Friday, November 28, 2008
17 45.15N 62 10.04W

Hello Everybody!

Today Leo and I had the best watch.  Just after 6 am we were joined by a lone dolphin followed by two more cavorting at the bow.  Shortly thereafter came a beautiful sunrise: yellow & orange coming through scattered clouds. It was as if the Caribbean was welcoming us home with sunshine, blue sky, fair winds and a smile!

Yesterday while charting our course for Antigua we had noticed a 59′ pinnacle rising up from the 17,000′ seabed 26 miles northeast of St. Barts. Fisherman’s heaven. Hoping they would hit the jackpot, the fishermen plotted a course that would take us directly over the pinnacle, and ordered that we maintain a speed overnight that would put arrival at 0800 for optimal fishing.  Between 0700 and 0800 Jake, Pete and Pierre wandered up to the deck to begin catching fish.  We rolled up the jibs and centered the main for easy maneuvering.  We motorsailed within 49′ of the pinnacle and turned to circle back, this time within 52′, with no result.  Discouraged at not seeing even a slight deviation in the depth we eased out the main, unfurled the jibs and turned for Antigua.  Not 15 minutes later:  zzzzzz, “fish on”, we had a fish.  As we reeled in the empty line we hooked a second fish–two Mahi.  Peter reeled in his fish, Jake did the honors with the gaf, and Leo began reeling in the 2nd fish…..until the crank handle broke!  Well, Leo comes from a long line of Dominican fishermen, having fished with his grandfather since he was 9;  so a mere broken handle couldn’t stop Leo.  He simply put on the Kevlar gloves, grabbed the line and began pulling it in, just as he had when fishing with his grandfather.  His comment:  ”Now I feel like I’m fishing!”.  Current and final score:  Peter 3, Jake 3, fish 1.

Now were are motorsailing with the whomper between the islands.  We are 16 miles off Barbuda, but its highest point is 250′, so we wont’ be able to see it.  We saw the loom of light over Anguilla and St. Martin before dawn, and have seen Saba on horizon.  We can now see Statia, St. Kitts & Nevis, Montserrat and Antigua.

Later…We are turning the SW corner of Antigua as the sun sets.  We’ll be anchored up in another couple of hours.  We’ve consolidated the fish flags on the halyards: a Mahi flag with a 5 and a Wahoo flag to port; to starboard we are flying the quarantine flag, reguired until we check in with customs and immigration.  We plan to have dinner once anchored (Mahi, what else?) with a cold beer or perhaps a rum.  We’ll drop the dinghy so we can swim and/or shower on the back deck.  We feel as if we’ve arrived at our home away from home and look forward to seeing all our Antiguan friends again.

Tomorrow after a big celebratory breakfast we have a full day of work. Jake will check us all in and we will go to the dock to fuel and wash the salt off the  boat.  We’ll have to spend the day getting the inside and outside of the boat cleaned up, but it should go quickly with 6 people.  Peter and Pierre plan to stay in Antigua for a well-deserved vacation before departing for home on Tuesday.  Danielle will be remaining in Antigua, Leo has arrived home, and Jake and I will stay a couple of weeks before deciding what to do next.

All the best from the crew of Avalanche, eager to make landfall.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 29th, 2008 at 9:07 am and is filed under 2008 Trip South. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.