Our Adventures have been numerous in the last month. Firstly, we visited Nevis (pronounced Neevis after the Spanish for snow, although we think it was named after Ben Nevis).

The island is about the size of Arran and has a central peak of 3200ft. In the 17th century it produced more export riches for Britain than all the rest of the colonies (including America!) put together. The riches were produced by sugar and tobacco, although sugar took over as the premier export. Produced by slaves from West Africa the sugar was exported to Britain by English planters in the form of sugar molasses or rum. It was also exported to the British colonies on the east coast of America. The reason for the ability to produce so much sugar was the rainfall caused by the volcanic peak (still not officially extinct!), the rich ash soil and the sunshine. They produced three crops a year. Alas the last sugar was produced in 1956 and the last mill, driven by a steam engine, is now abandoned. There was an attempt, with American money, to turn the plantation and mill into a museum, but it all now lies derelict with vines and flowers adorning the old sugar crushing machinery, rusting were it was last used.

The inhabitants were having an agricultural show in the main town of Charlestown

when we were there and there was a cricket match going on next door. The cricket team was called the ‘Penniless All-stars’. They didn’t look very penniless in their smart burgundy and yellow outfits. The government of Nevis was trying to encourage their 12000 inhabitants to farm various crops to sustain their economy in addition to the offshore investment industry, and more particularly tourism, which produces the majority of the income for the ‘season’, which is November to April. The farmers aren’t encouraged however, since they have to pay the full price of desalinated water for their fields, although why they don’t farm the land as the planters used to do, diverting streams from the rainforest above, is quite beyond us.

The real claim to fame of Nevis is that Admiral Lord Nelson, then Captain Nelson, and in command of the dockyard at Antigua married a local girl, of English stock, Fanny Nisbet. Fanny was the widow of a local doctor and had one son. She was also the niece of the richest estate owner on the island and kept house for him. They were married at Fig Tree Church, which we visited. Prince William, who was a friend of Nelson’s and was commanding a frigate in the area at the time, gave the bride away. Apparently he liked a party and a good time was had by all, including Nelson and Collingwood, at the great house of Montpellier after the wedding. Fanny lived to old age as Viscountess Nelson in Paris, and latterly in Devon. She had no offspring with Nelson.

We were pleased to meet our friends Mike and Jill from Altair, an aero rig starlight 37, also anchored off Charlestown. We had previously met at Casablanca and then the Canary Islands before crossing to the Caribbean. We toured the island in a hired car with them and finished up at a beach restaurant where was had a surf and turf on the turf by the surf! We waved goodbye to them the next morning as they sailed south to Montserrat and we sailed north to see St Kitts, or St Christropher as some charts have it.

We were called back to Antigua with the news that a small property with its own dock for Atlantia at the bottom of the garden had become available in Jolly harbour. It has two bedrooms and needs some renervation. We are going to make it our project for this winter, provided completion occurs, as programmed, for the end of November, after our trip up the East coast of America. If you fancy a holiday sailing, diving, and having sundowners at the beach bar, between December and May please send us an email. Be sure to bring your paintbrush. We already have four bookings, so hurry. We would be pleased to see you and have your assistance.

We were royally entertained to dinner by Desmond and Sue in Jolly Harbour. They have a house there and were happy to hear of our probable purchase, since we would be close by. I am sure there will be a number of dinner parties this winter! We were also pleased to have drinks on Jabberwocky with Tom and Marg from Tynabruich. They sold the Kaimes hotel there two years ago. We also had drinks with Paul and Nancy, from Lake Michigan on Encore II in the marina. They are making another round the world trip on their 56’ cutter starting next January. No doubt there will be a party to send them off!

Business concluded with the lawyers at St Johns, the capital of Antigua, we set sail over night for Simpson Bay lagoon in St Maartens. St Maartens is confusing since it is also St Martins. One half is owned by the Dutch and the other half by the French and it is only twice the size of Arran! We had an excellent run, but the autohelm packed in, along with the watermaker, the air-conditioning and the alternator was playing up! We made a rush for the bridge into the lagoon, which we believed opened at eleven o'clock. We needn’t have bothered since the bridge didn’t open until eleven thirty! A slightly misguided pilot book. We did however see Velsheda, the ex J class yacht coming out and proceeding to Antigua for the classic regatta there. She looked magnificent.

We also saw 12m yachts match racing, quite a sight.

The lagoon, which takes up about a third of the area of St Maarten/St Martin is split by the border. It was full of anchored yachts, especially at the South/Dutch end. We found a space closed to the workshop belonging to Necol, who we thought would be able to help us with our electrical problems. They tested the batteries, which were passed, they mended the autohelm, for which we were very grateful since our model is very out of date, and they supplied a new low-pressure switch for the watermaker. Unfortunately they told us the wrong way to wire it up, which cost us an extra two days there! C’est la Vie. We had the alternator tested ourselves, which passed. A very nice but expensive fridge man rewired our freezer and put fuses in the fridge and freezer systems, and mended our air-conditioning! All in all it was a very satisfactory stop at St Maartens, especially since we bought two sets of scuba gear tax free at a very good price. We can now go underwater swimming all on our own!

