Salty Podcast: Sailing

Salty Podcast #47 | Sailing Antigua ⛵️🌴 Expert Tips, Tricks, & Stories from Paradise 🏝️✨

• Captain Tinsley • Season 1 • Episode 47

Share episode

Send us a text

*Sailing Antigua* with Hayden & Radeen of S/V Island Spirit, LIVE from the Caribbean!   Expert tips, tricks, and incredible stories from paradise. LIVE podcast was January 8, 2025.  Watch on YouTube:  👉 https://tinyurl.com/SaltyPodcast47  

 #SaltyAbandon #SaltyPodcast #Sailing #AntiguaAdventures #CaribbeanSailing #IslandLife #SailingTips #OceanStories #TropicalParadise #SailingLifestyle #SailboatLife #ExploreBySea #BlueWaterCruising #AnchorLife #SailingCommunity 

Support the show

SALTY ABANDON: Cap'n Tinsley, Orange Beach, AL:
Oct 2020 to Present - 1998 Island Packet 320;
Nov 2015-Oct 2020; 1988 Island Packet 27
Feb-Oct 2015 - 1982 Catalina 25

SALTY PODCAST is LIVE every Wed at 6pm Central and is all about the love of sailing!
YOUTUBE PLAYLIST: https://tinyurl.com/SaltyPodcastPlaylist

PODCAST TOOLS:
Livestream: Https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5430067749060608
Create AI Clips: https://klap.app/?via=SaltyAbandon

Capn Tinsley:

Tonight we are joined by Hayden and Raydeen of Sailing Vessel Island Spirit live from the Caribbean. They'll be sharing expert tips, tricks and stories from their adventures sailing around Antigua. Stick around and please help the channel and engage by liking this video, subscribing to the channel and dropping your questions in the chat and we'll answer them live. I'm Captain Tinsley. Welcome to the Salty Podcast 47. Here they are, hayden and Radine. There we go.

Hayden:

Hey, hello, cheers everybody.

Capn Tinsley:

Happy New Year. Live from.

Radeen:

Antigua.

Hayden:

We are not in Antigua, we're in Guadalupe right now. We just sailed out of Antigua after being there for a month exploring, because we fell in love with it again. It could be one of our favorite islands, but now we're in the French island, so look out, it could change. It could change.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah Well, so you guys chose this topic, which I'm always thrilled to have you on because you're so organized and you send me these great visuals and the charts and the arrows and the routes and where the winds are going and all that. So that's great. So I never even prepare, I just do the teaser and do the thumbnail and you guys do the rest.

Hayden:

Well, we are a little neurotic about diagrams and handouts as being teachers, but that's part of our problem. We have OCD problems, but no Antigua Radine. What do you love about Antigua?

Radeen:

Well, it's easy because it's English speaking, so that just makes everything more simple. I like it because it has so many anchorages that you can go to, with beautiful beaches, and the people make it the best. That's the main thing that I like about it. The people are very friendly, they're gracious, they're reserved, they're kind, they're helpful. For example, their roads are terrible. When we had a blowout of a tire on a country road in Antigua, a young man came with a tire iron to help us in case we didn't have one in the rental car. He was on his way to work at the airport as the air traffic controller. He was dressed up in his uniform, but he still stopped to help us.

Hayden:

So just one small example All these Caribbean islands, what makes them so great is the people that live on the island and how they adopt or treat the visitors that are coming to their island. Because all these islands survive on tourism and many of these islands have cruise ships coming in and out, of, and some of these islands you sail into on your private boat. You don't feel like you're welcome there. You kind of feel like an intruder. They're not very kind to you and you just want to move on. And there's several islands like that that we avoid. We won't mention, but we just.

Hayden:

Antigua is not one of those. We got so enamored with Antigua this year. We stored there at Jolly Harbor Marina and we, after being there for a week or two, we decided to just go ahead and rebook to store there again in May for the hurricane season again and repeat the exact same procedure we did this year, which was we launched the boat in December 1. And then we spent a month there in Antigua and we did Christmas and New Year's at Nelson's Dockyard, which was phenomenal. That's what turned us on. We're like, okay, we're coming right back to this next year and it did okay.

Capn Tinsley:

It did okay during hurricane season and it did okay, it did okay during hurricane season.

Hayden:

Yeah, it didn't have a direct hit, luckily. And the way the yard stores your boat it's different than other yards. All the yards will strap down your boat with two-inch hurricane straps into concrete. This yard goes to the point of welding the jack stands together with rebar and then they weld rebar from the port side to the starboard side under the boat and they weld this all together, basically making a big cradle, and we felt pretty secure there If a hurricane did hit. I mean we took a hurricane in Puerto Rico, 220 mile an hour winds with Irma and Maria, and our boat didn't fall over, strapped down the same way, but a building blew up and then broke our mast. So the flying debris can do the damages. But in Antigua we were so thrilled with the boatyard that's what made us come back and we said we're just going to stay here again, Exactly, Okay, All right made us come back and we said we're just going to stay here again, exactly, okay, all right.

Capn Tinsley:

Well, we'll have to do another video on how you prepare your boat right for for when you leave it, because it's, it's pretty amazing. I don't, I don't.

Hayden:

I don't think anybody else does it quite like you guys do we keep a google document and then we log everything we do step by step. Of course we would of course we would have a Google document?

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, I'm including where people can find you here. I'm going to take this off the screen, but at SV Island Spirit, on all the different social medias, and there's your email and let's go ahead and say you're also a broker. So if anybody wants to buy a, boat.

Hayden:

Yeah, I'm a broker. I'm a broker with CJ Yacht Sales in West Coast of Florida, st Pete, and we mainly focus on Island Packet yachts that people want to get into sailing and want to get an Island Packet. Us being owners for 30 plus years of an Island Packet, we know the brand and what can work for you, so we work as buyers, brokers. People looking to get into a boat is where we focus, so that's our main focus?

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, and I can attest you know everything. No, we don't. We do not Close, All right. So where do you want to start?

Hayden:

Yeah, let's show people where Antigua is, because nobody knows where it is. Let's do the Antigua one chart. So this is where Antigua is. You'll see Florida up there in the top left corner of the screen and you'll see 1,200 miles southeast on a course of 120, which drives you crazy because the winds are from 090. So the wind is on your port bow. Uh, you know what? What? 30 degrees off your port bow for 1200 miles. And you got to bash your way out here to get past puerto rico and past the virgin islands, and then antigua is the corner of the leeward islands and then the windward islands go down south from there. The beauty of being in Antigua is you can beam reach, sail south and north to the other islands, right, right. So that's what we like about storing here. Plus, we found a lot of other buddies have stored here for years, so we're not the first people to discover Jolly Harbor, marina.

Capn Tinsley:

Jolly Harbor.

