Hanging out in Paradise

Hanging out in Paradise

Saturday 23rd - Monday 25th December

Happy Christmas! We are having a wonderful time anchored off Great Bird Island on the north coast of Antigua. Weather systems far to the north of us are depressing the trade winds in the Caribbean and it is unusually calm here. It’s a beautiful area, with flat seas and clear blue green water.

We sat in the cockpit yesterday and talked with Mac about holiday traditions, and came to the realization that we (the Block Breault family) really don’t have much in the way of Christmas traditions. Over the years we have celebrated the holidays in so many different locations that every year seems quite different. In the past, Gloria and I visited one or other of our respective parents (in the UK or the USA). Then in a break with that pattern, we went to Australia camping in 1990-1. In the years that followed, after Tasha was born, we sometimes got together with family and sometimes it was just the the three of us. We had an amazing time camping in Big Bend National Park when Tasha was about 5 years old, and spent several Christmas holidays in Florida. When we moved back to the USA our parents did occasionally come and stay with us, and we also travelled to the UK for the holidays. In the past decade we’ve been on the boat four times for Christmas, a couple of times with Tasha visiting and twice meeting up with family in Florida. Two years ago we joined Tasha and Mac in Baja Mexico, then last year we celebrated quietly at home. It’s been all over the place!

One of the aspects that we have loved about cruising is meeting other people. In Jolly Harbor we bumped into a couple called Irina and Tim and got chatting. Their daughter and her boyfriend are visiting them on their boat and by coincidence we all ended up in the same anchorage here off Great Bird Island. Last night we all got together and had some drinks and snacks aboard Cotinga. It was really fun. This is an aspect of cruising that was completely missing during the 2020-1 Covid years.

Today we hope to dinghy around some of the uninhabited islands, do a little snorkeling and have a pretty lazy day. If all goes to plan we are having ham, red cabbage and sautéed sweet potatoes for dinner, followed by damson plum crumble! It may not be traditional, but it’s what we have got!

Mike

17 08.706 N, 61 43.793 W

The view north from the top of Great Bird Island

The south beach, where we landed in the dinghy, Great Bird Island.

There were thousands of these small yellow butterflies

We believe these are the same type of butterfly that escorted us on our sail from the Virgin Islands to St Martins

I had a lot of fun photographing a pair of spiders, that were capturing the butterflies for dinner

We have two solar lanterns on board which are great in the cockpit. This image was created using focus stacking techniques and then inverted (to the negative) at the press of a button!