Where am I?
Latitude: 17°01.0N
Longitude: 061°46.9W
Anchored in Falmouth Harbour, Antigua
How is the weather?
The settled weather continues with winds generally below 15 knots. This is the first year of sailing in the Caribbean where we’ve had so many consecutive days of lighter winds – usually the “Christmas Winds” are stronger. We are expecting winds of 20+ knots during the coming week.
What am I feeling?
Sad to see Katie off back to New York on 2nd January but hopefully we will catch up before too long in Columbia or Panama City. After 12 days aboard, her batteries are fully recharged and she’s ready to take on the challenges of 2024!
Happy that the boat is performing well with everything in working order. And very happy to welcome aboard our friends Anne and Richard for a few days cruising.
What has happened this week?
We’ve had a crew change this week with Katie leaving on 2nd January and our good friends Anne & Richard joining us on the 4th. They are with us until 8th when they return to the frigid north. It’s their first time in Antigua, so we’ve stayed close to Falmouth/English Harbour and Green Island. Green Island was idyllic – calm and cool in the evenings.
The sailing this week has been really nice with quiet seas and moderate breezes. And the fishing has been pretty good too with the new rods/reels producing fish each time they have been deployed. So far, we’ve caught 3 bluefin trevally, 2 wahoo and 1 yellowtail snapper – one of the trevally was returned to the deep but the rest have ended up feeding us, both raw and cooked!
We picked up our much delayed medical kit earlier this week. Three bags of equipment and medications together with a defibrillator (which is amazingly small!). We’ve stored these under the forward berth where our gennaker sail used to live – that is now permanently on deck, ready for use.
Our old medical kit, minus expired medications and syringes, has found a new home thanks to Helen at Catamaran Marina.
Anne & Richard leave us tomorrow and the Oyster World Rally fleet depart on 13th – we may head up to Shirley Heights to see them sail off if we’re still in Antigua. Our own programme is weather dependent, so I will update in next week’s blog.
Fujin Out!
Sounds as though you are having a fantastic time Stuart! Very envious. Happy New Year to all the Milne family. We have just returned from Sydney seeing Chris and Yvonne.
Hi Rick – many thanks and best wishes to you too for 2024!
Hi… we are Ali Robertson’s friends living in Panama. Get in touch if you have time… +507 6822 5291 on What’s App, cheers, Heather & Jim
Many thanks, Heather and Tim – will give you a shout after we get to Colon!