Hayden:

Marina, jolly Harbor, marina, that's where Antigua is, and everybody pronounces it wrong, so there's a little phonetic spelling on how to pronounce it Radine Antigua, ah, antigua.

Capn Tinsley:

Antigua Right.

Hayden:

Exactly Right Right.

Capn Tinsley:

So if you go to the Antigua Right, exactly Right right, fresh and salty, is watching. Okay, oh, fresh, salty, great Fresh and salty.

Hayden:

Now here's another interesting layout of why Antigua is so great is. It's not only the island of Antigua, but it's the island of Barbuda. Tell them about Barbuda.

Radeen:

Barbuda is a very flat island. Antigua is very mountainous and Barbuda almost feels them. About Barbuda Barbuda is a very flat island, antigua is very mountainous and Barbuda almost feels like the Bahamas. It's very low-lying and it's also the site of the largest frigate bird sanctuary in the world and you can take tours with a guided naturalist. And that's on the left-hand side of the map and there's only 1,000 people that live there. They were badly damaged during Hurricanes Irma and Maria. They actually had to be evacuated to Antigua to live until things could be rebuilt. So it's very, very quiet and remote and lovely.

Hayden:

The beautiful thing is you see the East Trade Winds blowing in from Africa and Barbuda is due north, so it's a 35 mile beam reach sail up to coco point, which is the point everybody anchors at, and then it's a 35 mile beam reach back. So this is a what a five, six hour sail. It's a day sail and it's a beam reach and it's serious ocean sailing, with some nice five, six foot seas coming across your beam. And then you get up to the Barbuda and it's you have pink sand beaches like Bermuda, and there's a little lobster hut on the beach that you can get your lobsters at. And's really a remote location though. So to go to, and that's part of Antigua, the country of Antigua. It's Antigua and Barbuda is one country, so you don't have to check in and check out to sail between these two islands and what you?

Capn Tinsley:

I just noticed the little square here and it is. Did you already talk about the little square right there? No, that's.

Hayden:

That's on another chart. I'll show'll show the tip of Barbuda, but now let's just focus in on Antigua. Now the next screen here is going to show us Okay, here's the general lay of the land of Antigua. You're going to see, I have identified seven, eight positions around this island. Again, you have the east trade winds blowing across the island from east to west. If we start at number one, down in the bottom English Harbor, that's where Nelson's Dockyard is. That's the most famous marina area. That's where all the mega yachts go. Number two is Falmouth.

Capn Tinsley:

Harbor, and that's where you is that where you left your boat?

Hayden:

No, no, we're back around the number five or number four. Okay, this is like. This is like the most famous harbor is English Harbor and everybody will love it. And then the next is Falmouth Harbor, number two, and that's where the Antigua Yacht Club is, and you'll find yachts there, like the owner of WhatsApp, and famous Russians dock their boats there and anybody you can think of oh, the Google founder was. Larry Page was in there the other day with us, so you find major, major yachts, us. So you find major major yachts. Oh, and the, the mars candy company was in there with their 350 foot yacht named starburst four because they made the starburst candy, so you find what?

Capn Tinsley:

what do you think? The average? Well, what are the bigger ones? What are the bigger the?

Hayden:

average yacht. The average yacht in falmouth is going to be 200 to 250 feet and they're going to be 10 to $20 million.

Hayden:

They're just fantastic. So that's number two, falmouth, and then you come around. There's another one there called Carlisle Bay, and then you come inside Cade Reef and you scoot around the number four, which is where Jolly Harbor is, and then number five is Five Islands area bay, where most of the mega yachts hang out at, and then number six is up at Deep Bay, and then number seven, which is well, seven's over there but just past number six, is St John. That's where the cruise ships come in at.

Radeen:

Okay, and that's the capital.

Hayden:

The capital All the cruise ships are dock at. Okay, and that's the capital, the capital, all the cruise ships are docked in there. And then number eight is up in the North Sound area and we've explored up there, we've been up there for weeks and a lot of little islands to anchor around. And then number seven is the hard one to get to because it's to the east, it's into the wind and it's called Green Island. And when it's called Green Island and you, when it's a calm day, you come around from number four, jolly Harbor, you bash your way into the wind and number three, number two, number one, and if there's no wind, you keep going up into the east and you scoot into that little bay up at number seven and that is where there's a windsurfing school and a kite surfing school, beautiful beaches, remote islands and you can hang out up there. When you got there, when there's no wind from the east, so which is rare the wind's always blowing 15 to 20 knots from Africa.

Capn Tinsley:

And so where do you like to hang out?

Radeen:

Oh well, we like to stay in Falmouth, number two, and it's an easy walk from there over to English Harbor, which is where Nelson Scott, yeah, we'll show that in the next slide, right, but so Falmouth and where else? Well, jolly Harbor is great. It's wide open and the town is great and lots of boats the smaller boats like us gather there, yeah number four.

Hayden:

Number four is the easy way to arrive at Antigua. You sail in from St Barts or the Virgin Islands. You're coming in in the early morning usually overnight passage and you can see that you would just work your way upwind into the trade winds, tacking back and forth or motoring right in here. And the beauty of Antigua is you have all these bays on the west side of Antigua so you can just come up into these bays as deep as you want to go and then drop anchor.

Hayden:

And the thing that's so nice about the Caribbean is the wind will always be from this east direction. It might be a little northeast or it might be a little southeast, but it is never from the north or from the west, whereas in the Bahamas and up on the east coast of USA, when a front comes through, you get these clocking winds that are east and then they pull south, and then they pull southwest and then west and then northwest. They blow like crazy and you're on a lee shore and then the winds go north and then they finally switch around the northeast and then they go back to the east trade winds on the Florida Peninsula. Down here in the trades that never happens. It's always, always east winds. Do you know why it's east winds? Do you know why it's trade winds? It's the spin of the globe causing the winds around the equator.

Radeen:

So the only thing that suppresses those winds is major storms like the East Coast just had this week, and so tomorrow and the next day and the next day we're going to have very light winds and what we have will be from the north, but that also brings in a north swell. We've got a big surge happening all along the Caribbean islands, with big waves about 12 seconds apart, but just flowing through every anchorage on the west side of all these islands.

Hayden:

So it makes it challenging. Yeah, if you look at PredictWin right now and look at the wave pattern of the Atlantic Ocean, you're going to see 25 foot waves around Bermuda right now because there's a massive low that the snowstorm that just came off the East Coast and everybody got hammered with snow. That snowstorm came off the East Coast and now that low pressure is out at sea like nearermuda spinning, the waves are up at 25 feet. Those waves then flow down towards the Caribbean and we're going to have 10 foot seas crashing on the east side of all these islands. So we're on the west side of all the islands, but the waves wrap around the islands and then they come in from the other direction, so you get wraparound swell.

Capn Tinsley:

So it'll come around here.

