Date: 14-28.02.2025
Route: Pointe a Pitre-Rivere Sans-Malendure-Deshaies-Falmouth-Barbuda-Fourche-Oraniestadt-Basseterre
Miles/hours: 255Mm/63h
Guadeloupe
Diving in the Jacques Cousteau reserve
We stop the yacht in Malendure Bay and row a dinghy to the shore. Note – you can anchor behind the line of yellow buoys and not on the boat route to the jetty (it is not marked), but everyone knows that. There are big waves, but we manage. It turns out that there are a lot of diving offices on the shore – we choose the first one on the shore and arrange a dive for the next day. The dive costs €45 per person plus €5 for equipment (regardless of what we take). We make an appointment for the next day at 9:30. We sail on a rubber dinghy. It turns out that we are diving in pairs and a dive master. It is great. We sail to a place called the Coral Garden (Jardin de corall). We are given steel tanks, so we take less ballast. We swim among beautiful colorful corals (very colorful). There is a bust of Jacques Cousteau at the bottom.
Deshaies
A nice anchorage, although it only gets shallow right at the shore. We stop at 11m depth and let out 50m of chain. The anchor holds, although the wind is blowing, so at night you have to check if everything is OK. There are also buoys, but apparently you have to pay €25. There are beautiful reefs around, although the water is a bit murky.
Antiqua and Barbuda
Antigua has focused on developing tourism for the rich. In the south, there are marinas for super yachts (appropriately expensive), with full professional service. Around very atmospheric pubs, souvenir shops, taxis waiting for customers and a whole lot of shops and services for sailors.
In the capital there is a ferry port for large cruise ships, and opposite the port a promenade straight from Europe with branded shops (mainly with jewellery but not only).
Check-in
SailClear operates. The place of check-in from the south is English Harbour in Nelson’s Fort. Everything is in one room – first Customs, then Immigration and finally the park management and fees.
Standing on the buoy costs $0.10 per foot of the yacht – we pay $13 for 3 days. In addition, Cruising Permit for a month $16, fee for filling out paperwork (processing fee), health protocol ($25), resort fees per person per day – in total for 2 people and 3 days $108 converted to XC$ 292.
Faltmouth Anchorage
A large anchorage in many shallows (birds wade in some). We anchor at 4.5 m. The anchor sinks into the mud up to the shank and holds well.
Nelson’s Fort
A well-maintained fort with old buildings that have been developed as useful premises (pubs, shops, exhibitions), in these buildings also located Customs and Immigration. Around the fort at the quay, there are super yachts, both motor and sailing. There are also ordinary sailboats, but the price in this marina per foot of the yacht exceeds $1.6.
Fort Berkeley
Fort Berkeley is a historic military fort. It is located at the entrance to English Harbour. The fort was built in 1704 and expanded in the mid-18th century. It is part of Nelson’s Dockyard National Park and Antigua Naval Dockyard. It has been included on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The fort offers a very nice view of the bay – the RORC Nelson’s Cup regatta is taking place at the moment. The view is great.
Tourist trail from Fort Berkeley to Pigeon Beach
A well-marked trail leads from Fort Berkeley through Fort Cuyler, Middle Ground and Artillery Battery to Piggeon Beach. Length approx. 1.5 km. The trail leads along a nice path through the forest with views of the surrounding bays and residences. Here the vegetation is drier (cacti, thorny plants) than on the islands to the south. Rain is also less frequent.
Capital of Antigua – Saint John
We take bus no. 17 to the city from the marina (3.75EC$ per person one way). A bus is a slightly larger bus, but the registration number starts with BUS (on a yellow background) – taxis start with TX.
Saint John is a typical Caribbean city, clean with nice colorful houses and lots of Chinese shops. In the center, by the ferry port, there are many branded shops, white tourists and touts offering various tours around the island. All in all, a nice and clean town, but it only takes 1.5 hours to visit it. We also stop at an Indian restaurant for lunch and from the bus station we go back to the marina. When the bus stop is called, the bus stops right at the marina gate. There are many mini-class yachts in the marina (5.8m – most often built by yourself). On Sunday, February 23, they start the regatta around the world. This is a solo regatta (it is difficult to fit more than 1 person on such a boat). There is also one Pole from Ireland. We chat a bit, then get on our boat and sail to the yacht.
Barbuda
Barbuda is a beautiful flat island with a sandy beach stretching the length of the island (about 22 km). In the north, in the mangroves, there is a national park and the largest nesting concentration of frigatebirds. You can get there by car or try your luck on foot. Barbuda has 1,500 inhabitants and 161 km2. Crime is basically non-existent because everyone knows each other and it is difficult to cover.
Anchorage in Martello Bay
We anchor at the western part of the bay opposite Fort Martello. From here it is only 0.5M to the only ferry port on the island. In the morning we launch the boat, take our documents and sail to land to check in. Avoiding the reefs we sail our boat to the port and pull it ashore by the sign with the Barbuda sign. As soon as we get out of the water a taxi appears immediately and offers a lift.
We thank you politely. When asked about public transport, the gentleman at the port said that he is not local, but a lady in a nearby bar can order us a taxi. We set off on foot. A moment later we stop the pickup and drive to town. In town the gentleman stops, but when asked where Customs is, he says that he does not know, but he will take us to someone who does.
