Day 30: Antigua to Atlanta - Home

We left Antigua and headed home on Saturday.  I have to say I COULDN'T WAIT to sleep in my own bed!!!  My grandparents met us at the international arrivals terminal in the airport and I think they may have been more excited than we were to be home (my grandmother just about jumped the rope to take a picture of us coming out with all of our luggage)!

No question, we are all happy to be home.  However, all of us had an amazing time on this trip and I, for one, am surprised at how much I enjoyed it.  I could easily spend a few weeks in my own bed, restock on books, check in with a few friends, update songs on my i-touch, and head back out there for a few more weeks.  All of us feel that way.  All in all, Raindrops was a great boat and we were sad to leave her tied up at the marina so that we could head home to Atlanta.

Being together on the sailboat for a month was an amazing experience that none of us will ever forget.  Grant, Lindsay and I went from not really having a clue how to sail to being able to hoist the sail on our own and pick up a mooring ball or drop anchor in a bay independently.  We went from being a little nervous about traveling to foreign countries to being able to jump into the dinghy upon arriving at a French island and going ashore (without our parents) to get a pain chocolat.  We sailed through two pretty serious storms and we all overcame our fears by dealing with the huge waves, reefing sails in a rain storm, and being 30 nautical miles off shore and out of sight of any land.  We had studied our knots before leaving Atlanta, but now any of us could tie a bowline blindfolded.  We've chartered sailboats as a family before, but this was the first time we kids were expected to help sail, navigate, anchor, communicate, provision, and help take care of all that must be done while living at sea.

We all grew in our own ways.  I for one went from feeling like I wanted to puke every minute to finding my favorite spot on the boat under the mainsail and riding through the big waves or taking the helm and holding our course.  And I mastered the laundromat (in a foreign country) which certainly means that I can handle laundry when I head off to college.  Grant went from not knowing the difference between a jib sheet and a main sheet (whoops - big difference) to being able to hoist the sail, reef the sail and furl the jib totally solo.  Lindsay went from being completely freaked out to even get in the water at Stingray City to diving under the water with her snorkel gear to follow sea turtles and pick up starfish...not to mention being able to drive the dinghy by herself.

Mom and Dad were experienced sailors, but they had never sailed for a month like this before. Mom went from being a little nervous about communicating over the VHF to calling the Basseterre Marina and coordinating our arrival completely in French (well, at least it sounded enough like French that they got the idea).  And she was really freaked out about reefing while underway until she reefed the sail in 25 knots of wind in a major storm on our way to Guadeloupe (and she learned not to try that in a storm again!).

Dad knew about this stuff coming into the trip - - but even he became a better sailor and more knowledgeable about boating.  Dad went from knowing enough about basic boat maintenance to changing the impeller on the starboard engine -- I guess that's something a lot of boat owners wouldn't even attempt on their own, we later discovered.  And more importantly, he went from always trying to maintain our fast, demanding schedule to chilling out a bit, slowing down and spending more time in each port so we could really experience and enjoy it (I think that happened when we finally got to Pigeon Island, Guadeloupe and decided just to stay put for a few days).

The best thing about our trip was the people.  We learned so much from them.  Both the people on the boats that we met who live aboard their sailboats and homeschool from there and the people we met who live on the islands.  From the live-aboard boaters, we learned that people can have very different lives and school experiences than we do - not everybody grows up going to big public schools with a million different activities, taking crazy challenging AP classes, and worrying about SAT prep.  Yet they still aspire to go to great colleges and pursue laudable professions when they graduate.  They are just going about it all in a different way than we are.  They had such strong family bonds and really enjoyed being together.

And from the natives that we met in the countries - it was really incredible to hear about how proud they are of their heritage and their nations.  George, Percy, Neil, Eugene and Titus were fantastic and we would not have really developed an understanding of the culture without meeting and hanging out with them.   And the two high school boys that we met who were so thrilled to practice their English by talking to us and so excited that we were Americans.  But I think I loved meeting the little boy in Customs in Barbuda the best.

