
I was very involved in the process of dealing with the arrival of the boat and crew, interfacing with the local authorities, a complex process that involved many on the ground in Antigua. Happily, the local authorities were very efficient and supportive and I can’t imagine things running any smoother, a testament to our contacts in Antigua and their goal to do what they could to ease a very difficult situation.
News of the death has been reported widely and I am proud of how the many volunteers in Salty Dawg helped with questions from sea and also assisting the family once the boat arrived in Antigua.
Boats in the rally are supported by our “shoreside” group around the clock for the duration of the rally.
On a brighter note, and in closing, it is important to note that what participants in the rally have accomplished, completing a major ocean voyage, is not to be understated.
With perhaps 70,000 sailboats in the US that are over 30′ long, only about 1,000 attempt to make a long run like our Caribbean Rally every year. And, the nearly 100 boats and upwards of 400 sailors that participate in our rally each year are part of a very elite group, and represent a vanishingly small number of sailors that can say that they have completed such a voyage.
One thing that is certain that those who complete the Salty Dawg Caribbean rally are truly “one in a thousand” and that is something to be proud of.
The fleet underway…
Congratulations to all the hearty souls that successfully completed an impressive run.
