Atalanta: Antigua

Murray at Fort Berkeley
English Harbor

Hello from Antigua. Antigua is an island in the Lesser Antilles in the Leeward Islands (pronunced lou-ard). We are anchored in English Harbour, originally established to give the British Royal Navy a dockyard. This yard exists today as the Nelson’s Dockyard and is being considered as a World Heritage Site. Freeman’s Bay, the entrance to English Harbour, was protected by Fort Berkeley, completed in 1744. Admiral Horatio Nelson roamed these waters from 1784-87 and each morning while on Antigua he had six buckets of sea water poured over his head and drank one quart of goat’s milk.

Atalanta at Anchor in English Harbor

We are fortunate to have our stay coincide with the 27^th Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta. We have seen some of the most stunning classic yachts ever built. You don’t have to be into sailing to appreciate the magnificence of many of these boats, some of which were built in the early 1900’s. The overall winner of this year’s regatta is Whitehawk from Newport, RI. While she was built in 1974, her style and grace is classic. We have long admired this boat and were pleased to see her recognized. Another great thrill was to see Dorade. This magnificent yawl was designed by Sparkman and Stevens in the 40’s and continues to be one of the most graceful of sailboats ever built.

Next week is Antigua Race Week, famous for it’s competitions and the parties that follow.

We plan on making Antigua our home for the next few weeks since there are many anchorages and onshore places to explore. We enjoy being tucked into a protected harbor since the winds and seas have been high and are not expected to settle down for a number of days.

We look forward to the arrival of our next visitor, Paul from Vermont, who will join us for our sail from Dominica to the Grenadines. Granada will be our base for most of the summer and will put us below the hurricane zone until hurricane season ends in November. While we are looking forward to our time below the 10^th parallel, we are in no rush to get there since there are so many more places to explore in the Leeward and Grenadines Our plans are always tentative but our next stop will probably be Guadeloupe.

While in English Harbor, we had a front row seat for the Classic Boat Parade. Hope you enjoy a few of the shots we took trying to capture the magnificence of these great boats.