I know that this was the trip of a lifetime and we probably may never have another family trip where the five of us get away for a whole month.  Even if Mom and Dad could get away for that long, Grant, Lindsay and I are so involved in school and activities that I can't imagine we will be able to pull this off again.  But, I'm really glad that we were able to make this happen this year.

I'm not really sure who is reading this blog.  We did the blog to keep some people from panicking while we were away just sort of as a way of checking in (for my grandparents, mainly) and for those who couldn't imagine spending a month living on a boat.  In the end I think it will be a good way to preserve our memories as we can go back to the first few days and re-live it all over again.

Anyway, whoever you are, thanks for following along.

That's all for now...

Standing by on 06.
Raindrops.

Day 28: Antigua - our last sail day :(

Happy 4th of July!!!  It is strange to be in a country where no one celebrates the 4th.  To them it is just another day.  We are hoping to catch fireworks on the TV tonight.

We had to have the boat in by noon today.  But first we had to clear back into customs and refill fuel and water.  We picked up a mooring buoy right outside of customs that was right next to our friends from Switzerland (the ones with little Nino).  They saw us coming in and took a ton of pictures of us grabbing the mooring ball and waving to them from our boat.  They gave us the pictures,  so I will have to try to post them later once we get home (I can't do it from mom's phone).  At least we did a pretty good job - I must say it was our best one yet.  The harbor guys must maintain these moorings really well, because even the mooring line was wrapped nicely on the top off the ball to keep it out of the water so it doesn't get all cruddy in the salt water.

Mom and Dad had to clear customs, immigration and port authority for the last time.  It always takes seemingly forever.  We hung out on the boat and talked to Nino on Four Winds about race cars over the VHF.  He is so cute and still switches between French and English mud sentence.  I wish I had learned a second language at that age - pretty cool.

After customs we headed to the fuel dock.  Things always get a bit stressful around here when we are under a time crunch - at this point it was about 11:50 and the fuel dock closes at 12.  Somebody had pulled up their little dinghy along side the big dock, so we had to hover and wait for them before we could pull up.  The cross winds were a bit crazy and Dad was not about to screw up docking right in front of the charter guys.  He has become a great driver using the two engines and we just waited until the dinghy and another sailboat pulled out.  We had the lines and fenders ready and arrived at the dock pretty much looking like pros, if I might say so myself.  Other people on other boats were staring at us as Grant, Lindsay and I tied the lines, fixed the fenders and tossed the fuel guys the lines as we pulled in gracefully.  I think they were supposed to see kids doing all of that by ourselves. 

Eugene was there to meet us as the fuel dock.  He drove Raindrops back to her slip which was a good thing because that looked pretty complicated to me.  He has barking out instructions like tie a bowline on each of the dock lines, get a spring line ready, move the fenders to the starboard side....and I think he was pretty impressed when the three of us did all of that and Mom and Dad just kind of stood by and smiled.  I think they were pretty proud of all of us.

Eugene thanked Dad profusely for being so competent mechanically.  I think he was so grateful that Dad was able to do things like fix the engine impeller, fix the jib roller furling and rewire the electrical panel - gosh after saying all of that, who wouldn't be!

The charter company people Jackie and Al were happy to see us return safely and told us it felt like eons ago that we left.  We decided we felt like it's been about two weeks not four.  Another charter boat came in having been out for 5 days - it was a group of 4 men and they just couldn't believe that we had really been out for a month. One guy actually asked Mom if we did laundry and how we packed for that long.  She joked and told him no one has laundry facilities anywhere so we had to pack tons of stuff, then explained she was kidding and that we had packed for about a week and then did laundry - he was pretty clueless.  Of course people outside of the US do laundry, too.

It is starting to feel like we've been gone longer when we start thinking about friends and family that we miss at home.  Dad had arranged for a little golf cart for us to use tonight.  It was a cute little blue amped up golf cart with enough seats for all of us.  Mom, Linz and I made several trips to get our luggage to our little villa where we will stay tonight (the same one we were in before we got the boat).   The first thing we did when we got to the condo was make ice cubes and turn on the AC!!!  Simple things are so exciting now!

