01/16/25 - 01/19/25

 01/16/25

    Slowly moving, sailing in water so still I had forgotten we were in the ocean. The horizon unbroken by land was so straight. It felt unreal to see endless blue over the bow. In the far distance, we spotted the tall cross-like shapes of an enormous boat’s masts. Through binoculars, I observed a modern rendition of a full-rigged ship. It appeared on the horizon in such a ghostly manner. Our slow pace had made the world strange.

    We’ve gone 20 miles up the west side of Guadeloupe in pursuit of fuel and water and later a bay to stay in. This voyage would shave a few hours off our trek back to Antigua come morning.

    We docked in a tiny port and after failing to understand french the gas pump, R went ashore to speak with the gas station attendant and we tied up. In the murky water below huge ominous-looking fish swam back and forth. A swarm of french fishermen who had been observing us from the dock yard began addressing us directly before commandeering our dock line and attempting to move our boat. We were all confused. B who also speaks a tiny bit of French tried to understand what they were attempting to do. Behind us a small fishing boat with a fresh catch came in from the sea and maneuvered around us and into the small space made by the shifting of our boat. We finally understood and watched the transactions that occurred between the fisherman with complete bafflement as it seemed only a few of the fishmongers came away with anything.

    The morning light was beautiful the way it illuminated the bright red bins and neon yellow fins of the fish. The dark skin of the tradesmen gave a lovely contrast. I snapped a few photos to remember.

    R returned, we filled up, and set off.

    About mid-day we arrived in the open water between a place marked on the map as Malendure Beach and a Réserve Cousteau called Pigeon Island. We anchored in a wonderfully centered spot with a view of the beach over our bow and the nature reserve off the stern.

    Tropical foliage surrounded beach bars with orange and white striped awnings. White compact cars snaked down a curving road that dipped in and out of view through the hills of the landscape. Kayakers rowed back and forth through the crossing between the beach and little Pigeon island. We noticed coming in that the swell was quite strong, I admired the willingness of the tourists to paddle into it.

    The island, according to our on board guidebook is a great place to snorkel. With plenty of daytime to kill we boarded our dinghy and rode over to a mooring just outside the rocky snorkeling area. I wasn't interested in snorkeling and instead opted to hike across spiky ground to the beach on the opposite side of the island. The typology of each beach we had been to thus far had been so varied that my beach combing was both exciting and bountiful. This beach in particular, though covered in rocks and rocky sand that had absorbed so much heat the slightest touch scorches the bottom of my feet, is plentiful in sea glass. I collected a large assortment of itty bitty pieces of Chartreuse, amber, sky blue, and Heineken green shards when H made his way to the beach and allowed me a few selections that he put into the pocket of his board shorts.

    B and L came up from snorkeling and traded gear with H before hiking back through the island to the dinghy. R joined me in my search for sea glass, allowing me to utilize his board short pockets as well. I picked up an adorable tiny shell with a small piece of sea glass stuck in its opening, gave it to R, and we made our way across the island and back to the boat. In the swim over to the mooring, the current was strong. This time I felt more confident in my abilities.

    On the boat, R turned his pockets out to my dismay. The only specimen that survived the swim to the dinghy had been the shell with the perfectly placed sea glass speck. I lamented the loss of my jewels but luckily still had what H had placed in his pockets.

    H and I are sat feet in the sand at the beach front bar with the orange and white striped awning. Enjoying two paper cups filled with rum punch and a plate of ceviche made from an unknown fish with a side of delicious frites. The owner in broken english asked where we were from. I explained that we were from New York and that we came from Antigua. I pointed to our boat. She nodded said Ah and poured us another cup of punch.

    The sun setting in bright red bathed the beach in a romantic hue as we rode back to the boat.

    Having filled up the water tanks we all took luxuriously long showers. This was the cleanest I had felt since we had been on board. The crew prepped the grill. Now that we had gotten the hang of it, it became our new method of cooking. R made margaritas and I jumped on the speaker and played a selection of Música Tropical and Brazilian samba. I always say that in the summertime the only music to listen to comes from artists like Miguel Alcaide, Jorge Ben Jor and Buena Vista Social Club.

    H cooked us a dinner of teriyaki marinated chicken, rice, and broccoli. The over head light was swinging back in forth with the movement of the boat. The scene was cinematic. I recalled sitting around the table at the lake, our single overhead light illuminating our dinners as if it were a spotlight for our stage.

