Sunday 27 May: Anxious awakening this morning again for Glen. He woke up at 2 am, the 2 boats anchored 1nm from us were still there, but by 4am they were both gone! No wind at all but very dark clouds. Again, we wonder if they know something we don’t? We were not successful to connect to SSB to download the weather forecast and it’s now 4 days since our last forecast. A bit worrying.
As we have breakfast the breeze is coming back, and clouds still all over the horizon. So much for kite-surfing this morning or flying the drone over the pristine strip of sand in the bright sunshine. Hm, the usual “we should have done that yesterday” comes to mind… too late now. Next year maybe.
After breakfast, Glen gives the water pump another wash, this time with a descaling solution. This motorized pump will be our salvation if we ever take on a large quantity of water, as it is the most powerful we have (7000Ltr/h). The other 3 are lower capacity.
We decide definitively to leave Barbuda today. We motor along the strip of sand in search for some brief “E” phone signal which would allow us a quick look at windguru forecast. Eventually the forecast loads. 15-20kts prediction from SE, which means hard on the wind back to Antigua. Wind direction tomorrow is better but it will be 25-30kts. So it’s sails out and we are on our way, today. We start conservative, with reefed main and cutter.
We are a bit sad to leave Barbuda, the beaches are simply spectacular and so unspoiled. As we depart shadowed by angry black clouds we realize how lucky we were these last days to have had bright sunshine to see Barbuda’s beaches at their best.
Wind is 11-13kts, less than forecast, so we soon have full main and genoa. The sea is calmer than what we had in last few months and we have a comfortable fast sail, with no green water over the decks for once. Very nice! First of all we are hard on the wind, with our track not making Antigua. But as we cross between islands the wind gradually backs and ends up on our beam. The clouds brighten and the sun tries to show itself. All in all we were prepared for a nasty sail, but instead we were rewarded with a lovely sail with very little swell.
5 hours after pulling the anchor in Barbuda we arrive at Jolly Harbour. As we drop the anchor, a flustered man comes into the cockpit of the catamaran which is in front of us, asking us to go away and using bad language. Very odd, we haven’t had such unpleasant encounters, not with fellow sailors! Even more shocking as he flies a German flag and Germans are generally very polite. He seems annoyed at how close we have anchored to him. True, we were quite close when we dropped, but once the chain is out we settle back a very reasonable distance from him. Just to annoy us, he starts observing us through the binoculars, continuing to do so for the next couple of hours. What a weird man!
After lunch Glen has a short nap in the cockpit, not much rest for him last night. Oana starts uploading videos on YouTube, hopefully we’ll post 3 new ones before we leave Antigua’s good phone signal tomorrow.
Then time for serious stuff: setting up for the downwind sailing: setting up the pole, pole guys, boom retainer, sheets for spinnaker. We also put up the cockpit tent and lower the bimini. Most of the sailing towards the USA will be well off the wind which means rain into the cockpit during squalls. Plus, on passages we like to have a nice warm dry cockpit at night. It’s a world of difference sailing the boat from a warm dry place than standing in wet weather gear huddled in one corner of the cockpit with washboards in.
The rest of the evening the winds are very light, a wonderful full moon and tree frogs croaking in abundance on the shore. Calm before the storm? Let’s see what tomorrow brings, as the mission to USA starts in earnest.