We invited our friends to the villa for a drink and then went for pizza.  The villa is on the edge of the harbor, so it was pretty cool that they could just arrive by dinghy.  We found the Macy's New York fireworks on tv.  Mom was so tired and so excited to sleep in a real bed that she went to bed early, but the rest of us managed to stay up for at least a little of it.  Wondering what happened with the guy who flew a drone onto the fireworks...we haven't been able to find out what happened with that yet. 

Our Internet connection is really spotty here so hoping to get this posted before we leave.  We will post more pictures and hopefully video to our blog when we get home.

Thanks for following along!

Here are the pictures of us picking up a mooring ball in Jolly Harbor...

Day 27: Antigua

We had a leisurely breakfast this morning and watched more people kite surfing while we ate our cereal and drank the remaining assortment of tropical juices we have on board.  Mom and Dad love the guava juice, Lindsay and Grant love the cherry apple (which tastes like a cherry popsicle but is too sweet for me), and I just prefer straight up apple juice.  It all tastes different than in the US - probably because no sugar is added and it is all natural (or it may just be because we are on a boat and everything seems to taste better here).

As we left Nonsuch Bay, the wind was whipping and the seas were 10 foot waves on average coming from the east...which meant they were coming right at us so the boat was really rocking as we tried to hoist the mainsail.  In general, the Atlantic side is always much rougher than the Caribbean side because there is no land to break the waves since they left Africa, so they come rolling in really strong.  We were really tossed around, but we did it.  We headed straight south down the Atlantic side of the island and then West past English Harbor where Nelson's Dockyard and Falmouth Harbor that we visited when we first arrived in Antigua a month ago.  It is always interesting to see things from the ocean that we visited on land.

As we travelled west along the south coast, the following seas were crazy.  We tried to get them on video, but it never looks as big on video as it feels like when you are on the boat.  We will see if the video turns out.

We anchored at 5 Island harbor and were the only boat in sight.  This was a nice, secluded anchorage on its own private little beach.  The wind was really gusty, so we let out about 100 feet of anchor chain to ensure that it wouldn't slip at all.  Dad says that our anchor is only 16 kg which we calculated is 35 pounds...He said it must be some kind of moron who puts a 35 pound anchor on an $800,000 boat that weighs 11 tons.  If it were our boat, we would certainly put a big huge anchor on it (more like at least 70 pounds) with a ton of chain.  Funny the things the charter companies skimp on.

Mom and Dad snorkeled while Grant, Lindsay and I hung out on the beach.  Every beach is so different.  Mom and I walked on the beach and decided it was mostly like Lake Michigan sand. This one was soft beige colored sand that didn't have shells, but there were some pretty cool weathered rocks and sea glass.  The beaches in Guadeloupe mostly have black sand. The beach in Les Saintes was kind of grainy with small broken shells that made it a little uncomfortable to walk on and tons of sea grass washed up everywhere.  Statia was all rock - at least the side qe saw.  Nevis was pretty nice sandy beach  and we had a great football game there.  Barbuda was the best for sure -  pure white sand that almost turns pink in the right light.  There were little shells everywhere and it was fun to collect nice ones. 

We grilled our last meal tonight consosting of sausages, veggies and rice.  Wr all went around the table and discussed our roses,  bids and thorns from the trip (Grant's suggestion - something I guess they do at Scouts).  We all had a different favorite (rose) from the trip - Mom cried of course knowing that it is coming to an end and we are all headed back to our busy lives at home.  We are all going to be sad that the trip is over.  I for one would love to head home for a month, take long showers every day, sleep in my own bed, refresh my ipod with some new songs,  and then come back for another go.

After dinner we watched the sunset and stars.  It was a great star gazing night because there are not many competing lights to interfere and it is not cloudy.

We saw some cool stuff.  Of course the Big dipper, which we've seen every night.  We also saw the Heardsman and even the Southern cross (we are far enough south that this appears just above the horizon).  It was really cool to see the space station, the hubble telescope and a couple of satellites fly by.  Dad has an app on his ipad that lets us figure out what we are looking at.  The sky is so scattered with stars that it almost makes it more difficult to figure out the constellations.