    Our last night in Guadeloupe is a beautiful one.

10:38 pm

    Hot sleep…I’ve had enough. I took our light sheet and my pillow and went to the deck to sleep on the helm seats. The wind was strong. I could hear clanging coming from the sway of the boats anchored around us. There was a concert of sound coming from the beach, a constant rhythm of drumming. I looked out onto the beach but in the dark I saw nothing. The stars were bright. A light rain started coming down so I moved further under the canopy. I couldn't sleep with the wind, the swaying of the mast arm was so noisy. I looked up to see a shadow of someone on the deck, I thought it looked like N. I asked her what was wrong but my voice barely came out, I don’t think she noticed me. I closed my eyes and she was gone, now someone else was standing near our strung up dinghy at the stern. I closed my eyes again.

    I had a weird dream. I was walking through SoHo at night, going in and out of shops. Each shop was a separate dream.

01/17/25

    I went back down to my cabin and laid in bed until the engine woke me up again at 3 am. I wanted to keep sleeping. Since R was on the bridge, I went to lie where he slept in the living space across from the kitchen. I could see the stars poking out from the port windows. I could feel that the waters were rough as we got underway. To drown out the noises, I put on M83’s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming and listened to it in its entirety, hearing it come back to me as I drifted in and out of consciousness. Someone had put a kettle on the stove. I watched as the stove swung back and forth, the kettle and flame remaining in place in an almost surreal fashion.

9 am

    Barely a word was spoken between us though we were all awake now. I've got a crook in my neck, and as I ate the melon H served for breakfast I felt dreamy.

10:33 am

    I think going about six days just barely sleeping, and with the amount of sun we had all gotten, I could say for certain that we were pretty worn out as we made our way back to Antigua.

    Looking out onto the horizon stretching infinitely in the distance and crossing the sky so perfectly straight, I felt inspired to go to Montana or maybe Wyoming. It was freeing about being out in the ocean like this, traveling in this way. I liked the rhythmic rocking and refreshing breeze. I liked the comfortable silence.

12:30 pm

    We settled on a bay called Indian Creek about two miles from English Harbour. We’ll need to return around 11 am tomorrow. Eric Clapton has, or had, a huge mansion on the very tip of the cliffside at the mouth of the bay. I say had, as the windows look to be completely boarded up. The entrance to Indian Creek was a bit narrow and the water seemed to be shallow close to the cliffs, but it opened up into an ideal sized bay for us, and us alone. The difference from our previous solitary anchoring being a sheltering from the wind and a, lets say, homey, looking goat farm spread across the beach lining the land.

    R went ashore to speak to the farmer. As an avid runner I think R had become restless and thus was in search of a good running path. 

    The report: the farmer was a nice man who lives in the small shack we could see at one end of the farm, with his two dogs. There’s a road that leads to a hiking trail and he’d be happy to show R where. The people in Antigua are so nice. 

    L dropped H and R on the farm for their hike and the rest of us took the dinghy and snorkeling gear to a little patch of beach at the base of the cliff under Clapton’s house.

    Everyone jumped in the water opposite the beach to observe the sea life while I swim over to land, nicking my knee on a piece of the reef.

    The beach was completely covered in flawlessly smooth rocks in every shape, size and color. I was in awe. Immediately upon landing I began picking up any and every interesting rock, shell, and object I could find. When N and G joined me I showed them the petrified crab claw I found and the unravished sea urchin skeletons I collected. G gave me his long-sleeved shirt that we tied into a sling to hold my finds. The sand here had hardened and there were large conch shells encased within that revealed themselves with each ebb of the tide.

    We all brought souvenirs aboard the dinghy and went back to the boat.

4:51 pm

    H prepped the grill for the steaks we would be having tonight. As it heated up we got in the dinghy to explore the mangroves that enclose the land opposite of the farm.

    The water was still and murky. The depths of the mangroves were dark. It was quiet. A bird flew out suddenly from the trees and startled us.

    Our last night on the boat we watched the sun dip behind the cliffs and listened to the bleating of goats from all around. Our boat gently rocked.

    R made gin and tonics and H began cooking. I went to lie on the bow and listen to WQXR, sipping my G&T.

    We drank a $150 1er Cru with the funny plastic wine glasses that were provided on board. In dinner conversation we discuss our mishap from the other night. Everyone felt that it was scary, I felt reassured knowing I wasn’t overreacting by being so panicked I cried. We joked about how H had been sleeping in the nude and hadn’t even tied his shorts before getting in the dinghy to pull the boat. My hasty decision to gather all of H and I’s belongings, thinking we’d all need to abandon ship, became a funny anecdote.

