12 Days to Antigua
Thursday, 03.27.2008

The Schooner Maggie B hoisted anchor, set sail and headed for the Caribbean at 1250 on March 27th. We have about 2143 NM to go to Antigua, which should take us about 12 days. The sky is mostly clear with occasional rain showers about. The wind is 5-7 knots from the Southeast. There is a gentle remaining swell from the Northeast. We are motorsailing at our “efficiency cruise” rpm, for max range.

With a few Reep trips, we added 280 liters of diesel to our tanks, which should give us plenty of steaming range. We should hit the NE Trades in a few days as we pass north of about 2degN. In the Caribbean, we will probably land first at Martinique, to clear in with the French before heading to Isle des Saintes, to see if it really is as pretty as Fernendo de Noronha. Certainly, F de N, Isle des Saintes and Bora Bora are all in very much the same category, right up there with La Digue in the Seychelles.

We all quite fell in love with F de N. We rented a buggy, which is a Volkswagen chassis with two bucket seats under a small roof, and two raised seats in back which are unprotected in the open air. We called ours “June Bug.” It was the perfect way to explore the island. The main road along the island is paved, Brazil route #304, all five miles of it. The way to the dozen beaches are all dirt tracks of greater or lesser disrepair. Pretty much every beach has its own little bar/restaurant, ready with an icy cold bottle of beer for fluid replacement therapy.

One one side of the island the beaches had lovely surf, on the other - great snorkeling. After our boat jobs, we would share the rest of the day between the two sides. One marvelous beach on the quiet side was full of sea turtle nests, all carefully staked out and managed by Project TAMAR, a Brazilian sea turtle rescue, recovery and education group. Even this late in the season, we were thrilled to see fresh track of mother turtles making their way up the beach to lay their eggs. The beaches are closed to the public from 6 PM to dawn to allow Tamar to follow, research, record and assist the hatchlings. They say that they assist 600,000 hatchlings a year.

The island is nicely understated. Only 500 visitors are allowed in a day. It costs about US$30 per person per day in fees to visit. For all of us, with boat charges but after discounts, it was about US$100 per day. We were happy to pay it, especially when we were assured that all the money stays on the island and isn’t shipped to Brasilia to disappear in the budget.

There are no serious hotels on the island, almost all the places to stay are small posadas, mostly peoples houses with a few rooms for rent. There are scattered good restaurants and bars. Our favorite was the Shark Museum, which had a lovely view, great caiparinas, and served delicious shark cake appetizers.

All is well.