Statia, St Kitts, Antigua, Guadeloupe & the New Web Site
Good news, the web site is up! The blog journals have not been incorporated, but we're releasing anyway! Just think of it as a "beta." =^)
If you're reading this you know that svAurora.com still gets you to the blog. To access the new site, use the URL svaurora.com/newsite.
For those of you who like pictures (Julia are you reading this?) there is a photo gallery on the site with photos from our journey. On the "Our Location" page you can view our route as well as link to a list of all the places we've stayed. A .kmz file of our route can be downloaded and opened with Google Earth. Zoom in to see where Aurora has been. "The Boat" page has info on the boat and, yes, more pictures!
The blog journals will soon be incorporated and accessible from the "Our Journey" page. Once that happens, we will post and maintain our journals on the site.
It took a while to build the web site as I had to teach myself HTML and CSS. I tried using an application to create the HTML files, but it just didn't do what I wanted. So, I taught myself HTML with a tutorial Ken found online. Went through the entire thing, 29 lessons in all, only to find out that it was outdated! All of the HTML style source I learned to write from the tutorial was deprecated. No fair! CSS was what I needed to master. Who knew? (Erik!) To add to my challenge, I was trying to learn all of this while embarking on a new lifestyle in which access to the Internet was and is iffy. Thus what would have probably taken your average 20 year old a weekend or two to pull together took me 7 months. But it works, is easy to navigate and has lots of pictures!
Enough about the new web site. Check it out!
Last I wrote, we were in St Maarten and not sure of our next destination. Well, we've sailed to Statia, St Kitts, Antigua and are currently in Guadeloupe.
I was not so taken with Statia or St Kitts. Not sure why, maybe because St Maarten, Saba and St Barts had been such interesting and beautiful islands. Nevertheless, we spent a bit of time on each and took a tour of St Kitts. As always, the European history of the islands lives on in building ruins as well as preserved fortifications built by the English, Dutch, French and Spanish. On Statia, we visited Fort Oranje, built by the Dutch. In the mid to late 1700's tiny Statia, less than 4 miles wide and 5 miles long, was the trade capital of the West Indies with one to two hundred ships anchored in the harbor on any given day. Amazing.
From Oranjestad on Statia, we sailed to Basseterre on St Kitts where we stayed in Port Zante Marina. So nice to have access to shore power and showers with unlimited water. Shore power means we can run the air conditioner. A treat!
On St Kitts we visited yet another rebuilt fort, Brimstone Hill Fortress, an impressive structure situated on an 800 foot high hill overlooking the western side of the island. Built by the British, it served to protect the island as well as the sugar cane grown there. Today Fort Brimstone is a National Park. Pictures of the Brimstone Hill Fortress can be found in the Photo Gallery on our new site.
From Basseterre, we sailed 6 miles south to Ballast Bay on the southern end of St Kitts where we anchored for a night. Took advantage of the bay's clean, calm water to jump in and scrub the hull. Some nasty red marine life had made our hull its home. Took us most of the afternoon to clean it all off. Ken donned his SCUBA gear and scrubbed the keel, prop and underside. I snorkeled and cleaned at the water line and below. Our boat looks much better, and with the prop and bottom clean we are motoring at speed.
Our motor-sail from St Kitts to Antigua was not fun, 50 miles all directly into 20+ knot winds and 6 to 8 foot seas. Every wave brought water over the bow and sometimes into the cockpit. Nice to have that 10 hours behind us.
We spent two nights anchored in Jolly Harbor, Antigua. The day we arrived one of Ken's fillings came out. So he needed to see a dentist. Fortunately our guide book had a recommendation for a dentist in St. Johns, the largest city on Antigua and only 5 miles from the harbor. Ken called. The dentist had an 11:00 a.m. opening. We grabbed a cab and headed over. The tooth was refilled quickly, and we were on our way. A pleasant experience. So far we have found medical services easy to obtain and not too expensive. I visited an ENT in St Martin for a persistent cough. He was able to see me the day after I called. Turns out I have an allergy that caused and irritation in my trachea resulting in a cough. The medicine prescribed appears to have helped.
