I woke up at about 06:30 and looked outside, not surprised to see that Les on Golightly had already left and was no longer in sight; he’d warned me that he planned on leaving early and as he is a singlehander like myself there was nobody else aboard to cause undue delay and he’d been true to word. I, too, was true to my word as I’d told Les “No way am I leaving that early!”. I washed my dishes, stored the computer monitor and other items away and completed other pre-passage tasks done a leisurely rate (all done while sipping on my morning coffee). This kept me occupied until about 08:00, when I departed in wind-still conditions in the anchorage and heavily overcast skies.
I set full mainsail and motored along in 2-3 knots of wind, but after about 5 miles I was starting to get clean air that was undisturbed by orographic features on land and rolled out my genoa. Soon I was on a beam reach and doing anywhere from 7 to 9 knots and settled down for a great passage, but a particularly dark line of cloud upwind worried me and I reefed both sails. Several minutes later the wind gusted and I was screaming along at 10 knots but also had to put on my rain jacket as it was coming down (well, across might be more apt) hard and the temperatures had plummeted quickly. After the squall passed I kept the reefs in the sails and bumbled along at 5-7 knots, since now the wind had veered and was coming from further aft. In addition there was a big but sloppy swell which had the boat moving around a bit uncomfortably and I rigged a preventer on the mainsail so it wouldn’t flop about when winds were low and the waves high. I got fooled by a large pod of dolphins during the trip, I saw them approach the boat and within seconds had rushed below, gotten my camera out, gone to the bow of the boat, kneeled with camera ready to take that National Geographic worthy shot and only one small dolphin swam close to the bow, just under the surface and then I spend the next 10 minutes waiting – and they never came back.
The passage took 6 hours, but once inside Falmouth I had to spend another hour finding a place to anchor. I passed Penelope anchored close to the channel and a crew member shouted that they were leaving for the dock any minute now and I took a temporary anchor behind them. When they started lifting anchor I did so as well, intending on getting their prime position; but another boat snuck in ahead of me and took over that prime real-estate before me. I was chagrined since I’d already lifted my anchor and there weren’t too many good anchoring spots left, but felt somewhat better when I saw them set, and reset, their anchor 3 times while I found a spot far away from the docks and anchored there.
I quickly got the dinghy engine mounted, took a shower and shave and dinghied into the dock in Falmouth where I locked up the dinghy (for the first time since St. Martin) and walked across to English Harbor in order to clear in. I’d used the eSeaClear system online from Deshaies so I just had to give them the reference number and they printed out the 7 forms which I signed and was then processed through passport control and paid my $30 entrance fee before being officially cleared into Antigua & Barbuda.
On the way back to the boat I stopped off at the Loose Mongoose for an obligatory happy-hour drink and then returned to Zanshin and replaced the yellow “Q”uarantine flag with the official Antigua & Barbuda courtesy flag. That having been done, I ended up watching another movie aboard and making a pasta with homemade sauce dinner and this time the thawed ground beef was smell-tested after thawing and I found it palatable (hopefully I won’t have to revise that judgement tomorrow).
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