Above, the catamaran, Raven, and me waiting to clear customs in Jolly Harbour, Antigua. It took us two weeks to get here from the Chesapeake Bay.
You may find this blog entry a little head scratching. What does sailing have to do with hiking – right? Well, I sail, too. Although I have a Coast Guard master’s license, I was crew on this boat. We sailed down from Virginia on the Chesapeake Bay to Bermuda and eventually to Antigua. We were on the open ocean for a total of two weeks. When we got to Bermuda, the boat was fueled and the crew did some sightseeing before sailing out of the harbor and on to Antigua. There were many boats with us in the harbor of Bermuda as this was an organized sail with the Salty Dog Rally.
The first pictures in this entry are of Jolly Harbour, Antigua where the boat (catamaran in the picture) cleared customs. We then proceeded to Falmouth Harbour, which would be my home for the next ten days.
Once the boat was anchored in the harbor, I decided to do a little hiking and began with a hike from Nelson’s Dockyard to Pigeon Beach, but first I had to get to Nelson’s Dockyard. The owner of the catamaran, Ted Owen, gave me a ride from our anchored boat into the Antigua Yacht Club, and from there I walked down to the dockyard. Nelson’s Dockyard is more than just a dockyard. There are restaurants, bars, meeting rooms, marinas and a hotel. It is a very high end resort.
This is the planned hike for the day
Initially I had trouble finding the beginning of the trail. It was all the way in the back of the resort by one of the marinas. But find it I did and immediately began a steep ascent.
Looking back on the trail as I start climbing
By Appalachian Trail standards, this was not difficult hiking. However, I had not brought any shoes suitable for hiking. All I had were boat shoes and as you can see from the first picture in the blog entry, those shoes were not substantial at all. The soles of the shoes were designed for stability on a slippery boat deck and they had no raised cleats on the soles. Still, I made do with what I had.
More images of the tail and the beautiful Caribbean Sea beyond
The elevation gain was not that great, but what elevation there was provided some fantastic camera shots. That’s English Harbour in the above image.
As I went higher on the trail, the view and perspective became much more interesting. Eventually, I reached the midway point of the trail and its highest elevation, where I stopped to enjoy the view while trying to decide if I liked sailing or hiking better.
The hike didn’t take too long – maybe two hours as I took a lot of time to take in the views. I did meet some other hikers who were with the Salty Dog Rally, too, so I was not the only crazy out there. And in case you are wondering about the weather, as you can see it was a nice sunny day, and it was hot. It might be November, but that doesn’t mean much in the Caribbean.
Once I reached Pigeon Beach, I found a Pavilion on the beach which provided shade from the sun. I sat there for a while and took in the beach scenery. A few people came up to me and asked about the hiking, so in that way, it isn’t much different than hiking the Appalachian Trail.