From Jolly Harbor we sailed to English Harbor located on Antigua's southern coast. English Harbor is home to Fort Berkeley (yet another European fort) and Nelson's Dockyard National Park. The Nelson Dockyard, circa 1745, is in the process of being restored. Several buildings have already been renovated and now house a museum, shops, restaurants, a bakery, a marina, yacht services, customs, laundry, showers and more.
Like Statia and St Kitts, Antigua did not capture my fancy. Again, I'm not sure why. Maybe it was the people. They were not as warm and welcoming as on many of the islands. Maybe it was the weather. Hot. Maybe we didn't make an effort to tour the island and see what it had to offer. The cab ride to the dentist was not a beautiful drive, but we thought of it as our "tour." English Harbor was interesting, but it lacked life. The season's over and the park was, for the most part, empty-many of the restaurants were closed, there were only a few boats in the marina, the shops had no customers. Felt too quiet for a national park. On the up side, the laundry and showers were empty and clean. I did three loads of wash and cleaned myself!
An interesting thing happened when we were clearing out of customs from Antigua. (We must clear in and usually out of customs and immigration in each country we visit.) We were told that we could not clear out due to a court order to seize Aurora, our boat! We were shown the order and told we would not be issued a clearance and could not leave. We said that the order was not for our Aurora as we were not the owners listed on the court document. So we had to produce our boat registration and wait as the Senior Custom Officer reviewed it ever so slowly and carefully. Once done, she said to the clerk in a curt manner, "not the same boat," and that was that. We were cleared out.
We left English Harbor and again motored into the wind, this time for 41 miles from Antigua to Guadeloupe. Although the wind was blowing 20 knots, the seas were not so big. The passage was enjoyable. At least it was for me. Ken was below lying down on the bunk. We arrived at Deshaies (Day-hay) in the afternoon, and anchored in the harbor for the night.
Ken has posted a couple of journals since my last update. See the May 17th and May 23rd postings. He writes more about the island histories and the latest boat issues than I do.
Don't forget to check out the web site at svAurora.com/newsite.
Safe Passages,
Maryann
If you're reading this you know that svAurora.com still gets you to the blog. To access the new site, use the URL svaurora.com/newsite.
For those of you who like pictures (Julia are you reading this?) there is a photo gallery on the site with photos from our journey. On the "Our Location" page you can view our route as well as link to a list of all the places we've stayed. A .kmz file of our route can be downloaded and opened with Google Earth. Zoom in to see where Aurora has been. "The Boat" page has info on the boat and, yes, more pictures!
The blog journals will soon be incorporated and accessible from the "Our Journey" page. Once that happens, we will post and maintain our journals on the site.
It took a while to build the web site as I had to teach myself HTML and CSS. I tried using an application to create the HTML files, but it just didn't do what I wanted. So, I taught myself HTML with a tutorial Ken found online. Went through the entire thing, 29 lessons in all, only to find out that it was outdated! All of the HTML style source I learned to write from the tutorial was deprecated. No fair! CSS was what I needed to master. Who knew? (Erik!) To add to my challenge, I was trying to learn all of this while embarking on a new lifestyle in which access to the Internet was and is iffy. Thus what would have probably taken your average 20 year old a weekend or two to pull together took me 7 months. But it works, is easy to navigate and has lots of pictures!
Enough about the new web site. Check it out!
Last I wrote, we were in St Maarten and not sure of our next destination. Well, we've sailed to Statia, St Kitts, Antigua and are currently in Guadeloupe.
I was not so taken with Statia or St Kitts. Not sure why, maybe because St Maarten, Saba and St Barts had been such interesting and beautiful islands. Nevertheless, we spent a bit of time on each and took a tour of St Kitts. As always, the European history of the islands lives on in building ruins as well as preserved fortifications built by the English, Dutch, French and Spanish. On Statia, we visited Fort Oranje, built by the Dutch. In the mid to late 1700's tiny Statia, less than 4 miles wide and 5 miles long, was the trade capital of the West Indies with one to two hundred ships anchored in the harbor on any given day. Amazing.