Hayden:

Right. So if you take number four there, for example, and you imagine 10-foot waves hitting up where the word Antigua is, the waves are crashing on the northeast side of the island. The waves go around the island on the top and around the island on the bottom and they swell into these bays. So they'll swell into one, three, four, five, they'll wrap around the island and you get this surge coming in and out from the west.

Radeen:

So they're not breaking waves they're not breaking, yeah, they're just, but you're just constantly in motion.

Hayden:

Right you're sitting, you're sitting on anchor and your boat's going up three, four feet under your anchor and then it pulls back and it tugs on your anchor real tight and then it goes back up three, four feet. Now getting in and off of the dinghy onto your boat is a challenge because you got to time it when the swell is a certain direction for the dinghy. So a an ocean swell on the Caribbean islands is is a big deal and if you look at the predict when for the next week there's going to be big waves out in the Atlantic and they.

Capn Tinsley:

How's this? How's this going to fix you where you affect you, where you are?

Hayden:

We're we're. We're 50 miles South of here and we have a lake. Right now. We're going to have a lake for the next two days, very calm, and then by Friday night it's going to be rough. And we're scooting down below underneath Guadalupe and we're getting in a protected area called the Saints, so we'll be in a different area. There's a question.

Capn Tinsley:

Oh, in the Saints, yeah, yeah, we'll be in the Saints? Oh yes there's a question, roger McClure.

Hayden:

Yeah, hey guys, how much anchor chain would you suggest having on your boat to anchor in the Caribbean? We've always had 250 feet of anchor chain. We've always had a half a drum, a five sixteenth inch HT chain made by Akko Company, which is a USA company from York, pa, but now they're called Perilous and it's still a USA-made chain. You got to be careful when buying chain. You can get a lot of China knockoff chain but you want to get USA-made Atco chain 516th inch, half a drum. 250 feet, that's plenty. We've had out 200 feet already.

Hayden:

We've never out 200 feet already but most anchorages in the Caribbean are 20 feet, 20, 25 feet, so you lay out 100, 150 feet, 175. We had out the other day in Falmouth. But lay it out, you got it. Why not use?

Capn Tinsley:

it.

Hayden:

So what do you do in the swells? Any anything. The beauty of having all that chain out? You know, 175 feet of chain out is 175 pounds, a 55 pound rock. On the end of that the boat has to lift up 175 pounds to get the chain bar tight. It never does that acts as a little dampening effect? Yeah, catenary action, and it just helps the boat surge back and forth, it's not a problem.

Capn Tinsley:

Really isn't a problem, so for people that might suffer a little bit from seasickness, this might not be a fun thing. It's rare that this happens.

Hayden:

This only happens when the Northeast suffers a big, huge Nor'easter, and the Nor'easter is a big low hurricane-strength, low 960 millibars. It comes out into the Atlantic, stirs up the Atlantic. The Atlantic waves come down to the Caribbean once a month. Maybe it's rare.

Radeen:

Okay, well all right, it's not all the time.

Hayden:

Yeah, it's not all the time, but you do have to be ready for it. Yeah, you got to deal with it. If you go to the next slide, I think we zoomed in on the harbors. Let's see what my next slide is.

Capn Tinsley:

All right.

Hayden:

Okay, oh, yes, Okay. This is one of our happy places, Falmouth Harbor. So this would be one of the key harbors. This is where Antigua Yacht Club is. You can see where I'm pointing where Antigua Yacht Club is. So again, look at the blue arrows. The blue arrows show the trade winds blowing across these harbors. So the Falmouth Harbor is bigger and more space to anchor in than the English Harbor down in the bottom right. The English Harbor is where Nelson's Dockyard is and that's a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a lot of people will want to go into Freeman's Bay and anchor there. But what happens at Freeman Bay, especially when the swell is running? The swell will come around the corner here and surge into Freeman Bay and you'll have this swell going back and forth inside of Freeman Bay. Unless you get way up past where Nelson's Dockyard is, you're not going to get away from that.

Hayden:

Yeah, up in there and that's where most people anchor and live is up there. If you go on the other side of the land and go to Falmouth Harbor, you can see it would be pretty hard for the North Swell to wrap its way all around Antigua Yacht Club and come all the way up to the head of the harbor where we say we anchor here. Okay, yeah, we anchor right there. So what we do is we come in the harbor, drive all the way east up until you hit one of the mega yachts, and when you hit one of the mega yachts you turn left and you drop your anchor right.

Radeen:

Yep, that's what we always do, that's what we do.

Hayden:

We go right up to the top. That places you very close to the dinghy dock where I have the word walk. You can walk across the land right there to Nelson's dockyard. So every day we come in by dinghy and we walk over to Nelson's Dockyard get a coffee or just go for a hike up the hill there. Look out at Freeman Bay where there's a popular bar there on the beach called the Loose Cannon that our buddy boat loves to go to. That's Alex and Amy. They go over there to Loose Cannon, so that's a popular place. The Freeman Bay is a very popular place because you can get the Nelsons by dinghy dock then. But we prefer to be up in Falmouth Harbor and then just walk over to Nelsons because a little bit more open space to anchor.

Radeen:

So, I'd like to put in a plug for Nelson's Dockyard.

Radeen:

In the 1700s Antigua was owned by the British. It was a colony and they were very worried about Antigua. All the sugar plantations that were here there's 109 of them. You can still see the mill from each of those plantations so the entire place was covered, the trees were stripped and it was covered in sugar plantations. So the entire place was covered, the trees were stripped and it was covered in sugar plantations. So Nelson's Dockyard was built as a safe harbor for the British fleet and in the 17, from 1785 to 1789, horatio Nelson was in charge. He was the commander in chief of the whole area. So there's buildings that have been restored by the UNESCO World Heritage Association so that we can see today what it was like back then. It is the best restored working dockyard of Georgian era in the world.

Radeen:

So it's really very special and they've done a great job of adding restaurants and adding hotel rooms, without turning it into a Disney World kind of place.

Hayden:

It's a dream.

Radeen:

You feel the history everywhere you walk.

Hayden:

We went there. They had a Christmas Day party. That was champagne all day long and then a buffet, a Caribbean buffet, and six or eight of us voters got together and made it a day there.

Radeen:

And it was a charity event sponsored every year by the National Parks Association.

Hayden:

It's what made us decide that. Well, we're coming back here, repeating exactly what we did this year. We're going to launch the boat beginning December, spend the month in December in Antigua, do Nelson's Dockyard for Christmas and Nelson's Dockyard for New Year's Day, and I don't think it can be any better. We know what's down island. We've been on all the islands all the way to Grenada multiple times, and so, not to belittle any of the lower islands, it's just that Antigua and Nelson's Dockyard is quite a pinnacle of a place to hang out. We love to just go there and order a pot of coffee or a drink or a martini and sit and look at the harbor, and all these mega yachts are docked all around the perimeter, right where that Nelson's Dockyard Arrow is. There's a peninsula there and all the mega yachts two 300-footers are backed in there there and they're tied up stern too, and you get to walk around and see all these billionaires that have their three hundred foot yachts here. It's really, really interesting.