    After dinner, we had a proper french dessert course: another bottle of wine and the cheese from Carrefour. R and L retell the story of how they got interrogated by Canadian boarder control for driving 4 hours across the boarder from Vermont just to buy cheese. “It’s really good cheese!”.

    H and I laid side by side on the bow. Everything turned. The stars in the sky, they went around as the Earth did. The clouds going where the wind blows. And us, anchored, gently rotating. We were in our own world. Nothing else matters.

01/18/25

    I tossed and turned a bit last night but when I fell into a deep sleep I dreamt for only the second time the whole trip a long dream about something strange. 

    Now H was up cooking breakfast. Smelled like bacon and I’m sure whatever it was we had left in the fridge. I had my coffee while lying on the bow. I watched the fluffy clouds sweep overhead. This one was shaped like a herd of galloping horses, that one looked like Katsushika Hokusai’s wave or maybe someone flexing their muscle. I was called over for breakfast: bacon, sausage, eggs, and a delicious grapefruit we picked up in Guadeloupe.

7:55 am

    We raised anchor.

7:56 am

    We realized the anchor and anchor chain were completely caked in mud and with our useless Windlass (the anchor winch that, through the whole trip, only worked once or twice) meant G, R, and H would need to pull it up by hand. With every pull we splashed a bucket of water onto the chain to de-mud it.

8:09 am

    We were underway with a 9 minute delay from our original schedule.

    Ripping down the coast at 10 knots, the fastest speed we’d hit the entire trip, the ride was ebullient and triumphant. The heel of our boat had been so steep that, from one side of the boat, it was as if you were looking straight down into the water.

    We reached English Harbour in about 30 minutes and tied to a mooring while we waited for R to check us back in at the dock. The reality of having to go back to work and to the freezing cold of New York had started to kick in.

    After dropping our things at our rental house we headed to dinner. We return to Roberta’s for pizza. Her restaurant, the complete opposite of her sandwich shop, was a massive covered patio with a beautiful wood-burning pizza oven. We were served incredible prosciutto crudo and pizza so perfect I forgot we were in the Caribbean. For dessert, tiramisu made by Roberta.

    Now that we were on land I felt like I was still rocking with the motion of the boat.

01/19/25

We all packed up, setting aside our outfits for the plane ride and got ready to go on one last hike to a secluded beach.

    The drive was about 20 minutes to the bottom of a steep, extremely rocky road. The hike was about 30 minutes up and down the long stretch of road riddled with small boulders and huge holes. Through trees, the view opened up into a pristine crescent shaped beach with soft squishy sand and a great swell. H and I body surfed two or three times and B and I sat in silence overlooking the water while the others talked to some other beachgoers near a makeshift firepit.

    After about 45 minutes we grabbed our towels to dry, shook off the sand, and put our trainers back on. 

    On the hike back, we ran into a bikini-clad girl who said her car was stuck on the very rocky, very steep, section of the road we knew our tiny Suzuki minivan wouldn’t even dare to trek. We walked with her to her car and had L attempt the hill in her stead. He blasted up the hill (in a pretty impressive manner given the state of the road) and drove the rest of the trail, parking where we had parked in the safe flat area.

2:00 pm

    I sat on the porch of our rental, overlooking the harbour and eating an absolutely elementary school lunch of a hastily put together PB&J and a fruit punch Capris-Sun. The breeze swept through me and I thought of my childhood home. The Craftsman style porch where I’d spend many afternoons sitting and overlooking the small suburban neighborhood. I’d watch the Evergreen trees sway in a breeze that felt just like this.

4:24 pm

    Through security and to our gate.

10:11pm

    Landed in New York about 30 minutes late, we had been circling around. Out the window there had been but grey cloud cover and the black of night. Our landing was greeted with applause as the snowy ground proved daunting.

12:44am

    Finally out of JFK and into the freezing cold. All the cars idling in the pick up lanes were covered in snow.

    As I laid down to sleep, the room was spinning, the bed rocked back and forth. I closed my eyes.

Playlist

Nunca - Trio Los Duendes Del Mayab

Jurame - Miguel Alcaide

Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun - Claude Debussy

Concha nácar / Limosna - Elvira Rios

Allegro de concert, Op. 46 - Frédéric Chopin