This morning Eric was up early. The waves had picked up considerably during the night, and our once fairly flat anchorage was now rocky as all get out. Eric was having a hard time sleeping with all the motion. We got ready quickly and pulled up anchor at 0745.

A little bit southwest of the sand bar is a long, thin strip of especially shallow water. While the water in the rest of the bay is about 15 feet deep, this strip is only 9 feet deep. We were stunned as we watched enormous waves breaking on the 9 foot strip. We mean enormous. Oddly, the swells are coming from the west, which is completely opposite of the normal prevailing conditions where swells come from the east. The westerly swells are especially large because they have had the opportunity to build up more fetch.

The wind is still from the east at the moment. The forecast was for it to shift to the north by this morning. We were happy it hadn’t shifted yet because it meant that we were sheltered from the wind waves while we were behind Barbuda, but we were getting rocked pretty good by the large swells from the west.

Once we got out of the lee of the island, the seas got ugly. There were rapid wind waves and a swell coming from the east — exact opposite direction of the westward swells — making for crazy confused seas. We were getting so much sea spray over the bow that we had to close the hatch in the pilot house roof. The wind was also steadily increasing. Fortunately, it was a short ride. By 1300, we were in the lee of Antigua, where we were only hit by the westerly swells, not by the wind and easterly swells.

Antigua is hilly, though the mountains aren’t as tall as Basse Terre. Yesterday, we had chosen a harbor called Deep Bay on the northwest side of Antigua that looked like it would offer excellent protection from the predicted northerly swells. But as we approached the harbor and saw big waves breaking near the mouth of the anchorage, we just knew it wasn’t going to be calm in there with the westerly swells.

The entrance to the bay is pretty. Near the entrance, on both sides, the shoreline is rocky and sharp hills, and it is dotted with houses on the hills. A bit south of the entrance, just beyond the scope of the photo, is a nice beach lined with a row of identical buildings that must be either hotel bungalows or track housing. There is not much development on hills above the beach, so it is green.

We made our entrance into Deep Bay. It is even more beautiful in here. It is a horseshoe shape, with light blue water, a pristine white beach, and lots of tropical greenery around the beach. The hills above the bay are dotted with construction. One is a large and blocky hotel tower, but the rest look like small bungalow style hotels or houses. Outside the mouth of the bay is a small island that will hopefully break some of the incoming waves. There were four boats in the anchorage, so we had high hopes it would be calm.

Leery of how calm it was, we decided to turn off the stabilizers for a couple minutes before dropping anchor. Yup, it was too rolly. We turned around and continued south. We decided our best bet would be to go to the south side of the island, where we would be protected from east, west and north. Along the west coast of Antigua there are small pockets of development here and there, but the vast majority of the land looks to be undeveloped.

We couldn’t get too close to the southern side of the island because of the reef, and by 1430, we were far enough south of land that it was once again rough and uncomfortable from the confused seas. Then we turned and headed east toward the anchorage entrance, so now the wind was right on the nose. It was 31 knots of wind real, and trust us, that much wind makes for miserable head seas in general, and the confused seas made it that much worse. It was awful. The southern side looks like it has more pockets of development that the western side. The pockets are a little bigger than on the west side, too, but it is almost all low along the coastline, not farther up the mountain.

We got to English Harbor at 1630. The bay was absolutely packed, so we dropped anchor near the mouth in an effort to steer clear of everyone else. In the west end of the bay there is a marina, but we have decided to postpone going to the marina until we get the bottom cleaned. It is getting hairy again, literally. Oddly enough, the port side of the boat is coated in mud. If the boat had been dirty, the mud would make sense from all the water that came over the side. However, there is very little by way of dirt on the rest of the boat, so we really are baffled as to where the mud came from. Maybe some waves splashed us in more shallow water that was carrying mud?

English Harbor is lovely. The reason this is such a great anchorage is because just beyond the mouth, the bay makes a sharp left turn, so the water is extra protected from waves. Directly in front of us is a pretty beach. To the right is dense, lush foliage. To the left the bay continues on, dotted with sailboats as far up as we can see. The background is tall, green hills. Sadly, because we are at the mouth, the anchorage isn’t as calm as we had hoped for.

Since it was late in the day and Eric still needs to work on the dinghy motor before we can go anywhere, we had another quiet evening aboard Kosmos. But, we didn’t mind being stuck on board because English Harbor has wifi with an awesome internet connection. We were glued to the internet all night. We haven’t had real internet connectivity to the boat since Gibraltar, so we had a lot to catch up on!