Capn Tinsley:

Are these yachts? Is this their home port or they're just in for the winter?

Hayden:

No, no no, the yachts come to Antigua for services and they go to St Martin for services. Those seem to be the big two islands for the mega yachts, but they were just here for Christmas and New Year's and then they all left.

Capn Tinsley:

And do these millionaires rent these out?

Hayden:

Yeah, oh, oh.

Radeen:

It's a tax deduction.

Hayden:

Every mega yacht is a business write-off. Of course, they rent for $20,000 to $50,000 a day and they rent them once or twice a year and so all the operating expenses are a write-off because you know they only rent it at once, but they still need to spend $20 million a year for the crew and the helicopter and the food and maintenance on the boat. But, yeah, it's a write-off, so they're not paying taxes and they're all registered in foreign lands and you can look them up. You just speak into your Google phone and say who owns Motor Yacht. You know Starburst.

Capn Tinsley:

Right. So they all have full crews on them and they're all busy working.

Hayden:

All in uniform 10 to 20 crew members on a yacht 10 to 20 crew. It's interesting. You look them up and all their charter rates are available. You can find out how much it costs to charter them. Most of them are, you know, $20,000 to $50,000 a week to charter and most of them have an operating expense of $10 to $20 million a year operating expense for the yacht. So yeah, it's a whole other world. It's really interesting. But they all come to Antigua Yacht Club and they all come to Nelson's Dockyard and that's where they go.

Capn Tinsley:

We do have a question here.

Hayden:

Oh yes, feet or meters. The chain is in feet 250 feet.

Radeen:

I think he wants to know about the chart.

Hayden:

Oh, are the charts in feet? Let me look.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, it looks like.

Hayden:

Yeah, that's meters, that's meters, yeah, yeah, well, we anchor up there at the top. Where I say we anchor here, it's two to three meters deep. That's where I had at 175 feet the other week because I ended up in the deep water and that's fine. I just had room to lay it all out, which is what I like about up there.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, now, with all these millionaire boats and everything, what's it there's? I guess there's a lot of people just like you, just like me, that are also there.

Hayden:

Oh, there's more of us than them. Yes, okay, yes, so there's all of us here. This harbor at Falmouth is loaded with boats our size. I mean we're the smaller boat at 35 feet. Most of the boats are 40 to 50 feet, 45, 50 feet, but we're all in the same harbor feet 45, 50 feet, but we're all in the same harbor. We're all going to the same pizza shops and roadie shops and hardware stores and laundries $100 lunches. No no.

Capn Tinsley:

You get affordable food.

Hayden:

You get a roadie and a beer for 20 bucks, you know.

Capn Tinsley:

Okay, yeah, and are you going to cover I't want to uh step on your, your story here, your your plan. Are you going to talk about um provisioning there, or you know expenses?

Hayden:

yeah, radine's good on the provision, that's, that's her division there are.

Radeen:

there's an excellent grocery store in jolly harbor called the epicurean, and they for a small grocery store. They really have just about anything you could want. It's within easy walking distance of the dinghy dock in Jolly and so it works very well. It's not inexpensive, though. Things in Antigua are more expensive than the other islands and I think that's because of just taxes and import duties and things that they charge there.

Hayden:

They have a 17% tax. Whoa On everything Right If you go a couple screens forward. The next screen after Falmouth, the next one right there. This shows the lay of the land of Jolly Harbor. This is kind of our happy place and this is where Radine was talking about the dinghy dock and the stores. You'll see down there in the bottom corner, the bottom right corner, it says dinghy dock in the stores.

Capn Tinsley:

Uh, you'll see down there in the bottom corner, the bottom right corner, it says dinghy dock and stores. Oh wow, that's a lot of, that's a lot of dinghies in there.

Hayden:

Well, that's the marina that's where the charter boats run in and out of and that's where you can dock your boat. We anchor out where it says anchor and then we dinghy into there and is this?

Capn Tinsley:

is this where the charter boats go? I mean the cruise ships, right here.

Radeen:

No, no, no, no, this is a very small boat. Yeah, this is the little guy.

Hayden:

No mega yachts in here, no this is the little guys in here. All those little fingers you see are condos in Jolly Harbor.

Hayden:

They're all like $300,000 to $500,000 condos now with docks, so it's really pretty nice, it's fabulous. This was a swamp and I don't know when, but they dug it all out and made this complex of houses and docks. And then the marina is down at the very bottom and that's where we hauled out. We haul out there where it says fuel, that's where the haul out slip is, and then you come out of right there at fuel and they, they park you right there in the hard on concrete and that's where we stored for the for the summer and we're going to store there again May until December for hurricane season.

Hayden:

But the cost customs is right up there so you can sail in from you know, your St Barts or St Martin, or sailing in from down south, down near Guadalupe. You come in, you drop anchor out in this wide open area. We like to anchor way in the inside, there where the longest arrow is. We go into that cove and then you dingy into the customs dock and you check in and we spent a month here, one month based right here.

Radeen:

Well in Jolly and Falmouth.

Hayden:

Yeah, jolly, we spent a couple of weeks in Falmouth, a couple of weeks here, and it was hard to leave because it's so convenient.

Radeen:

So within walking distance of where it says fuel is also a budget marine, which is a chain of marine stores, kind of like a West Marine.

Capn Tinsley:

Okay, so how much does it cost to check into the country? Good question.

Radeen:

We just checked out that was $20.

Hayden:

$20 to check out.

Radeen:

So that's $7.

Hayden:

$20 to check in for the Port Authority. It's not like the Bahamas, which are $300 to $600.

Radeen:

I don't think it was more than $70 total it might have been $50.

Hayden:

I mean, it's cheap. That's not bad In the DR. I was told that you had to pay every person you talked to yeah, yeah, In the DR you give out treats and candies and beers and tips here and tips there.

Capn Tinsley:

Bring your $20 bills, yeah, but again the DR.

Hayden:

Their labor rate is $3 a day, so I mean they deserve some tips here. In Antigua the labor rate that I looked up is $9 EC an hour, which is $3 US an hour. So the labor rate here is also cheap. But the work here that we had done by the yard was reasonable. We had the boat waxed here, we had the boat bottom sanded and painted here and I had one through haul replaced here and it was all way cheaper than Florida half price of Florida.

Capn Tinsley:

And was it as good as Max? Yes, really.

Hayden:

Okay, the bottom was fantastic and the sanding was incredible. The wax was great. Yeah, I've been pleased with the work here, which is again why we're coming back.

