Antigua

We have had the best sailing yet on Sunflower for most of the Caribbean with the wind on the beam and plenty of it but now we are at the top of the chain and it's all downhill sailing for a while heading west once again. Antigua would be one of my favourite islands. I had always wanted to come and see the mega yachts but thought a day or 2 would be enough of the glitz and glamour but it was nothing like. Yea a lot of seriously bloody serious yachts in Falmouth and English harbours with lots of Perini Navi's 50+m, Old Americas cup J boats and everything  in between plus the disgusting white boats but then where we have been mostly anchored in Deep Bay on the other side of the island there's hardly a one yet a beautiful anchorage. Antigua is blessed with beautiful anchorages all over with protected bays everywhere but then there are also the "Christmas Winds", it's like Fremantle in the summer with a non stop screaming easterly that stirs up the water with a bit of groundswell so snorkelling is out of the question but it's all good;) the people are all very friendly and it's the most English islands we have been to they even have a rasta style English accent and play reggae Xmas tunes such as my favourite "does santa come to the getto", no joke heaps of reggae Xmas songs! 

A couple of days before Xmas our Finnish friends on "Everafter" and "KasteHelmi" and also Luis our Argentinian friend arrived here in Deep Bay and it has been great fun, bit of a rum overdose but great fun! Xmas on the beach with loads of great Finnish food, Ham ect and a Seafood BBQ was a serious feast for sure, good times! Really happy we got to meet up with them to share the day. 

Now that the hangover has almost passed it's time to get Sunflower ready for the 180 mile sail to the BVI's. There is a small island called Jast Van Dyke with normally 200 people on it but they put on a massive 3 day party for New Years that brings a few thousand people, will be crazy for sure. So tomorrow we leave and should arrive on the 29th and then it's just a 30 mile sail to Culebra where I fly back to Australia mid Jan for work. 

Guadaloupe

Our original plan was to miss the French islands but I'm glad we stopped here that's for sure. Completely different vibe, nothing like any of the other islands we have visited. Obviously French, very French and they have made a very good influence. It's the first island we have seen with good organisation with the farming, great crops everywhere of all sorts including massive banana plantations. And the food.... While in the rest of the Caribbean we see massive obesity problems with loads of fried take away places here in Guadaloupe the people are actually skinny! Well maybe not skinny but not massive either :) is a shame though we can't speak French which does make it seriously hard but they are very chilled out bunch.

We stayed up the top of the island on the west in Dashaies, a beautiful little sheltered bay with loads of free really good moorings. We hired a car and took a trip around the island and it's absolutely beautiful and lush, rainforest everywhere and a hikers paridise although we only did a couple of short walks in the national park.

Some tips for cruisers- there's drinking water available from a tap near the showers in harbour for free, supermarkets are really good and although it's in euros seemed no more expensive and our search for cheap beer we found cases for €18,great steaks and awesome cheeses and of course French wine from €3. Check in super easy on a computer at a little shop you can do every day of the week for €4.

The year of the goat

Marie-Galante is a nice little island belonging to France and just off the main island Guadaloupe. We met Sonia and Luis our Argentinian friends there and hired a car for the day tolook around the island. Since Tobago Sonia and Luis have been talking about finding a baby goat to cook Argentinian style on the fire and seeing the many farms here and Julie's birthday coming up we chanced it and pulled into one of the farmers driveways. As luck would have it we couldn't have chosen a better fella to have come to and luckily Luis speaks French otherwise it would have been impossible for sure. This fella only has a couple of acres but has absolutely everything besides the dozen or so goats, chickens, pigeons, fouls, corn avocados, potatoes, every tropical fruit and veg around actually I reckon an absolute little paradise. So after a bit of bargaining, (well trying to the price actually went up) we came to a deal that he would slaughter it and we could pick it up the next day. Very cute little goat we chose I must say. Anyway a long story short we found a near deserted beach in the following days to anchor and it was bloody delicious! Luis cooked it to perfection over the fire and with a bit of Argentinian spice Chimi-churi it couldn't have been better, we had a great day celebrating Julie's birthday..it is a 4 hour process so there is plenty of time to hang out, swim and have a few drinks and the afternoon was a hoot, very good day:)

Dominica

We arrived in Domnica after reading and hearing stories about the boat boys hassling hard for tours and whatever else they can steal and had in our heads it wasn't going to be one of the safer places. As usual all those stories were way over exaggerated. 2 mile from the anchorage though a boat boy did come and meet us for the usual mooring ball?? Tour?? But then smiled and said welcome to Dominica and then another after we dropped anchor. The problem was we actually did want to do tours and thinking this was part of the bargaining we said no to try to get a better deal and then never saw them again for days! So long story short the tour we did want to do to the boiling lake never happened although the 8 hour hike made our bodies ache just thinking about it. So we did a couple of small local tours closer to the town including the Indian River boat trip and seeing were Pirates of the Caribbean 3 was filmed and I tell you what the locals here are for sure the friendliest we have met in the Caribbean so far, very happy bunch.  Even the Saturday morning vege market had a full 5 piece reggae band playing old Jimmy Cliff classics was awesome. Our search though for cheap beer still continues though having to pay $40Aus a case:). But the veges were a lot better than the rest of the islands so far.

Also very easy to get good water with a hose on a mooring in the anchorage you can tie off. We then had a great sail in just 10 knots of wind to Marie-Galante  Guadaloupe, Julie even managed to do the washing!