We’re anchored in beautiful English Harbour, deep inside a mangrove-lined cove called Ordinance Bay.
We said goodbye to our sailing friends in the lagoon in St. Martin via the daily cruisers’ radio network on 2/6. We were actually in Grand Case, a pretty beach town, and the gastronomic center of French St. Martin, having left the lagoon the previous morning. We spent 2 nights in Grand Case waiting for fair winds to blow us to St. Bart’s. The sail there was a short one and we arrived in Anse de Colombier late morning, the perfect time to pick up a free national park mooring. Colombier lives up to one’s idea of a perfect Caribbean anchorage, surrounded by undeveloped tropical bush, thanks to the Rockefeller family who bought and donated it to the St. Bart’s government with the condition that it be preserved. We spent two days there, sharing our anchorage with numerous sea turtles. Our only activities were snorkeling and a mountainous hike across a peninsula to the small village of Anse des Flamandes. Hiking is the only way to get there from our anchorage – no roads.
The sail to Antigua was an overnight passage, too far to conduct during daylight hours. We dropped anchor in English Harbour at 8:30am on Friday the 10th. Bill had been here before and remembered it as a safe, sheltered and quite beautiful anchorage. He was absolutely right. The dominant feature of English Harbour is English Harbour Dockyard, completed around 1745 and, at the time, was Britain’s main naval station in the Lesser Antilles. It is commonly called Nelson’s Dockyard because Horatio Nelson was stationed here in 1784, eventually taking over as naval commander.
We’ve been here for two weeks enjoying the park-like surroundings of the Dockyard, admiring numerous classic yachts, watching pelicans dive for fish and climbing and exploring the heights around the harbor. Many of the hilltops still have the ruins of the British fortifications.
Our new neighbors here include: Mario, the Slovenian who claims to live on board his 60-foot cutter with his wife (we’ve yet to see her); Alexis Walters, an amateur naval historian whose fine Grenadian-built sloop is a beautiful example of the native boat-building tradition he has documented; Jim, the single Irishman from Carrickfergus who is trying to assemble into one 50-foot ketch a boat he bought in pieces in Trinidad; and, Dylan whom we call Barkey (he provides security for the anchorage), a beautiful Border Colley who lives on a small, classic Aldin sloop with his master.
We had planned on leaving Antigua to visit Guadeloupe this Monday but a general strike has effectively shut down the island, so our plans may change. Awfully inconvenient for us – we’re running out of French cheese and wine.
Photos: English Harbour, where we're presently anchored; Sunning in St. Bart's; Hiking path to Anse des Flamandes; Atop Shirley Heights, overlooking English and Falmouth Harbours; Nelson's Dockyard; Barkey.
We said goodbye to our sailing friends in the lagoon in St. Martin via the daily cruisers’ radio network on 2/6. We were actually in Grand Case, a pretty beach town, and the gastronomic center of French St. Martin, having left the lagoon the previous morning. We spent 2 nights in Grand Case waiting for fair winds to blow us to St. Bart’s. The sail there was a short one and we arrived in Anse de Colombier late morning, the perfect time to pick up a free national park mooring. Colombier lives up to one’s idea of a perfect Caribbean anchorage, surrounded by undeveloped tropical bush, thanks to the Rockefeller family who bought and donated it to the St. Bart’s government with the condition that it be preserved. We spent two days there, sharing our anchorage with numerous sea turtles. Our only activities were snorkeling and a mountainous hike across a peninsula to the small village of Anse des Flamandes. Hiking is the only way to get there from our anchorage – no roads.
The sail to Antigua was an overnight passage, too far to conduct during daylight hours. We dropped anchor in English Harbour at 8:30am on Friday the 10th. Bill had been here before and remembered it as a safe, sheltered and quite beautiful anchorage. He was absolutely right. The dominant feature of English Harbour is English Harbour Dockyard, completed around 1745 and, at the time, was Britain’s main naval station in the Lesser Antilles. It is commonly called Nelson’s Dockyard because Horatio Nelson was stationed here in 1784, eventually taking over as naval commander.
We’ve been here for two weeks enjoying the park-like surroundings of the Dockyard, admiring numerous classic yachts, watching pelicans dive for fish and climbing and exploring the heights around the harbor. Many of the hilltops still have the ruins of the British fortifications.
Our new neighbors here include: Mario, the Slovenian who claims to live on board his 60-foot cutter with his wife (we’ve yet to see her); Alexis Walters, an amateur naval historian whose fine Grenadian-built sloop is a beautiful example of the native boat-building tradition he has documented; Jim, the single Irishman from Carrickfergus who is trying to assemble into one 50-foot ketch a boat he bought in pieces in Trinidad; and, Dylan whom we call Barkey (he provides security for the anchorage), a beautiful Border Colley who lives on a small, classic Aldin sloop with his master.
We had planned on leaving Antigua to visit Guadeloupe this Monday but a general strike has effectively shut down the island, so our plans may change. Awfully inconvenient for us – we’re running out of French cheese and wine.
Photos: English Harbour, where we're presently anchored; Sunning in St. Bart's; Hiking path to Anse des Flamandes; Atop Shirley Heights, overlooking English and Falmouth Harbours; Nelson's Dockyard; Barkey.