Capn Tinsley:

Didn't you get it done pretty recently?

Hayden:

Every year. We usually paint the bottom. But when I was painting with trinidad bottom paint, I would paint every two years.

Radeen:

But uh, you can't get that here hard to get.

Hayden:

So I say I don't use a blade of paints, I use hard epoxy paints so I can scrub it when I'm swimming it. Uh, so they gotta sand it to put the new paint on. Is what?

Capn Tinsley:

they do, but it's at half price. So what the heck right?

Hayden:

Yeah, it was a very good price. I was pretty impressed. I mean to get the boat waxed and painted and everything. I was thrilled with the price, not disappointed, and that's why we committed. We said, okay, we're going to come back here. And then yard storage here for us was about yeah, you're ended up paying about $650 a month to store your boat here, which is the same as if I sailed at home to Annapolis and put it in a dock in Annapolis is going to cost me a thousand $1,200 a month. So the price, the carrying costs of maintaining a boat either in the water or on the hard or in your home dock unless you have a house with a dock, it always seems to be about $600 to $1,000 a month.

Radeen:

And the price is just about the same as Grenada and as Puerto Rico.

Hayden:

Yeah, we stored two years in Grenada and we stored two years in Puerto Rico and now this is the first year we stored in Antigua and we're coming back here to store again in May.

Capn Tinsley:

And plus you save all that time getting there, which would take how long?

Radeen:

Well, it takes about three and a half months. That's why we did.

Hayden:

I mean, if you did it, if you went straight out the Bermuda six days and then sailed south of the Caribbean. It's 10 days, the Caribbean 1,500, very typical sailing run. But we don't do more than 500 miles. The two of us are good for 500 miles and then we're exhausted and we normally don't take crew anymore. We just want to be the two of us and we normally don't take crew anymore. We just want to be the two of us. So we talked about taking the boat home this year and we went through the numbers and everything. We said, well, we could sail it home and get back to Annapolis, but then we want to be back here. So we said, well, if we sail home and put the boat in our Rock Hall Marina, it's 700 plus dollars a month to store the boat there. And then we got to come back here again. So we just said the cost is the same to just leave it here. The negative thing is we don't have a boat for the summer now, we talked about that, but uh rating got mad at me.

Hayden:

Second boat two boats getting an island packet 27 for home. Two boats, we need a second boat.

Capn Tinsley:

We need a 27. I thought we were friends. That's what she said.

Hayden:

We need a 27 in Annapolis at a private home that we could pay a discounted rate on, and that would be perfect.

Radeen:

Yes, I frankly need a break from boating. Can we take a break from it? Then I come back refreshed and excited.

Hayden:

That's how we're maintaining this. This is our 25th year out here and we both think we're able to keep doing that, by getting off the boat, putting it away, saying that's enough, we're done, go home, do something else.

Capn Tinsley:

Right.

Hayden:

And then come back and okay we know, we know what we got to do.

Capn Tinsley:

Let's set it up again and get going it keeps you from getting burnt out, doesn't it?

Hayden:

that's exactly that's what we've discovered, the people that, the people that have done this a long time. They seem to be successful by taking a break. So that's what we're trying to do. Uh, what's the next slide? I got there. Uh, let's see what. Let's see what else I have. I don't even remember what I sent you all. Okay, hey, there's my thank you, great insight. Thanks, mike.

Hayden:

Up to the north is one of my very happy places, called Deep Bay. You can see, you can't really see, but just to the south of this is Jolly Harbor. You can see, you can't really see, but just to the south of this is Jolly Harbor. And so you come up to the top here and you go into this little deep bay. There's a nice sandy beach there and, wow, to me that is what burns into my mind as one of the sweet spots in Antigua. You could just anchor there, swim with turtles, hike up to the Fort Barrington. Just anchor there, swim with turtles, hike up to the Fort Barrington.

Hayden:

And yes, everybody complains about the jet skis that now rent out of this harbor. They run them down from St John's, they bring them down around here, then they rent them. They drive them around the harbor like maniacs, but every day they get home at three, four o'clock and you got the whole place to yourself. There's nobody there, so you just got to put up with the jet ski rentals which are popular in Antigua for the cruise shippers. The cruise ships come in two or three cruise ships will be up there in St John and then they bring them down here by little boats and they put them on this beach, or they drive them down by excursion buses and they drop them on this beach and then they rent jet skis and go out and run around the harbor.

Radeen:

But it's not crowded at all.

Hayden:

If there's 10 people on the beach, it would be a busy day. We love it.

Capn Tinsley:

How many boats, how many sailboats?

Hayden:

Four boats will be anchored in there.

Radeen:

Oh wow, We've been there by ourselves sometimes.

Hayden:

Three, four boats. It's a must-do. Deep Bay is a must anchor.

Radeen:

And there's a wreck at the entrance to the harbor. That is marked and you can go snorkel it. So that makes it interesting.

Hayden:

Yeah, it's pretty cool. So that's St John. We went up there and anchored in there one time and then left. It's a city. It's where the cruise ships come in and out of. You don't really need to spend time up there. You take a cab up there and go to the shops and the markets and things, but we mainly stay in the back, these back bays of Antigua. Okay, Now the next slide. I think I take us up to Barbuda, oh yeah, so here's the sale from Antigua North, a little bit northeast it looks like to Barbuda, and now you'll see there's a bottom corner there called Coco Point. That's where you're going to go Now. If you go to the next slide, you'll see right there.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, and I think the next slide, I zoom in on Coco.

Hayden:

Point. Yeah, look at this. And I think the next slide I zoom in on Coco Point. Yeah, look at this. Now, unfortunately the owner of Mitchell Paul Mitchell Hair Salon products got sold this entire point of Coco Point and sadly he is building a mega resort there and it's kind of a shame that they're developing that. But he owns that whole point from the airstrip south. So what we do is we go in and we anchor along that beach and I get down to as far to the bottom corner as I can and that private resort, the beach access is allowed up to high tide. You see my note there Beach access to high tide. Nobody in Antigua may own the land beyond the high tide mark, so you go up Below it, below it, towards the water.

Hayden:

Towards the water, yeah that's kind of like here, that's like here it's the same way Public beach out there.

Capn Tinsley:

I do have a question I have a question over here on Instagram how busy is this harbor? Now, I'm not sure which one he's talking about, so maybe he'll tell me. I'm not sure which one, but go ahead and tell us what it is, yeah.

Hayden:

Go ahead. This harbor here is Barbuda Cocoa Point, and this is such a sweet place to go to it's pink sand beaches. You take your beach chair and your umbrella and you stick it in the sand below the high tide mark. They will come running out from the resort and tell you you cannot come up here like, yes, we may, to that line of sand.

Capn Tinsley:

I'm going to tell them. You told me it was okay that I could come up and enjoy the time at the resort.