We head in to Jolly Harbor in the morning to turn the boat in.  I can't believe it is our very last night on board.

Day 26: Guadeloupe to Antigua

Today we had our last long sail day headed back to Antigua.  it is amazing to think that our adventure has almost reached an end.  On our way, we spent some time reflecting on some of our best and worst experiences from our trip.  Here is the list we came up with:

Best list:
Favorite Island overall - Nevis
Beach - Barbuda
Hike - Statia (the Quill)
Most unspoiled / natural - Barbuda
Nicest people - Statia and Barbuda
Bar - Sunshine's (Nevis)
Snorkeling - Pigeon Island, Guadeloupe (Ilet Des Cabrits was a very close 2nd)
Tourist attraction - Stingray City, Antigua
Tour - 4x4 Monkey tour, Nevis
Sunsets - Barbuda
Stargazing - Barbuda
Bakery - Deshaies, Guadeloupe (breakfast) Pigeon, Guadeloupe (lunch)
Beach BBQ - Prince Rupert Bay, Dominica
Dinner on board - burgers on a French baguette
Fort - Brimstone Hill (St. Kitts)
Restaurant - Yachtsman's Grill (Nevis) - combo of ambiance and great food
Best sail - Les Saintes to Dominica
Best place to reef a sail - at a mooring ball before heading out to sea
Calm anchorage - Deshaies (2nd time - no wind, calm seas & mooring balls)
Activity at anchor - jumping off Bimini & pirate island rafts
Non - commercialized activity - pottery guy at Ilet Des Cabrits (les Saintes)

Worst list:
Tour - Anselm in Dominica (tour guide who didn't like to speak and car that almost didn't make it)
Worst sail - Nevis to Guadeloupe (2 storms, too far)
Worst place to reef a sail - in a rain storm in 8 foot waves 30 nautical miles from any shore between Nevis and Guadeloupe
Roughest Anchorage - Deshaies (1st time - storm and pre - mooring buoys)
Restaurant/Bar - Salt Plage, White House Bay (St. Kitts)
Cheesiest tourist bar - Shirley Heights,  Antigua
Scenery - ugly naked guy, Ilet Des Cabrits
Dinner on board - crackers
Constant hocking by locals - Dominica
Tourist attraction - Nelson's dockyard, Antigua

We've added a category after arriving at our port - most beautiful overall anchorage: Nonsuch Bay where we anchored tonight.  It is a really neat place because you have to maneuver your way into the bay around the reefs.  Once you are inside, the water is calm and shallow, so it is a very clear turquoise blue.  There is a sand bar and reef that breaks between the bay and the Atlantic ocean.  The giant waves roll in from Africa, then break at the sand bar.  As a result, windsurfers, day sailors and kite sailors love it here.  Kite sailing is basically like wake boarding with a harness attached to a big kite (almost a parachute).  We've seen them before but it was fun to watch them up close.  Grant is drooling to try it....but that will have to wait for another day!

Just before sunset, we had a rain storm rush in that lasted about 15 minutes.  It was wild to see the dark clouds racing across the ocean toward us and know it would hit us. Actually, the worst of it seemed to go a bit south of us and we just got a hard rain for a bit.  Afterwards, we were rewarded with a beautiful double rainbow (one inside the other).  It was very cool.  We've seen just about everything now that we wanted to see...well, all except sea horses.

Day 25: Guadeloupe

Today we sailed up to Deshaies. Luckily, they put in mooring balls since we were last there so it is a much better anchorage. The only bad part is there is no wind. It is so hot because there is no breeze. We swam around the boat. The boys decided to jump off the top of the bimini- they both survived but it's a pretty high jump.

We went into town to watch the USA vs Belgium World Cup Game. Sadly, the US lost but the US goalie was amazing and it was a great game to watch. We went out with our new friends Val and Andy and their son Nino. We enjoyed watching the game with them- especially since Val speaks French and could translate what the announcers were saying.

After the game, we went back to our own boats and had dinner. We had chicken fajitas and went to bad early.