Deep Bay, Antigua

From Sunday 24 April to Monday 25 we were anchored in Deep Bay, Antigua. After five nights in Jolly Harbor Marina, we were re-energized and ready for the next stage of sailing and living at anchor.

These five days of marina did us a world of good. We had plenty of water and even hot water every day, which is a real rarity for us. Since our 20-litre hot water boiler runs on shore power permanently, there was always hot water on the boat. A pleasure, especially when showering and washing up. But the showers in the marina were also very good, spacious and clean. And each of us could get off the boat. Just like that. A blessing, especially for the parents.

They treated themselves to a cocktail evening one evening. First put Marla to bed, then set the radio to channel 72 (our Lady Blue house channel), take the handheld radio and off we go. Every now and then Ronja and Lotta radio us: "Lady Blue Shore Crew, Lady Blue Shore Crew, this is Lady Blue. Please come in". It works really well.

But back to Deep Bay.

We arrived in the afternoon in bright sunshine and dropped anchor next to our Dutch friends from SV Pacific Blue with Hans, Irene and five-year-old Thomas. In Deep Bay there is a luxury all-inclusive resort that provides its guests with all kinds of water toys. Among them are JetSkis. And on this Sunday afternoon, they were out on the water in a multitude. Always full throttle and little consideration. And so it happened as it had to: a couple on one JetSki got so buffeted by the waves of the other speeding JetSki not far from our boat that they both fell into the water. So far so good, not too tragic, happens from time to time. But this time, unfortunately, they couldn't swim. They both had life jackets on, but they couldn't move forward. It looked funny at first, these dog paddles, but it soon became clear that help was needed. Julia and I began to assemble the outboard motor in a hurry to get our dinghy ready to go, while Ronja was already on her StandUp Paddleboard. She asked the man in the water if he needed help, but he denied it and continued paddling with his hands and feet towards the abandoned JetSki, which was drifting towards the rocky shore. Ronja continued to paddle towards the JetSki to keep it from the stones, but found little grip on this water object without cleat or eyelet. Neither for herself nor for a line. In the meantime, I was ready to go with the dinghy and the JetSki staff on the beach had also noticed the accident and a staff member came hurtling in by JetSki at full speed. He rescued the gentleman from the water and brought him back to the JetSki, the woman was fished out by another JetSki driver.

That's how the couple got back to their JetSki. And everything would have been so good, if not for ...

The employee, one meter next to Ronja, gave full throttle. He caused an enormous wake and Ronja could hardly hold on and the couple almost fell back into the water. What an A... No THANKS, no nothing, but testosterone-fuelled full throttle next to a child on the water. Ronja got a huge fright, but at least managed to hold on to the SUP.

After this action, we retreated to the boat and didn't feel like being on the water anymore. The anchor was checked, which had to be done, by Lotta with two bright red buoys in tow and me circulating around her in the dinghy to provide protection. We've never had anything like this before. We decided to stay the one night to snorkel the wreck straight away the next morning and leave around noon when the JetSkis came back. Other boats warned us that snorkeling at the wreck was only possible until 9.30am, otherwise it was too dangerous because of the people on JetSkis.

The wreck has been there for over 100 years at a depth of 5-10m. There is a small buoy where we could moor the dinghy. Very impressive. All five of us were in the water and looked at the well-preserved ship from bow to stern. Even Marla with her life jacket and diving goggles snorkeled the ship. It was impressive to see such a well-preserved ship so close to the surface. We learned that the three-masted ANDES was one of the first steel ships to enter St. Johns loaded with tar, when smoke was noticed rising from the mast from shore. ANDES was refused entry into the harbor. The captain headed for the next bay, Deep Bay. There, the hold was opened and flames leapt up. The fire could not be extinguished and the ship sank on the spot. However, all the people were able to save themselves ashore.

At noon we raised anchor and together with our buddy boat PACIFIC BLUE we circumnavigated Antigua clockwise in the following days.