Hayden:

You can see where the high tide mark is. So if you're smart, you go at low tide and that whole point becomes exposed. And so you go down there, you set your tent up, you set your umbrella up, you anchor your dinghy in the water, you swim in and you're on the best point in Barbuda. And they don't like it, but they can't do anything about it because you're below the high tide mark.

Capn Tinsley:

You just have to bring your own food right. Yeah, right, right, it's fine A little cabana boy is going to come down and try to bring you a drink or anything. They're not going to come down to you.

Hayden:

The cool thing that happens here is the millionaires fly in here and land on a seaplane Right here.

Capn Tinsley:

No, the seaplane lands in the water.

Hayden:

They land in the water and then off of the beach will come about a 30-foot T-top powerboat that is sitting on the sand. 30-foot T-top powerboat that is sitting on the sand and out from the side of the powerboat comes caterpillar tracks. Then the boat drives down the sand into the water and then it motors out to the seaplane and then the millionaires get off the seaplane into that boat and then that boat goes back to the sand and the caterpillar tracks come out and it goes back up on the sand. It is the coolest thing to see.

Hayden:

It's worth going up there to see that boat and that's how billionaires that's how they come and go to the coco point resort and I haven't been up. We haven't been up there for two years, so we'll get up there, uh, this season they can bring their gulf stream right here yeah, they'll land right there yeah right exactly now my other buddy tells me up the beach here where the reef is.

Hayden:

You see, to the north there's a reef and there's a lobster shack up there that the guy grills lobsters for you on the beach. We've not experienced that. We want to do that. But right up there, yeah, up in that corner of the beach is a lobster shack and you anchor up there. Yeah, up in that corner of the beach is a lobster shack and you anchor up there and then dinghy in.

Radeen:

Now again the waves are crashing onto this beach. Here Crashing is a little bit of an exaggeration.

Hayden:

The swell yeah, there's waves, there's times you can't land the dinghy on this beach. True. But that's not all the time You're talking about right here, right in here, yeah, the whole thing, this whole beach, all those red arrows, yeah, so you just anchor the dinghy out and swim in. That's very common.

Radeen:

Yeah, very common yeah.

Hayden:

And then there's great snorkeling to the east, to the right-hand side.

Radeen:

Oh yeah, you take the dinghy anchor because you will need it there.

Hayden:

And if you're brave, you can take your boat into all those reefs and anchor it. But we don't like places like that. We don't like to take the boat through a reef like that.

Radeen:

We have plenty of friends who have done it, but not us.

Hayden:

We have buddy boats that have anchored in there. We're like no, that's not for us, wow they got them right there, don't they? Yeah, you can go right into those reefs and drop an anchor. No, we'll take the dinghy and swim. We like to be back on this sandy beach over here. So that's Barbuda, that's the prize of Antigua. Right there, right, yep.

Capn Tinsley:

You say a lot of places are your happy place. We're going to have to make a top 10 list of happy places for you, Okay.

Hayden:

I can do that.

Radeen:

Hayden's happy place is usually where he is right now. Right now, it's French.

Hayden:

Right now it's French and if I were in Miami Beach, that would be. Miami Beach would be my happy place, biscayne Bay, I love, love Biscayne Bay. Do I have another slide? I'm not sure I do. I don't think so.

Radeen:

I think I'm at the end Yep.

Hayden:

So that's our little Antigua Barbuda, how it's all laid out and the best places to hang out at.

Capn Tinsley:

Now I remember when we did the provisioning for Bahamas video and you were saying you need to bring your stuff because they just don't have a lot there and not a lot of choices. Is this one of those places? Also, Not at all.

Radeen:

No, this is so civilized. You can get marinated artichoke hearts and pickled onions and fancy olives stuffed with jalapenos or blue cheese.

Capn Tinsley:

No, you can get just about anything could possibly get, but you just have to pay 17% on top of it.

Hayden:

Right, that's why you failed down here to the French Islands, where it's all much cheaper.

Radeen:

The French government actually subsidizes the groceries for their French citizens, so it's less expensive here than it is in Antigua, but we hardly have any provisions on the boat right now. But we hardly have any provisions on the boat right now. We haven't felt compelled to buy a lot because we know we'll easily be able to get whatever we want along the way.

Hayden:

It's so much different than leaving Florida and going to the Bahamas, and then Bahamas down to the Turks and Caicos, and Turks and Caicos, the Dominican Republic. You sort of want to be provisioned up for those runs, right. But once you're down here in the Caribbean, you don't need to worry about provisions. The food is amazing and everywhere Stores are great.

Capn Tinsley:

I want to pull up these pictures that you sent me. Yeah, all right, let me get that going here.

Hayden:

Yeah, I sent you some picture of Nelson's dockyard and the yacht club or whatever. I think so.

Capn Tinsley:

Okay, so go ahead and talk while I'm doing this. Yeah, yeah.

Hayden:

So I don't know if we have a favorite place in the Caribbean yet. I mean, we love St Martin, we love Antigua, we love the French Islands. Any French island we get to we always fall in love with seems like that's looking at Montserrat, the volcano from Shirley. Heights. That is the volcano to the left, the highest point there in Montserrat.

Radeen:

And it has had more seismic activity the first 10 days of December than it has had since 2010. So the government put out a warning that there's more activity. So two thirds of that island is in an exclusion zone. It's a wasteland. Everything was covered in ash I don't remember 15 years ago something like that and so only one third of it is currently occupied.

Capn Tinsley:

Okay, so was it occupied before 15 years ago?

Radeen:

Yeah, you can see pictures of the town that is now just covered in ash. Like only half of the roofs are sticking out of the layers of ash.

Capn Tinsley:

Wow. So what's your prediction? What's going to happen with this volcano?

Hayden:

Jimmy Buffett, what are you going to do when the volcano blows? Yeah, I hope I'm not over there.

Capn Tinsley:

Well, you know, I guess it's like the big, not the big island, but was it the big island, the big one in Hawaii? We were there and we saw.

Hayden:

This is as close as we Were you.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, yeah, and they sell like lava insurance or volcano insurance in Hawaii. Yeah, wow, yeah, you have to have insurance if you're living in certain areas.

Radeen:

Wow, Well, in Montserrat, they had plenty of warning that it was going to happen, and so everyone was evacuated before it happened yeah.

Capn Tinsley:

OK, all right. So this is what was happening here.

Hayden:

That's just a lazy day of sailing from Falmouth downwind back around the Jolly Harbor with just the jib only. So that's just an easy, typical See. In the backside of these islands there's no waves, it's kind of calm. That's sweet. That's just a five-knot sail, just sailing with the jib. Now, luckily, when I came down here first, max Sails made me new sails and they made me a 110 jib, which I hated because it was so small for the 135, 140% jib I used to have for the Chesapeake Bay. Travis said you want a 110? It's too windy down there. And he was right, we need the smaller jib. So this is a 110 jib and it's plenty big enough for down here. Yeah, that's just a lazy sailing day. What else did we send you? Oh, that is Deep Bay. No, that is not Deep Bay. That's the beach in Falmouth, that little burger joint. I'm standing at a burger joint and that's looking down the beach To the entrance.

