Okay, I'm officially starting this blog by sharing our latest Caribbean escape aboard the 'Yes Dear'. She is a 58 foot Catamaran owned by our good friends Sarah and David Kibbee. Brad is her Captain and Kerry is the chef. Brad happens to be a South African doctor and Kerry is from England with a background in accounting that creates great meals in a tiny galley. Needless to say, they have great accents.
We arrived in St. Maarten at 10:30 pm via Dallas Ft. Worth and Puerto Rico and caught a ride to the dock with Chachee aka Chach Mon, an animated rastafari with a love for reggee and drums that looked sort of like the steering wheel of the van. He had an infectious smile and took down our return flight info with a promise to be there waiting.
Kerry, Brad, Heather and Nikki met us and led us to the cold Heineken. How did David say it? "Oh baby...I've been dreaming of you all day long." Let the vacation begin. Heather is Dave and Sarah's oldest daughter and Nikki is her friend. They both live in Boston. Brad and Kerry were looking a little weary from their 16 hour motor/sail from the BVI
The next day we set sail for a little Dutch Island called St. Eustatius. We took the dingy in to check in with customs and that's as far as we got. The immigration man took a couple of hours to arrive and by that time it was pretty late, we were hot and we'd had used up most our adverturous spirit trying to understand what our new friend Stanley was talking about. He was the guard at the dock. We understood about every 5th word he spoke, we do know that he has 20 children and he is 71 years old, and that his son has 900 goats. I think we actually saw 49 of them. It's a mystery that they manage not to fall down the cliffs. We headed back to the boat thinking we would have something to eat and go back that night for the Carnival. We didn't make the Carnival.
Next morning had us heading to St. Kitts aka St. Christopher where we took a taxi tour of the Island with the "Original Sea Moss Man." What? Who? Apparently this is some kind of natural tonic derived from sea moss that we can only assume is similar to Viagra, as it is only for men, and yes he makes and peddles it. He was our best tour guide. His van was emblazzoned with his Sea Moss Man logo and the best part...AIR CONDITIONED.
He took us to the Batik factory, which had the most lush and beautiful tropical gardens - the trees were alive with monkeys and mangoes. Violet showed us how to batik fabric - a laborious process of wax and dye with watercolor like results. We all made a few purchases and then...on to the Fort.
We debated whether to spend the $8 apiece admission, but we're glad we did. Brad figured it was worth $20 each. Very interesting, complete with cannons and recreations of an English soldier's life. It seems the French and the English were always at war with each other and everyone else. Do we ever learn? Apparently the English killed a lot of the natives as well- the ones they didn't kill they used as slaves or they jumped off the cliffs because they didn't want to be slaves. All that hating aside, the views took my breath away.
Thursday morning had us heading to the Island of Nevis. We really didn't do any sight seeing here as the distance between each Island uses a considerable amount of the day to travel. Not to mention that we had to check in with customs at most every stop (if it was open). Instead, we were ready to just get wet and chill on the boat.
Originally we had planned to head to the island of Montserrat but Brad received a phone call telling us to steer clear as the volcano decided to erupt and they were evacuating parts of the island. So instead we planned to get up early as the next days sail would be about 10 1/2 hours to Antigua. (on the map these islands look so close together). Brad got up at 5am to pull anchor, we awoke to the slapping of the waves against the hull.
It was a rough ride. Niki got a little tinge of green and slept most of the day in a dramamine induced fog. We all held on. At some point in the day the port engine decided to conk out and we slowed to a crawl, now that there seemed to be a little less likelihood of going overboard, Sarah and I got courageous and headed out to the bow. It was still a bronco ride. That's when we noticed the jelly fish. There were tons, flocks? pods? schools? not sure what to call that many jellies. They were beautiful but the question was...did they sting? Hmmm...this could make the diving interesting.
Late Thursday afternoon, we finally entered English Harbour in Antigua. Trying to anchor with one engine caused Brad a bit of stress and he asked Kerry to jump in and make sure the anchor bit. Kerry tried it first with a snorkel and declared the visibility nill and the bottom really mucky. She decided to don the scuba gear and take a closer look, once in; a tarpin gave her heart quite a start when it decided to take an up close look at her . On her return we couldn't figure out why she was swimming so weird...when she came up, she said there were so many jelly fish that she was just looking for a way to surface without going through them. :( did I mention that the harbour was beautiful, very quaint with lots of friendly people and a cool fort with fabulous views.It turned out that the jelly fish didn't sting, we found out by capturing one in a glass and Nikki "BRAVE HEART" stuck her finger in an poked it.
