Moondancerx's BIG adventure

Well represented in English Harbour, Antigua. Jonas and Heather Marshall on their 38' Ocean going Bavaria helped me celebrate my birthday. Their Club burgee put ours to shame - got to get new one. We've worn out about 3 now.

Antigua – 2 weeks later – we’re almost natives Antigua is beautiful, and we haven’t seen very much of it yet – our anchor is dug in very well which is important as the ‘williwaws’ in this part of the bay are interesting to say the least. Many times when we look out into the anchorage its possible to see wind gusts on the water in different places and the boats anchored will all be facing in different directions according to which ‘williwaw’ they happen to be in. Its actually been pretty windy and gusty for the past few days. Also some rainfall – we leave the water catcher up all of the time now, plumbed directly into the water tank. We still have to collect water in our jerry cans from the gas station, but its supplementing it, and it certainly changed our attitude towards rain. Now when it rains we don’t complain – Oh no not again; now we’re happy, the bigger the deluge, the more we like it. Wish I had taken my camera with me a couple of days ago when new friends Dana and Joe t...

Unbelievably we've been here 6 days already. And what have we done? A helluvalot of snorkelling. We are anchored behind a reef which has so many different species of fish to look at - we've already learned where most of the different species like to hang out. There is a wrecked both mostly submerged on white sand and a huge ancient anchor which is almost rock now. The reef is made up of natural boulders which have falled from cliffs in the area and been moved around by fierce hurricanes which come by from time to time. Its also home to many beautiful, colorful sponges and coral. We've snorkelled around the outside of the reef aswell and this is truly spectacular - we plan to dive there quite soon - we haven't located a air tank filling place yet. Yesterday we went to 'town' on a bus. The bus drive going in was very nice - a careful driver considerate of his passengers which felt like an economy sight seeing tour. 'Town' is St. John's harbour - a bit ...

The following post is a daily I was keeping for the latter part of the Atlantic crossing. For the first week or so all I could really do was hold on - it was a rough ride - but then I got used to it enough to be able to sit and type a little on my night watches. Actually I started to look forward to doing it on the watch. 3 hours alone in the dark with nothing except the stars and the constant heaving of the ocean and the breaking waves that certainly keep the adrenalin flowing were a good reason to go below and turn on the computer. Anyway its not much - but here goes. Pics and Vids to follow: December 18th One week away from Gran Canaria, and an unbelievable 3000 miles away from Malta. Since leaving Las Palmas on December 10th we’ve logged an unprecedented 980 miles – talk about a sleigh ride. Sleigh ride of course conjures up a pleasurable fun ride – not so with this sleigh ride, but can’t complain about the speed. At time of writing its 10.47 UTC and we are rolling along ...