Hayden:

To the entrance where you committed Falmouth, and a lot of people anchor right here and then use this beach to swim from Falmouth.

Radeen:

And a lot of local people use the beach too. It's a very friendly atmosphere.

Hayden:

It's a very popular beach. We use this beach when we're in Falmouth.

Radeen:

Yeah, it's beautiful sand.

Capn Tinsley:

Oh, it's gorgeous.

Hayden:

What's the next picture we sent? Oh, that's from Shirley Heights. You're looking down into Freeman Bay, which is where the loose cannon bar is, and then you're looking right where your arrow is your arrow is at Nelson's Dockyard, right in the corner there, and then across the little harbor to the very top right corner. That would be Falmouth Harbor where we anchor. So we anchor there. Walk across that little piece of land to Nelson's Dockyard. Yeah, and that just the view from Shirley Heights.

Radeen:

And Shirley Heights is an old fort and twice a week they have steel drum music and people come and cook, barbecue and serve drinks, and so it's just a fun party atmosphere on Sundays and Thursdays.

Capn Tinsley:

Is that where you are right there?

Hayden:

Yeah, that's Shirley Heights. That's the top of the hill Looking down. What's the top of the hill looking down? What's the next one? You sent Just a sunset from Falmouth. No, that's Falmouth Harbor. Yeah, that's sunset from Falmouth. We're all the way up in the east and sunset over there in the west looking out the inlet.

Radeen:

Nice and calm.

Hayden:

That's how calm Falmouth.

Radeen:

Harbor is usually, and you can see it's not crowded either, right?

Hayden:

there's tons of room to tons of room to go around. What else do we have here? It's 60 degrees f here in key west. Oh, chili, is the cold air reaching you all? No, we don't have any cold air here yet.

Radeen:

In fact, today was the hottest day we've had since we got here.

Hayden:

It's hot here. It's 87F here, probably.

Radeen:

About 80% humidity.

Hayden:

Yeah, at night we need a sheet. It gets that cold, you know, it really gets chilly at night. Must get down to 75.

Capn Tinsley:

I met this man, Mike, and his wife in Key West. I was going by to see my friend Vanessa's boat and he recognized me, Mike, and I thought I was in trouble because I was in the marina looking at somebody's boat when she wasn't there. He goes, I thought that was you.

Capn Tinsley:

How nice goes I thought that was you, oh. And he says, um, he bought this boat, this island packet. I think it's a 2021 mike, is it a 370 or 380? What? Oh? Wow, he bought the boat because of the podcast. There you go wonderful congratulations, mike he gave me a tour and it was a perfect boat. Oh my gosh.

Hayden:

Now you got to get out here, get down that chilly Key West.

Capn Tinsley:

He said I've had this boat for a week and he just sold his house. I believe it was Ohio. They sold everything and now they need to learn how to sail it.

Radeen:

Fantastic, that's wonderful Good job. I had Vanessa, who's also a broker On the podcast.

Capn Tinsley:

They need to learn how to sail it. Fantastic, that's wonderful. I love to hear that. Congrats, mike. I had had Vanessa, who's also a broker on the podcast, and so I was saying, oh, she's a broker, and so he was watching and he got in touch with her and asked about a boat and she said I know where it is, it's right here next to me.

Hayden:

Wow, oh my gosh. That's great Thanks, oh my gosh that's great.

Capn Tinsley:

Thanks to the Salty Podcast.

Radeen:

There it is All the credit.

Capn Tinsley:

Good job Outstanding. It's a great story.

Hayden:

And it's a beautiful boat.

Capn Tinsley:

They're so excited too. That's always great to see.

Hayden:

Oh it is. Oh, there was our Christmas decorations. We put up 40 feet of lights, pulled them up to the mast and that was in Falmouth Harbor for Christmas. It was really, really fun. Yeah, there were a couple other boats that were decorated.

Capn Tinsley:

How hard is that to put those lights up like that.

Hayden:

Well, you just string them together and you use your spare halyard and you zip, tie it to your spare halyard and put your halyard in a loop so you don't lose it, and then just pull it up and then plug it into your outlets and turn on your inverter and run your inverter all night and it takes no power because it's all LED lights. So we ran that for two nights.

Radeen:

Did you heard it here? And while we were in Jolly, the yacht club there had a power boat parade of decorated boats. There were seven boats that came in and out of each of the anchorages.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, that was fun. That was fun. Did you join in? No, no, we did not. What else?

Hayden:

That's up at Shirley Heights, the steel band playing there and you can see down into the harbor behind the steel drums. That is a must-do in Antigua. Probably the number two thing to do is this, shirley Heights, and the number one thing to do is Nelson's Dockyard I agree.

Hayden:

Yeah for sure. What else do we have here? I don't even know what pictures I sent you. Nelson's Dockyard Palm Tree, typical. Next, hayden and Radine, your favorite armchair sailors, are following along. Mcq, rich McHugh, you know who they are. Someday we will join in on the adventure. I hope so. That's Rich McHugh.

Radeen:

Wanda McHugh. I don't know if that's them or not.

Hayden:

Rich or Wanda, probably, if it's a McHugh so many McHugh's.

Capn Tinsley:

I know, Tell us who you are.

Hayden:

Yes. What's the next picture we have? Don't know. Oh, this is the Nelson's Dockyard. This is the UNESCO site.

Radeen:

Yes.

Hayden:

These are the pillars that held up a massive building. The second floor of this building was a sail loft for the tall ships, and the pillars are what's remaining of the building, and they would row the sails in on rowboats and then into this little canal right over Ray Dean's hat and they hoist the sails up to the second floor, lay them out and then stitch them and repair them and then hoist them back down and then row them back out to the tall ships. That's the Antigua Yacht Club right there. Antigua Yacht Club at Christmas, right there. Yep, that's what it looks like. All of those yachts in there, if you count the spreaders four or five spreaders they all have red lights on the top of their mass. For low-flying aircrafts you have a red light on the top of your mass when your mass is over 200 feet I think it's 200 or 150 feet, I forget what it is and so all those boats have a red light on the top of them.

Hayden:

And that's just typical, just interesting. But you can see how calm the harbor is. We dinghy from here to those big boats. That's where the dinghy dock is, where that tall mast is right there. Next picture is let's see that is a view sitting at Nelson's Dockyard for breakfast, just looking out in the harbor. These are the little cabana tables they have for four people to have breakfast at at the Pillars. It's fabulous.

