Antiqua

Hello from the Island of Antigua. We had a delightful sail from Guadeloupe to Jolly Harbor Antigua. Took 7 hrs for the 48 mile sail.

4 days ago, we sailed out of Dominica in a light 10-15 knot breeze. Finally, had a very nice sail 20 miles to Isles De Saintes, where we took a mooring and hung about for a couple of days. If you do not take a mooring, cost 13 Euros/night, then your have to anchor way out in deep water, like 13 meters. We arrived at noon and were fortunate to get one of the last moorings. Isle De Saintes is a delightful Island. I only wish the French could speak English. The French Islands are governed by French law, so everything works, in a French way. They have great food, good wine, and most importantly - baguettes. All of the French Islands are crowded. The French are nuts about sailing.They hold most of the world sailing records. and seem to be without fear, or clothes some of the times. A majority of all sailboats on the water are made in France. Most of the worlds catamarans are French. This is our 3rd. French catamaran. Dealing with the French is next to impossible. The shops close from 12 to 2, sometimes 12 to 4. The custom, immigration agent opened at 4 but his computer wouldn’t work until 6 -took 3 trips

Then another great sail from the Isles de Saintes to the northern tip of Guadeloupe, where we anchored in the very deep bay of Deshaies. The next morning when we tried to raise the anchor 20 ft., the anchor windless protested. Then later, the refrigerator and freezer each shutdown. It appears that our battery monitor has quit working and we ran the house batteries low. House batteries total 600 Ah. A typical car starting battery is probably less than 95Ah. So, we cranked up the generator, charged the batteries, and made a few gallons of drinking water while the autopilot did all the sailing. It was a nice sail with all sails up in 15-20 knots of wind. Will go shopping tomorrow - the gin seems to have evaporated.

A bit about life aboard Toucan - We normally wake at daylight. If we are making a passage we take off right after coffee, and put the sails up soonest. We crank up both motors and hoist anchor using the electric windless. We have 300 ft of stainless steel chain attached to a 66 lb anchor. We try our utmost to travel via sail power. We fill the diesel tanks maybe once/yr. taking on maybe 30-40 gallons. We have a 220V generator, and washing machine that we seldom use. Our reverse osmosis water maker operates on 12 volts and cranks out 16 gal/hr. Our first boat didn’t have a water maker so we have learned to economize on water usage. We try to start out with full water tanks from the marina giving us utility water for a couple of months, for the galley and showers. We do not ever drink water from the tanks. We drink water from the water maker. It needs to be run at least every few days to keep it sanitary. Salt water goes bad fast. We could crank up our generator to heat hot water for showers, but elect to use solar showers. We fill a couple of 5 gallon bags of water and sit them in the sun. After our afternoon swim, we take a warm solar shower in the bathroom. We seldom run the generator,.This was the first time this season. It is not happy unless it has work to do. We have a 100Amp battery charger, but the batteries are normally kept fully charged by the solar plates on the bimini top. We had a lot of clouds and rain the last couple of days. If we were to head across an ocean going day and night with autopilot, radar, navigation lights and all going full blast, then we really need and appreciate the generator. Every evening, we sit the table and eat out in the cockpit under the bimini. Since the wind here is predominantly from the East, we are able to see the sun set in the west and occasionally see the green flash just as it disappears.