None of us really believed her though. We took the dingy in to explore the town, had a drink at a cool old restaurant called "Admirals Inn" and woke up to a sea vacant of jellies. Weird. So, we took our first dive on Saturday, a place called Hercules. It was a nice little dingy dive about 35-40 ft. I guess there was an anchor there that none of us saw but Kerry. It was a little surgy on the way home, like 10ft swimming forward and 5 ft getting pushed back. All was well until I started coughing. Have you ever coughed underwater with a regulator in your mouth. Not fun. I was trying to get anyone's attention, but we were all in our own little aquarium worlds...I finally caught up to Brad and motioned that I was going up, I was low on air and where the hell is the anchor line? He rescued me. We had dinner on the boat that night and decided that the next day we would explore the Island for a good snorkeling place. Heather and Nikki hadn't seen any fish yet and we were 5 days into the trip.
We found Eric the taxi driver. He wasn't our favorite, but who could compare to the Original Sea Moss Man - we were spoiled. Eric did enlighten us to the difference between goats and sheep, did you know that goat's tails go up and sheep's tails go down? That's really the only way to tell the differnce when the sheep are shaved or maybe they just don't grow wool because it's so hot. Anyway, he told us he would take us to the best snorkeling beach on Antigua. He took us to Longshore beach (which did indeed have a long shore) and looked like it belonged on a postcard, it was a bit crowded though. The island kids were out of school. Brad and Kerry decided to just have a coke at the bar. We played in the water for about an hour or so and headed back to English Harbour.
That evening we decided to check out the steele drum band on top of Shirley Heights and watch the sunset over Planter's (1000 proof) punches. It was really fun...
until I accidently erased all the pictures on my camera.
We (Sarah & I ) tried to get the camera off macro, (I didn't really know it was on macro) anyway, we figured that we could reset it back to the original settings since nothing else was working, well format doesn't do that...it erases everything. Opps! Thankfully, Sarah had been taking pictures too. She'll save me, always does.
By the way, did you know that Eric Clapton has a house and a rehabilitation facility on Antigua? Yep, Chuck swears E.C. drove right by us in his Range Rover while we were waiting for a cab. It did look just like him. Heather says no, I'm siding with Chuck on this one. Besides, nobody else drives Range Rovers on Antigua.
That night we had a lovely dinner at the Headquarters restaurant, we helped David and Sarah celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary.
The next morning we decided (or David decided) to take the dingy to find another place for us to snorkel. Did I mention that the jelly fish were back? Not nearly as thick, and now we were sort of comfortable with them. We had a nice little snorkel session while David "the dingy driver" stayed watch in the dingy. When we got back to the boat, Kerry took our boys out for a dive. At this point, I wasn't diving since I was still coughing, because we all know... that "safety never takes a vacation." They dove amongst the jellies, at the end of their dive, hanging on the anchor line looked like it was a scene from a Jacque Cousteau documentary.
The next morning we went snorkeling right in the Harbour and guess what? We swam to a great little snorkeling spot. We had a lunch of lobster tails on the boat and packed to go home. We left a bit early to spend some time in the town of St. John, which was on the other side of the island. It was a bit of a disappointment, a cruise ship destination, but we had great seats for people watching while we ate our double scoop ice creams. We got to the airport and took a bumpy ride to St. Maarten. Guess who was there to meet us? Chach man! We were even late and he waited. He dropped us at the Summit hotel and said "see you at 5:30 am." He suggested we grab a bite at BB's down the street. We walked over, had cold Heineken and awesome BBQ ribs.
Next morning, Chach Man was there on time, drove us to the airport, we said goodbye to the islands and promised to return in October to explore the Grenadines for another water adventure.
By the way, did you know that Eric Clapton has a house and a rehabilitation facility on Antigua? Yep, Chuck swears E.C. drove right by us in his Range Rover while we were waiting for a cab. It did look just like him. Heather says no, I'm siding with Chuck on this one. Besides, nobody else drives Range Rovers on Antigua.
That night we had a lovely dinner at the Headquarters restaurant, we helped David and Sarah celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary.
The next morning we decided (or David decided) to take the dingy to find another place for us to snorkel. Did I mention that the jelly fish were back? Not nearly as thick, and now we were sort of comfortable with them. We had a nice little snorkel session while David "the dingy driver" stayed watch in the dingy. When we got back to the boat, Kerry took our boys out for a dive. At this point, I wasn't diving since I was still coughing, because we all know... that "safety never takes a vacation." They dove amongst the jellies, at the end of their dive, hanging on the anchor line looked like it was a scene from a Jacque Cousteau documentary.
The next morning we went snorkeling right in the Harbour and guess what? We swam to a great little snorkeling spot. We had a lunch of lobster tails on the boat and packed to go home. We left a bit early to spend some time in the town of St. John, which was on the other side of the island. It was a bit of a disappointment, a cruise ship destination, but we had great seats for people watching while we ate our double scoop ice creams. We got to the airport and took a bumpy ride to St. Maarten. Guess who was there to meet us? Chach man! We were even late and he waited. He dropped us at the Summit hotel and said "see you at 5:30 am." He suggested we grab a bite at BB's down the street. We walked over, had cold Heineken and awesome BBQ ribs.
Next morning, Chach Man was there on time, drove us to the airport, we said goodbye to the islands and promised to return in October to explore the Grenadines for another water adventure.
