Ken and Katie's Voyages Aboard Sand Dollar: Moving On

Antigua (pronounced “antee' ga”), like multiple Caribbean islands, was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1493. Briefly occupied by the Spanish and French, it then had more than three centuries of British occupation, so despite its now being an independent state, it is a very British place.

We spent a week there, anchored off the south coast in Falmouth Harbour, which sits side-by-side with English Harbour, only a short walk away. The era when the British Navy was based here is memorialized in the beautifully reconstructed Nelson's Dockyard National Park. The Naval Officers' Residence, the Copper and Lumber Mlll, and multiple other main buildings have been reconstructed and now hold shops, restaurants, the well-done Dockyard Museum, and a busy working sail loft. All that remains of the original Boat House and Sail Loft are a line of massive stone pillars, which once supported the loft.

A&F Sails - where we helped the local economy by having a head-sail restitched.

The Pillars

Here are seen sailing craft of all sizes, and during our stay English Harbour was the final destination of the Atlantic Challenge, a trans-Atlantic rowing event. Teams of one to eight rowers had departed the Canary Islands to row (row!) across the Atlantic ocean, taking months (months!) to make the passage. Having crossed the Atlantic ourselves, albeit in a much more comfortable craft, we can only begin to imagine the hardships these rowers faced. A rower on one team was lost at sea when a wave washed him overboard. Another team capsized and had to be rescued.

This boat was rowed across the Atlantic some years ago by a single-handed rower, and is on display in the Dockyard.

English Harbour is smaller and full of history, while Falmouth Harbour is larger and full of all manner of yachts, from cruising sailboats to floating palaces. Charter yachts of sail and power, mind-boggling in size and ultra-luxurious in their appointments, tower over smaller craft. The sailing super-yachts have masts so tall that at night they have red lights at the mastheads so that aircraft don't run into them. One of the multi-million-dollar power yachts carried a helicopter on its top deck.

The high-rent district; note the helicopter on the deck of the power yacht on the right.

Above: Super-yacht docking in English Harbour

Also much in evidence were a host of big-money professional racing yachts, full of scurrying uniformed crew, preparing for the Caribbean 600, a challenging 600-mile race around multiple islands.

Oddly enough, with all this maritime hubbub in the area, there were surprisingly few amenities. Plenty of restaurants, but only one ATM, 2 very small chandleries, and 2 mini-markets. Conversely, quite a few shops sold resort wear, with bikinis selling for $185 US and flip-flops for $100 US. Happily for us, the services we required were readily available; our balky outboard was repaired in an hour and our headsail was re-sewn in one day. The Happy Hour prices at Antigua Yacht Club Marina were reasonable, so we treated ourselves to some gin-and-tonics (very British, no?) over a game of dominoes in the second-story harbor-view lounge.

View of Falmouth Harbour from Clogger’s Restaurant, on the second floor of the Antigua Yacht Club Marina.

Grilled chicken on the barbie at the roadside “snackette”.

The captain enjoys a cheap and tasty local lunch; grilled chicken, salad and a cold beer!

A special treat for us was the discovery that the catamaran “ 'ti Profligate” was anchored behind us. This boat is owned by Richard Spindler, the editor of the wildly popular (and free!) San Francisco sailing magazine Latitude 38. Ken, on his previous boat, “True Blue”, first met him in 1994, when Spindler was “the Big Burrito” on the inaugural Some Like It Hot! rally from San Diego to Mexico, in which Ken and his family participated. Truly a legend in his own time, Richard is personable and easy-going, and we had an entertaining 15-minute visit; turned out that he actually remembered Ken from that rally. It would be terrific some time to sit down with him over a couple of cold ones and swap sea stories.

Richard “big burrito” Spindler – creator and editor of the very popular Latitude 38 sailing magazine

As we departed “ ‘ti Profligate”, climbing into our little hard dinghy, Richard inadvertently put a hex on us. He asked if we’d ever tipped her over, since hard dinghies are less stable than the popular inflatable RIB’s. Only once, we replied, when Katie capsized her nine years ago in the Sacramento River. We should have kept our mouths shut. A mere five days later, on Ken’s birthday, having fortified ourselves with some celebratory refreshing rum beverages, we were boarding the dinghy when Katie managed, once again, to capsize her. We’re certain that the rum had nothing to do with it, but there you have it.

Antigua is special in its own right, not just because of its nautical history and activities. We took a 90-minute hike high up into the hills, which afforded us views of the sea and of both harbours, all at the same time. The rough and rocky trail is nick-named “the goat track”, allegedly because it is frequented by goats, but we were inclined to re-name it “the goat-pellet track”, as we were seeing pellets aplenty rather than goats. But the hike was beautiful, with sights and scents reminiscent of the hills of southern California. Among the occasional ruins from British occupation, there were big century plants, painful-looking cacti, and fragrant acacia trees, with honeybees rummaging among the blossoms.

Falmouth Harbour as seen from the goat track.

(Rather than hustle her kids up the goat track, this mama preferred to munch on the harborside foliage.)

After a week, we departed Antigua one morning at first light for our 53-mile sail to the island of Nevis. The wind was light and variable, but our passage was predominantly down-wind, and we averaged five knots, sailing wing-and-wing under mainsail (with a preventer) and poled-out headsail. We arrived at Charlestown, Nevis in the late afternoon and picked up a mooring off the little ferry dock.

Nevis, dominated by majestic, cloud-shrouded Mt. Nevis (3100 feet), whose slopes are blanketed in thick green rainforest, is the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton (check the face on your 10-dollar bill). Born in poverty and out of wedlock, Hamilton at age nine was sent to St. Croix to work to support his mother. He eventually moved to NY, where as a lawyer and statesman he became the Father of the US Coast Guard and America's first Secretary of the Treasury. A small museum in Charlestown chronicles his rags-to-riches life and accomplishments.

Admiral Horatio Nelson is also remembered in Nevis, where he met and married a local girl, Frances Nesbit, in 1787. Nelson met his end when he was killed in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Reluctant to consign Britain's favorite naval hero to a mundane burial at sea, Nelson's officers opted not to plop him into the ocean, but instead pickled their commander in a vat of brandy and carted him back to Britain for a properly dignified interment three months later.

Charlestown during our time there was beset by a particularly muscular swell, making landing at the dinghy dock an unusually exciting endeavor. Ken managed to get “Loose Change” safely to the dock, and he put out a stern anchor to keep our little craft from being bashed into the dock with the surge. Even so, there must have been some drama during our absence, as we returned to find her unharmed, but with several gallons of seawater sloshing around inside. The following day, loathe to put the dinghy at risk, Ken dropped Katie off for grocery shopping and returned later to pick her up.

That afternoon we moved a quarter mile north and picked up a mooring at Pinney Beach, a pretty and popular stretch of sand where the swell creates a significant shore break. We watched a few inflatable dinghies manage to land safely on the beach, and saw one large 20-passenger tender get caught sideways and wallow from gunwale to gunwale in the surf. The passengers hung on while some folks on shore struggled and managed to get her bow in to the beach, and we finally decided that our little hard dinghy was probably not ideally suited to those conditions.

The following morning we motored three miles to the NW corner of Nevis, picking up a mooring in protected little Oualie Bay.

Oualie Bay, Nevis – St. Kitts Island in background (SD 2nd from left)

Ashore is the Oualie Beach Resort, with cute little cottages whose lawns stretch down to the beach, where guests relax in lounge chairs under the shade of palms and almond trees. Quiet and un-touristy, far from any village, it was a lovely and relaxing final Nevis stop for us.