Sharp Eye and Toot
Wednesday 27th Dec 2023
Sharp Eye and Toot here logging on to tell you of our last ten days marine motoring to circumnavigate Antigua (pronounced An-tee-gah if you are local). We are here to share this with you in the form of superlatives:
MBF (Most Beautiful Fish): Constellation Glitter Fish - Also perhaps known as the Juvenile Yellowtailed Damsel Fish, but we like our name better. It is small and black to dark blue with iridescent blue spots that look like glitter and a translucent tail.
Class President Fish: Sergeant Major - We loved how the Sergeant Majors would swim right at the top of the tall coral beds near the surface, right at eye level.
Most Likely to Break your Heart: Much of the coral seemed to be dead or dying. It felt like you were swimming through a graveyard at times. People - wear your reef-safe sunscreen and do what you can to slow down climate change
Best Meal: As for rules, we believe they are meant to be broken (when it makes sense and in this case it does). So we have selected a three way tie of Bouillabaisse, Chicken and Olive and Pancetta over Grits, Pasta Puttanesca with homegrown tomatoes and home canned sauce. Runners up: Rice and veg with egg and smoked salmon breakfast, Ham plantains and cabbage (Christmas Dinner), Butternut squash soup, Chili, Cassoulet, Pork Chops with veg and rice, Tuna with veg and rice, and Green Curry.
Best Beach: South Beach of Great Bird Island due to it having a tree where you could sit in the water while under shade - the optimal cooling method - only sacrificing taking on a few pounds of sand in your swimsuit bottoms. There was also some fun tide pooling where we found Chitons!
Brainiac Award: We first saw a pile of shells while snorkeling in Nonsuch Bay and remembered what we learned in ‘My Octopus Teacher’ (on Netflix) about how octopi often have shells outside of their dens. We dove down to inspect and sure enough! An Octopus was inside! Partially camouflaged to Sand color, but had some reddish color to it and you could see it’s eye!
The One That Got Away: Turtles - As it turns out, we’ve come to the conclusions that Turtles do NOT appreciate being called Turty Poo as we often tried to summon them with this name and though we saw many from the boat (especially in Ricketts Harbor - we tentatively IDed them as Hawksbills - Critically Endangered like most sea turtles), we saw none of them while we were in the water.
Best Team Player: Once again, a two-way tie between Mike and Gloria for waking up at 5:30am to motorsail from Ricketts Harbor to Great Bird Island while we snoozed our little hearts out below deck until about 9:30am (We’ll blame it on the time difference). This generous act allowed us to sleep through the worst of the offshore swell and wake up once we had already reached calmer waters.
Best Luck: We had phenomenal weather the whole time. Not the best for sailing as winds were light, but perfect for calm anchorages with occasional light breezes to cool you down.
Best Cocktail: Painkiller - Orange juice, pineapple juice, coconut cream, and rum with a dash of nutmeg. A Caribbean classic.
Best View: Shirley Heights/Block House - On Day 3 we went on a long sweaty, but beautiful hike to Dows Hill (including interpretive center with an informative and creative historical show on the history of the island), Block House had views of the east coast of Antigua with crashing waves below and a very welcomed breeze that was fun to catch in your shirt. From Shirley Heights you could see, Guadalupe, Montserrat, English Harbor, Falmouth Harbor and Nelson’s Dockyard.
Most Mysterious: We may or may not have seen a manatee from the boat during the passage from Jolly Harbor to Carlisle Bay (Or Carlile Bae for those Brandi Fans out there)
Most Likely to Surprise you: Southern Sting Ray - Although these giant rays (up to 4ish feet across) were quite spooky, they seemed quite friendly, gentle, curious and food motivated (something we can resonate with). And when they came out of our periphery, they still gave us quite the jolt!
Most Magical Location: Ricketts Harbor (when nobody else is there) - On Day 4 we traveled from Falmouth to Ricketts Harbor. There was BIG swell from the Northeast and the passage was rocky and rolly. As soon as we cut in behind Green Island the swell died down and we cruised into Ricketts Harbor just as all the other boats left. We had the spot to ourselves overnight and it was magical to sit in calm water with turtles popping up all around and watch (at a distance) the big swells break on the shoals at the entrance to the bay.
Best Snorkeling: Hell’s Gate Dive Spot - On Christmas Day we both swam with stingrays and also went snorkeling near Hell’s Gate (a natural rock arch). The coral here was the healthiest we’ve seen off Antigua and the water was delightfully clear. Our highlight was seeing many rainbow parrotfish!
Best Shipwreck: A two way tie between this blog entry and the Wreck of the Andes (located in Deep Bay on the West Coast of Antigua). We stopped here for lunch on our final day of travel around Antigua. The waters were not super clear and made it hard to see at first, but if we dove down a few feet you could see the coral and algae growing on the boards across the hull, the mast sticking out and when the sun shown a little brighter, we could see little Sergeant Majors swimming around the bow of the boat, well lit and closer to the surface.
In summary, we had ourselves a grand old time and we’re very grateful to our hosts for such a wonderful and relaxing vacation. Thank you Mom and Dad (or Mike and Gloria)!
Signing off,
Sharp Eye (Tasha) and Toot (Mac)
As the sun went down, the full moon came up ... just an astonishingly beautiful evening
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