From Oranjestad on Statia, we sailed to Basseterre on St Kitts where we stayed in Port Zante Marina. So nice to have access to shore power and showers with unlimited water. Shore power means we can run the air conditioner. A treat!
On St Kitts we visited yet another rebuilt fort, Brimstone Hill Fortress, an impressive structure situated on an 800 foot high hill overlooking the western side of the island. Built by the British, it served to protect the island as well as the sugar cane grown there. Today Fort Brimstone is a National Park. Pictures of the Brimstone Hill Fortress can be found in the Photo Gallery on our new site.
From Basseterre, we sailed 6 miles south to Ballast Bay on the southern end of St Kitts where we anchored for a night. Took advantage of the bay's clean, calm water to jump in and scrub the hull. Some nasty red marine life had made our hull its home. Took us most of the afternoon to clean it all off. Ken donned his SCUBA gear and scrubbed the keel, prop and underside. I snorkeled and cleaned at the water line and below. Our boat looks much better, and with the prop and bottom clean we are motoring at speed.
Our motor-sail from St Kitts to Antigua was not fun, 50 miles all directly into 20+ knot winds and 6 to 8 foot seas. Every wave brought water over the bow and sometimes into the cockpit. Nice to have that 10 hours behind us.
We spent two nights anchored in Jolly Harbor, Antigua. The day we arrived one of Ken's fillings came out. So he needed to see a dentist. Fortunately our guide book had a recommendation for a dentist in St. Johns, the largest city on Antigua and only 5 miles from the harbor. Ken called. The dentist had an 11:00 a.m. opening. We grabbed a cab and headed over. The tooth was refilled quickly, and we were on our way. A pleasant experience. So far we have found medical services easy to obtain and not too expensive. I visited an ENT in St Martin for a persistent cough. He was able to see me the day after I called. Turns out I have an allergy that caused and irritation in my trachea resulting in a cough. The medicine prescribed appears to have helped.
From Jolly Harbor we sailed to English Harbor located on Antigua's southern coast. English Harbor is home to Fort Berkeley (yet another European fort) and Nelson's Dockyard National Park. The Nelson Dockyard, circa 1745, is in the process of being restored. Several buildings have already been renovated and now house a museum, shops, restaurants, a bakery, a marina, yacht services, customs, laundry, showers and more.
Like Statia and St Kitts, Antigua did not capture my fancy. Again, I'm not sure why. Maybe it was the people. They were not as warm and welcoming as on many of the islands. Maybe it was the weather. Hot. Maybe we didn't make an effort to tour the island and see what it had to offer. The cab ride to the dentist was not a beautiful drive, but we thought of it as our "tour." English Harbor was interesting, but it lacked life. The season's over and the park was, for the most part, empty-many of the restaurants were closed, there were only a few boats in the marina, the shops had no customers. Felt too quiet for a national park. On the up side, the laundry and showers were empty and clean. I did three loads of wash and cleaned myself!
An interesting thing happened when we were clearing out of customs from Antigua. (We must clear in and usually out of customs and immigration in each country we visit.) We were told that we could not clear out due to a court order to seize Aurora, our boat! We were shown the order and told we would not be issued a clearance and could not leave. We said that the order was not for our Aurora as we were not the owners listed on the court document. So we had to produce our boat registration and wait as the Senior Custom Officer reviewed it ever so slowly and carefully. Once done, she said to the clerk in a curt manner, "not the same boat," and that was that. We were cleared out.
We left English Harbor and again motored into the wind, this time for 41 miles from Antigua to Guadeloupe. Although the wind was blowing 20 knots, the seas were not so big. The passage was enjoyable. At least it was for me. Ken was below lying down on the bunk. We arrived at Deshaies (Day-hay) in the afternoon, and anchored in the harbor for the night.
Ken has posted a couple of journals since my last update. See the May 17th and May 23rd postings. He writes more about the island histories and the latest boat issues than I do.
Don't forget to check out the web site at svAurora.com/newsite.
Safe Passages,
Maryann
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