Preparing for the next leg of our Journey

Preparing for the next leg of our Journey

Saturday 28th - Sunday 29th December 2024

We felt sad saying goodbye to Tasha, Mac, Dolly and Don. We really enjoyed the time we got to spend with them. Shortly after noon yesterday, they took a taxi / shuttle from Deshaies to the airport at Pointe a Pitre and are still on route back to Spokane, WA and Eugene, OR. It’s a long 3-leg journey. Tasha and Mac have promised to send their blog contribution, but in the meantime we will fill you in on what we are up to.

We updated our checkout documents with Customs and Immigration and plan to leave Guadeloupe for Antigua on Tuesday. We needed to file new documents because of the change of crew - (6 people arrived in Guadeloupe onboard Cotinga and only 2 people will depart). The winds have gone round to the NE, or even NNE, and conditions are not good for heading north at the moment. However, we hope by Tuesday that the northerly swells (6 - 9 feet) will have settled down and the winds will have clocked around to the east. Right at the minute the swells are wrapping round into the anchorage and causing some unpleasant boat motion. 

After two weeks of ignoring the boat, during which we thankfully had no major issues, we have re-started doing some boat jobs. Amazingly, after 6 weeks on board, I finally found the missing spare parts that we brought out from the USA. Specifically, the zincs (sacrificial anodes) for our Tohatsu outboard motor and the machine screws that I need to repair the spinnaker pole. So these are two jobs for the near future.

Our rationale for going north to Antigua is that we will be able to do a number of regular maintenance projects quite easily - refill diesel, gasoline (for the outboard and generator), water and propane, as well as get our laundry done. It’s also a lovely place to hang-out. After that we hope to make a brief trip to Montserrat before heading north-west to Nevis-St Kitts, Eustasia and then the Virgin Islands.

More on that later …

Here are a few recent photos from Deshaies.

Tasha's sarong draped over the lifelines and winch

Captive Lorikeet in the Deshaies Botanical Gardens

Captive Maccaw ("Roger") in the Deshaies Botanical Gardens

Flamingos in the Deshaies Botanical Gardens. Obviously, Flamingos are bright orange but I show this photo in B&W to avoid the distraction of the color

A Purple Throated Carib (wild hummingbird) that landed on a branch about two feet away from me and posed beautifully!

Traveller Palm

Purple flower

Pink flower

Sunset from the cockpit of Cotinga in Deshaies harbor