Yesterday morning we were up early to get Kosmos ready to go to sea. At 0900, we went to the marina office to check out. Check out was as easy as check in. Eric filled out one form, the clerk faxed it to the officials, and minutes later the form was faxed back with stamps. Super easy.
Once we were cleared to leave, we pulled out of our slip and went around the corner to the fuel dock. We decided to load up here because fuel is duty free, clean, and easy to access. We know we can get fuel much, much cheaper in other parts of the Caribbean, but our understanding is that in each of these places either it is not as easy, the fuel is not as clean, or it simply is not as safe for us to be there.
We pulled up to the fuel dock and told the clerk we wanted duty free fuel. He directed us down the dock farther, to a different set of pumps. We tied up and showed him our clearance. When we told him we had two tanks, he gave us two pumps so we could fuel both sides simultaneously. Talk about making the fueling go by fast! We wonder why no one else in the world has let us do both sides simultaneously. We took 3600 liters at $1.06 USD a liter.
We don’t think many boats buy so much fuel from this fuel dock, because they were really excited about our purchase and gave us some candy and a couple small bottles of rum as a thank you for buying so much fuel.
We pulled away from the fuel dock and headed out to sea. When we first left, we were exposed to the trade winds and it was a little on the uncomfortable side, but we quickly rounded the corner of the lee side of Basse-Terre and it almost instantly became calm and pleasant. Here is the west coast of Basse-Terre from the sea.
At 1600, we started to near the tip of the peninsula and the seas started to pick up. Even at its worst, the ride was OK. Not good, but fine all the same. We had a pretty sunset. The moon was a tiny sliver, and it set around 1930, so the night was pitch black. The stars were amazingly vibrant in the sky, and the lights from the cities on Antigua and Montserrat were visible from an unbelievable distance away. They looked so close — it was hard to believe they could possibly be so far. We were treated to a fireworks show on Antigua at midnight.
We came into the lee of Antigua in the wee hours of the morning. Antigua offered us a little more shelter from the waves, but not much. Our engine room blower died. Sigh. Fortunately, we have two, so this isn’t a crises, but chances are if one goes, the other will not be too far behind it.
In the morning, there was a lot of cloud cover that completely blocked the island of Barbuda. We couldn’t see it at all until we were quite close. But when it came into our line of vision wow! It is a low, flat island, reminding us of the Tuomotus.
Our destination was Low Bay, on the west side of the island. Barbuda is similar to San Diego Bay in a way. San Diego Bay is created by a big natural sand bar, The Strand, and the bay is naturally super shallow. San Diego dredges the bay so boats can enter it. Barbuda has an 11 mile long, thin sandbar that creates a large, but shallow, natural lagoon. They don’t dredge the bay, so boats with keels can’t go into it. We chose a spot on the outside of the sandbar and dropped anchor, which in terms of proximity to downtown is akin to dropping anchor on the outside of The Strand south of Coronado. It was 0930.
It is a stunningly beautiful location. The beach is white and perfect, with quite a bit of shrubbery and a few palms trees. Just south of us, we could see a beautiful, though small, resort perched on the sand. The water outside the sandbar is shallow, only 15 feet deep, making the whole area a stunning azure blue. The anchorage was calm, with very little rolling. Ah, we have arrived in paradise! The only disappointment is that the water isn’t clear — we can’t see the bottom at only 15 feet. The cruising guide says there is a little bit of a reef out just west of us at the edge of the bay, such a small reef that it is not more than a few rocks, but that it is good for snorkeling.
The resort has been recently built. We think it is an odd place to choose to build a resort because a few years ago Hurricane Luis ripped out part of the sand bar only 300 yards south of the hotel. It left a big access area into the lagoon, but has since filled itself in. You can actually tell exactly where the hole was, because the sandbar is much narrower and devoid of plant life in that particular spot.
Today is a holiday, so we can’t check in, which means we aren’t supposed to set foot on land. Since we weren’t rushing to shore, we decided to take a nap and go snorkeling after the nap. Christi wound up taking a 5 hour nap. When she got up, we got the dinghy down. It has been a long time since we have had to rotate the boom from paravane mode to dinghy mode and it has done some corrosion in that time. Normally, you just twist the boom from one position to the other, and it takes little effort. To get the boom twisted today, we had to take out all the screws completely and use a lever. We were actually getting a little nervous that we wouldn’t be able to get the winch twisted, and thus unable to get the dinghy down. Eric added some lubricant and was able to man handle the boom to the correct position. Everything else went smooth, although we noticed that our new flag pole gets in the way. It just requires a little extra maneuvering to get around the flag pole.
We went for a ride around the bay, marveling at the gorgeous scenery. We also visited with a neighboring boat, Arielle. We decided it was probably late for snorkeling and went back to Kosmos and made dinner.