Check-in
There is a man in the bar by the airport who knows where Customs is – he says to go straight and take the fifth street to the left. We do so, but as soon as we turn left the man catches up with us in a car and says he thought we were going down another street – and from this one we should have turned right, indeed a moment later we are standing in front of a building with the Customs sign. The office is open, the air conditioning is on, but there is no one inside.
After a while two women come, but they only take some documents and leave. They let us wait inside. In another 5 minutes an official from Immigration comes, and a moment later from Customs, a short chat, printing and stamping of documents and we are cleared. We can set off to explore the city.
Cordington
A very nice clean town with a lot of destruction after Hurricane Irma. Everyone is working hard to rebuild, because even though the hurricane was almost 7 years ago, its effects are still visible. There are many houses of worship or religious meetings, a few barges, a few grocery stores and that’s the whole town. There is also supposedly a cave on the island (but we can’t find it on any map, so we give up).
There is a port in the town, but only small boats can reach it, because the deepest passage through the lagoon is 1.5m. You can also take a boat trip among the mangroves to the frigatebird sanctuary, but you have to allocate a whole day for that. After lunch and ice cream from a nearby shop, we return to the ferry port (also hitchhiking). The driver takes us right up to the boat and helps launch it.
Overall, Barbuda made a very good impression. It is clean, well-kept, and the people are warm, friendly and hard-working.
The road to Ile Fourche
After lunch, we leave Barbuda and sail towards Ile Fourche to close our loop around the Caribbean. We reach the bay in the morning – it is full of yachts, but fortunately we find one free buoy. We see a dolphin at the mooring. At night, the birds swam with us, there were 5 of them, but in the morning it turned out that unfortunately they had dirty the deck a lot.
Ile Fourche
A nature reserve. The island belongs to St. Bartolome, an overseas territory of France. Anchoring is prohibited (and despite this, several yachts are at anchor). There are 10 buoys for yachts up to 20t and 25m long. Last year there were lots of turtles here, and now we don’t see any. We catch a buoy close to the shore, snorkel and clean the deck after the birds’ visit. The next day we leave in the morning. As a farewell at the exit of the bay, we meet 3 turtles – but they are there 🙂
Sint Eustatius (Statia)
A small island that is an overseas territory of the Netherlands. Everyone speaks English (among themselves too) and the currency is USD. For formal reasons, Starlink does not work here (we learned that the Netherlands invested a lot of money and ran fiber optics from Bonaire to the Netherlands, and Musk does not pay them for using the internet).
Check-in and check-out
Saiclear works, but you have to fill out an application in advance, unless you have a different internet source than Starlink. The office is in Oranjestad by the port. Open from 9 am to 3:30 pm, there is someone at Customs all the time, but Immigration is mainly at the airport, so you have to call them to come. There is a special phone for this at the gate. The button on the receiver does not work, so you have to make sure there is a signal in the receiver – it is a direct line to Immigration. Exit check-in can be done no earlier than 24 hours before departure, so we have to come a second time.
Oranjestad anchorage
Sandy bottom, the anchor holds well. We stand at 7 m, but you can stand closer to the land at about 4 m. The downside is the big waves. There are a lot of buoys, but they all have their owners and in the evening different boats moor on them. We saw several ways of returning to the shore after leaving the boat on the buoy. Or you change to a pontoon previously left on this buoy, some people pull a pontoon, to which they then change, sometimes one pontoon takes people from several boats, but there is also a version of returning by swimming.
At the ferry port there is a pontoon jetty, where everyone moors. From there it is a few steps to the check-in.
Oranjestad
The capital of the island. It consists of the lower and upper city. You can get to the upper city by the old 17th century corner, or around the car road. We leave the old road opposite the tourist information, where a nice lady gives us maps and a guide to the nature of the island. The city is a combination of Dutch and Caribbean style. Clean, tidy with street names. Cars have Iguana on their license plates.
A trip to the volcano
The volcano is in the Quill reserve. Entry to the national parks on St. Eustatius is paid – 10 USD per calendar year. You pay online at https://statiapark.org/. If you also want to dive, the fee is 25 USD per year.
At the park office, we get a map of the routes to the volcano. After checking in for the exit and taking the documents to the yacht, we set off on the trip. We take our sneakers (a very good choice). First, the road through the city, then a well-maintained path to the crown of the crater, we walk all the time in the forest, so there are no views, but the vegetation is completely different than on the other islands. At the fork in the trails we choose the path to View point – there are even ropes here to help overcome the steep sections of the trail. From the top there is a beautiful view of the northern part of the island.
It takes us 3 hours to go up and 2 hours to go down. On the way back it starts to rain, but we have umbrellas.
St. Kitts
Check-in
SaliClear works, but for Immigration you have to fill out a form on the knatravelform.kn website.
You get a number that you enter into the computer. It all takes time, but you manage to get stamps in your passports.
Port Zante Marina
A very nice marina near the port for large cruise ships, right before the entrance to the marina there is a duty-free zone for tourists. Toilets and showers in the marina. Water is paid 15 USD per stay, and electricity according to the meter. Near the marina Customs and Immigration office. You enter the marina through a gate with a guard. You need to book a spot in the marina in advance (*but generally there is no problem) and before entering the marina you need to report on channel 68, preferably about 10-15 minutes before arrival.
Basseterre
The capital of the island and the port of entry. A typical Caribbean town, but it has a lot of Chinese shops, two large technical shops (including ACE), Budget Marine, some fruit stands and a few nice places to see – in total the tour takes about 2 hours.
