St Martins Sailing into Phillipsburg from ST Barts is a very easy approach, we were soon settled and anchored in the big wide bay. Ashore was a beach surrounded by bars, with loads of tables and chairs. We had come to Phillipsburg to pick up our friends from Weymouth, who were on a cruise on the Oriana. During the night our boat rolled around in the southeasterly swell, most uncomfortable, it reminds me of being on the toning tables in the gym, sliding up a and down the bed! In the morning I watched Oriana coming in, it seemed so huge in the bay. We picked up Chris and Hilary on the fuel jetty, it was good to see them. Well we did go out for a brief sail, but the wind was blowing about 30 ... read more

11th January 2010 We met a few of our friends in Jolly Harbour and had a good evening, it was fun to see them all. The next day we were setting off for Barbuda, Alan has fitted the chartplotter and it is working fine. Sailing from Antigua to Barbuda means some of the journey is in the lee of Antigua so relatively calm. When we set off yesterday the wind was blowing about 12-15 knots and the sea a fantastic turquoise blue. It was very hot, even with the breeze, soon we left the lee and headed towards Barbuda, it was an easy fetch and the sail was filling nicely. The island of Barbuda is very low lying and it was hard to see anything until we were about 4 miles away, then a few ... read more

It was actually December 30th when we arrived back in Antigua. The boat was waiting, tied up in Jolly Harbour, and within 15 minutes Alan was off having drinks with some friends of ours! Of course I joined him, so not much got done. Trevor came round as well and then we went for a meal, just for Colin, I had lasagne and Alan had a pizza! The next morning we got up early, Alan had a terrible cold and coughs and had been awake most of the night but felt a bit better by the morning. We cleaned, unpacked, put the sails on, put the spray hood back on, tested all the electrics, generator etc, everything seemed to be working. Then a big shop up, and a sail down to Falmouth Harbour. We anchored in ... read more

Barbuda Reefs, blue blue sea, white sand, a handful of yachts and a few wild donkeys. The wind on the reef is causing a huge roar, and the boats anchored close to it must be deafened. We are anchored back a bit amongst the coral atolls, and the last few days have been totally idyllic. We have snorkelled, the nearby atolls are amazingly rich in sea life, we saw a big ray fluttering on the bottom. Standing on the boat you can see the sand quite clearly in the translucent blue water. Barbuda is basically a desert island, it is inhabitated by about 1500 people but they all live on the other end of the island in a village called Codrington. Barbuda was originally owned by the Codrington family and was a slave farm, we cannot ... read more

Bequia to Antigua Sitting in Bequia trying to make sense of the weather. Chris Parker on the single side band, his voice scratchily coming over the ocean from Tortola, says there is a huge low in the north of the Caribbean which will cause 85mph wind in that area. The result of this is that there will be a ‘swell event’. In the Caribbean this means some huge waves and up to 13’ at 10 second intervals. He was not that clear about when it would arrive. So we decided to head up north as quickly as possible. We went to St Vincent, and then on to Rodney Bay in ST Lucia. It was a very unpleasant trip to windward, wind gusting, rain storms, damp making the journey twice as miserable. Poor Bruce, for his last ... read more