Taking John to St. John’s, Antigua

Yesterday, we were quite surprised by our carpet quotes. Both owners came out personally. One company was very professional. They gave us a written quote at a reasonable rate. The other company was less professional. They quoted almost double the price and didn’t put it in writing. We also got an uneasy sense that the final bill would be more than the quote. Needless to say, we hired the more professional company. They arrived first thing this morning to start work.

It was a relief to get the carpets and upholstery done. Ever since Continue reading

Exploring Nelson’s Dockyard & Falmouth Harbor

Yesterday Christi slept in especially late, and when she did get up, she was moving slow. Between swimming all day and dancing all night, she had gotten more exercise than normal and she was feeling it.

We puttered around all morning, and at 1330, she finally got underwater to do the metal. On the port side, the metal had a small amount of growth, nothing major. The bottom has a fine, thin layer of grass starting to grow. She scraped the metal, then moved to the starboard side and almost had a heart attack. The metal on this side was Continue reading

Snorkeling and a Concert in English Harbor

Christi started the morning by scrubbing the waterline. The starboard side had little growth, but the port side had a lot of growth. The growth was fairly thin at the bow and got progressively thicker the farther back on the boat. The port aft quarter of the waterline looks like a carpet. And it didn’t want to come off. She got all the growth off the starboard side and the front half of the port side and had tackled most of the aft half before she decided to take a break. She was tired and the current was picking up. She planned to finish the water line and tackle the metal at 1600, during slack tide.

After Christi had rested for an hour, we decided to go snorkeling. There are some rocks in the southeast corner of the harbor that are supposedly a good snorkeling spot. And since we are anchored so close, it is a short swim from Kosmos.

The ground underneath the anchorage area is mostly that Posidonia grass intermixed in with another thinner, greener type of grass. Near the rocks, the grass vanishes. The rocks have no substantial growth, just small patches of coral and sponges all around. It almost looks like a vibrant reef was completely washed away in a storm and is trying to grow back, except that there is no telltale dead coral around to support our theory. What is interesting is that while the growth patches are tiny, there are lots of different kinds of species. The first photo is of yellow tube sponge. In Deshaies, they were 4 feet tall and came in both yellow and purple. The second photo is also of sponges. We are not sure what this kind is called, nor whether the two different colors are different species.

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In addition to those, we also saw Continue reading

Frigate Bird Mating and Checking into Barbuda

Just in case anyone is unclear, yesterday’s post was an April Fool’s joke. There is no magical algae, at least that we know of. The duty free fuel in Guadeloupe is dyed green, which was why we had to go to the special pumps. When we saw the green fuel, we knew it would be the ideal joke.

So, back to our travel log: Last night we found out there is one drawback to this anchorage. The resort uses a very loud generator that they run all night. It must drive the hotel guests mad.

This morning we were up early, preparing to go to the one and only town of Codrington to check into the country. From where we are, there are two choices to get to the village. You can either drag your dinghy across the sandbar and into the lagoon, then take yourself over to the village, located due east on the other side of the lagoon. Or you can Continue reading

Welcome to Barbuda Island, Antigua & Barbuda

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 Continue reading