We hosted a drinks party for our friends Jeremy and Dominique from Pendulum, Martin and Marlyn from Playground and Mike Rutterford and his crew from Kemmuna. The following morning we were kindly invited aboard Kemmuna, his beautiful 70’ jongert. We were very jealous, even if he doesn’t have a bath onboard!

We went around the lagoon by dinghy which is the equivalent of taking our 4 horse power around the Gareloch and over to Gourock! There were some beautiful houses and hotels looking onto the lagoon.

It only has two entrances (one Dutch, the other French!) both bridged over a 60’ gap on opposite sides of the lagoon. Unfortunately there were also some hulks at the West end, reminders of past hurricanes. Fortunately we took ample fuel and didn’t have to row back the five miles to the anchorage!

Outside in Simpson bay, we went diving with the dive shop, to test the equipment just purchased. It worked well but we needed more weights for the new wetsuits. The dive master said Susan swims like a fish and couldn’t believe she had only done 8 dives! While diving we saw barracuda as well as lobsters, beautiful reef fish and a dolphin suspended above us. We swam on two wrecks and a reef along with the concrete remains of the old bridge to the lagoon. The wrecks and the bridge had all been deliberately dumped on the bottom to encourage the fish. It works!

Having completed our business in St Maartens we set sail over night for the British Virgin Islands. The moon was waxing half full and we had a broad reach in a twelve knot breeze all the way to the BVI’s, which we reached about noon the following day having averaged about six knots. Although we tested the automatic pilot (and it worked thanks to Andrew at Necol), we actually used the sayesrig sail self steering, which we had used over the Atlantic. It worked perfectly and there are no electronic parts to go wrong!

Britain is attached to the USA. At least that’s true in the Virgin Islands, where Britain has the northern 30 islands and USA has the southern and western 30 islands. The USA brought them from Denmark in the early 20th century.

There are an enormous number of charter yachts in the Virgin Islands, at least twenty white catamarans and twenty white benetaus at each anchorage. The charterers are mostly American and chatter away on channel 16 almost the whole time. We switched it off after a while!

We stopped at Virgin Gorda (the fat Virgin)! The marina suffers from swell although the lady who booked us in was delightful and very cheery, but the fuel was the most expensive since we left Scotland! The rock café at Spanish town takes on a new meaning here. It has, as its back garden a small waterfall over igneous rocks, which have been worn into basin shapes.

The shapes in the rock reminded us of those formed by water in the limestone hills of Britain and Ireland, but this was in granite! There were pictures of Elvis, Madonna, the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe around the walls, and the baby grand sat in the corner ready to be played that night. On second thoughts perhaps it was the Yamaha keyboard sitting on top of the piano that was to be played that night!

Virgin Gorda was almost as sleepy as Antigua but its big neighbour Tortola seems very active. It was difficult to cross the road to the supermarket from the Marina, in the capital, Road Town, for the brand new four wheeled drives whizzing past us. We saw a new style discovery at the garage, it looks very swish! They all drive on the left here (very British) but all the cars are left hand drives as well (very Caribbean)! There were two very large cruise liners about 100 yards from our anchorage. Definitely the way to see the islands if you are a billionaire!

We are leaving the lesser Antillies (all the islands we have seen) and are now moving North towards the United States via the Turks and Caicos islands and the Bahamas. The Bahamas used to be British until the 1970’s and the Turks and Cacois still are! We were sad to leave the beautiful volcanic islands with their wonderful snorkeling and diving in clear waters and the (nearly) constant winds from the northeast to southeast. We should return however, as mentioned above, and as General MacArthur once said!

We left the BVI’s having had a quick snorkel at Sandy spit and having said goodbye to our friends Jeremy and Dominique, on the sigma 38, Pendulum. They were leaving in two weeks to sail back to Britain.

We had a wonderful sail on the first day with quartering breeze and little puffy cumulus trade wind clouds. That didn’t last into the evening however, when the wind dropped and the sky became overcast, and we had to start dodging the thunderstorms.

We didn’t manage to dodge one in the middle of the night however and it felt as though we were entering the gates of hell. The wind blew forty knots from all quarters, visibility was nil, in the buckets of rain being thrown on us, and flashes of lightning accompanied by thunder, burst on us like demented searchlights, operated by demons, every twenty seconds or so! It was at that point we were glad of the oven! We had stuffed the inside with our computers and cameras and phones and anything else that was electronic and movable. If we were going to be one of the 6% of auxiliary sail struck by lightning hopefully we could save some of it! We presumed a Faradays cage works, although on this occasion we didn’t have to put it to the test! After half an hour of our first tropical line squall we were out on the other side of the front, and although there was thunder and lightning to the right and left of us none has come near us again. It was the first truly awful weather we had met since leaving Scotland. In contrast, last night we saw the phenomenon known as the green flash! This can occasionally seen by the lucky few at sunset.

As we write this we are approaching Provinciales (a very British name?!) in the Caicos Islands and the sky is sunny and the island, which is very flat and just one long beach, is only two miles off our beam. Susan has just made a courtesy flag, which is a red ensign with a badge supporting a lobster, a conch shell and the turk’s head (a cactus). Being a British colony we are not sure whether we need a courtesy flag, but Susan made one for Montserrat so why not for the Turks and Caicos!?

We enclose some of Susan's snaps, enjoy them.

Love Atlantia