Antigua's Capitol, cruising ship and commercial port, is St. John's. St. John's is in need of rehabilitation. Unlike Basseterre on St. Kitts which was also an old town in need of rehabilitation St. John' had not built a new cruise ship terminal with an adjacent newly built shopping street like St. Kitts. Nor did they have a rehabilitated main shopping street like Phillipsburg on St. Martin.
Dickerson Bay, at the north west corner of the Island, has a white sand beach with turquoise water. The Bay is predominantly dominated by a Sandals Grande Resort which appeared nice but we did not stop to visit. The north end of Antigua is mostly protected by a coral reef. I had read that Jumby Bay on Long Island which sits within the waters protected by the reef was a high end Resort with beautiful beaches, and that this was a good cruising area. With 25 nmph east winds blowing the North Sound area, which has some east exposure, was windy and we saw no cruising boats in the area. We did find the North Sound Boatyard. This is a relatively newly constructed large facility with a 150 ton travel lift and an on concrete dry storage area. It looked like a well financed yard.
We had lunch at the Catamaran Hotel in Falmouth Harbour, overlooking the Harbor from the Harbor's north. After lunch we went to look at the big boats in Falmouth Harbour Marina and Antigua Yacht Club Marina. What we found were 100s of tradesman primping mega sailing yachts, mostly for the St. Barth Bucket Race the following week. There were people working on most every boat. The first Bucket Regatta was held in Nantucket in 1986. Between 1986 and 2001 it became the premier mega yacht regatta. In 2001 the torch was passed to Newport where a Bucket Regatta has been held every year since. The first St. Barth Bucket was held informally between four boats, one owned by Nelson Doubleday who was one of the original founders of the Nantucket Bucket in 1986. The stated goal for all the Bucket Regatta's is to "Win the Party". It's more about being there and showing off your mega yacht than winning the race, according to the race committee literature. However I bet the race committee has not convinced some of the most competitive people in the world that own these machines, that winning doesn't count.
Most of the boats at the Falmouth Marina had 20 to 40 ft. containers in a yard adjacent to the dock where they kept spare parts and in some cases a small machine shop in the container. The mega sailing yachts being primped included classic boats with lots of teak in their cabin and deck structures. Most of these classic looking boats had updated current masts and sail rigging. The most impressive looking of the boats in the Marina was the ultra modern Ahima. This 216 ft. sloop had a mast reaching 262 ft. above the deck. It's stern was open like many of the more recently designed smaller racing boats and differed from most of the recently designed large sailing yachts most all of which have aft raked transoms.
Knowing we were going to be in Antigua for at most of another week waiting for the seas to flatten for a passage further south, we left Falmouth and English ( which we will discuss in the next blog) Harbors with the plan to bring our boat around and spend our remaining time on Antigua here.
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