Radeen:

Very civilized, very British we go there often.

Hayden:

We love it.

Capn Tinsley:

I lost my camera, by the way. Oh, I see you did?

Hayden:

I can hear you oh my gosh, You're still there. And that's Nelson's Dockyard again.

Radeen:

With the Pillars.

Hayden:

With the Pillars. And next picture what else do we have? I think that's it. Is that it Fireworks for New Year's New Year's over Falmouth Harbor.

Radeen:

They had four different locations for the fireworks. It was great oh it is Richard Wanda. Happy New Year, Richard Wanda.

Hayden:

Super Wanda and Rich, the best mechanic I know, get me a Corvette buddy please. All right, yeah, what's the next picture we got here? Oh, there's the aerial view of Nelson's Dockyard. You can see how the mega yachts they're all gone right now. They're not there, but they back in stern too, and you still pay by the length of your boat. You don't pay by how much dock you're taking up, because the dock you're taking up will be the width of your boat, but you pay by the length of your boat. So it's kind of interesting, they get more boats in that way.

Radeen:

So the white building in the center was an officer's quarters back in the day, and so they've rebuilt it and now it's offices of businesses, and in the surrounding buildings are old. The hotel where we had Christmas dinner was called the Cooper or, excuse me, copper and Lumber Store, and that's what it was. It was the place where they would buy the sheets of copper to hammer onto the hulls of the British naval vessels and they had a carronage where they would lean the boats over to work on them. It's really fascinating.

Hayden:

It's awesome to walk around there. It's really a highlight of Antigua.

Radeen:

The country actually has an archaeologist who is in charge of all the excavations that they're still doing at all the forts and once a week in the wintertime does a tour called rum to ruins and he talks about how the sugar industry and the rum industry, what propelled the British economy here and then how it all fell apart.

Hayden:

so it's fascinating, yeah it's great, we love this, we love this island. It's it's why we spent over a month here. We just didn't feel like leaving. Why would we leave? Did I send you any other pictures? I don't know what else I might have sent you don't want to bore. That's more of nelson's dockyard. What else did I send? That's the pillars, the famous site and the fireworks and the fireworks more new year's eve fireworks and the fireworks. More New Year's Eve, all right.

Hayden:

And the overlook yep of Nelson's over to the other side of Falmouth Harbor in the next picture, yep, that's. I think they're just repeating a bunch. That's back to Nelson's again. Yep, yep. That's the iconic Nelson's again, yep, yep. That's the iconic image of Antigua Right there, because that's where they would row the sails in and lift them up to the upper floor of this building. So it's kind of like one of their icons. That's Island Spirit out there in the far distance. She didn't sink yet. Yeah, that's Island Spirit out there in the far distance. She didn't sink yet. All right, I got a lot of repeating pictures here. Oh, that's my favorite picture. That was a nighttime shot from up at Shirley Heights. After a couple of vodkas we ended up getting a shot of that. So that's kind of a cool shot. Just looking back to the harbor, yeah, there's the smoking volcano Montserrat, over my neighbor's boat All right, I think we've covered it and the little island spear with their little wind turbine on anchor.

Radeen:

That's the anchorage at Jolly Harbor, with Montserrat in the far left distance.

Hayden:

That's how calm it normally is. I mean, these anchorages around here are just fabulous, real easy, all right, did I lose your microphone?

Radeen:

We can't hear you, Tinsley. I lost your microphone.

Hayden:

We can't hear you. Tinsley, I lost your microphone. Oh, there you are.

Radeen:

Well, thank you so much.

Capn Tinsley:

This was really fun. Yeah, sorry about the technical difficulties.

Hayden:

I don't even know how you run all this. I have no clue.

Capn Tinsley:

It's all working great and all of a sudden it's not.

Hayden:

I know it blows up and we're running this all on Google Fi cell phones. It's amazing.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, and yours is working better than mine. So we have something else here. Mike says gorgeous, and then these guys said we love the volcano pictures.

Hayden:

Yeah, it was pretty cool. It's pretty impressive.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, we don't want to get any closer. So if anybody has any more questions, we have them here. So let me do. Let me see if I can do my quick commercial. Sure, I'm Tinsley Meyer. Hey, now I'm Tinsley Meyer. Why don't I just say it instead of finding the picture? Here we go Tinsley Myrick of Remax of Orange Beach. Here in Gulf Shores in Orange Beach, alabama, I sell a lot of Gulffront condos. I sell Gulffront homes too. I sell non-waterfront homes. I sell a little bit of land, but mostly I sell Gulffront condos. I sell a little bit of land, but mostly I sell gulffront condos. So please give me a call or send me an email. I'll be glad to help you out. I've been selling condos since 2003 down here. Fantastic, got a little bit of knowledge. Well, I guess that is it. I think the technology is telling us we are done All right, good job you always make it fun.

Hayden:

Yeah, appreciate it.

Capn Tinsley:

We might have one more. Okay, yeah, well, favorite on-land restaurant.

Radeen:

Oh.

Capn Tinsley:

Well, the.

Radeen:

Pillars over at Nelson's Stockyard is great for breakfast. We've actually never had dinner there. In Jolly Harbor there's a great restaurant called Sea Dreams. I think that would be my favorite.

Hayden:

Yeah, Sea Dreams right at Jolly Harbor is good.

Radeen:

Right and Basilico. That's where we had a nice dinner with Alex and Amy, the Italian place. There's about seven restaurants right in Jolly Harbor Commercial Complex where the real estate offices are and the lot broker offices are and the dentist and the doctor and those kind of things. But there's about seven restaurants scattered right in that area and all of them are very good, yeah, there's a lot.

Hayden:

There's no shortage of restaurants down here. Price points Meals are $25 to to 30 a meal, probably yeah, each.

Radeen:

They use a currency called eastern caribbean dollars and it's roughly a third. Uh, um, the multiplier would be a third. So what you see on the menu is ninety dollars, but it's really roughly $30. So, you're always trying to calculate in your head.

Hayden:

Divide everything by three Roughly. Now we're in Guadalupe and it's all euros. So it's kind of euros are sort of one-to-one now.

Capn Tinsley:

Right.

Hayden:

Oh, okay.

Capn Tinsley:

Closer.

Radeen:

And also Rich asked in Antigua. Yes, all those restaurants were in Antigua.

Hayden:

Yeah, yeah, maybe he's asking where you are right now. Maybe he came in late. Yeah, right now we're in Guadalupe. We sailed 50 miles south of Antigua yesterday and we're in Guadalupe, which is a French island, and then we're going to move south to a couple more islands to try to get away from this big ocean swell that's coming, to try to get away from this big ocean swell that's coming. But we were in Antigua for a month, from December 1 till January yesterday Till yesterday. So, yeah, we were in Antigua for a month.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, if you came in late, please watch this in the replay, because they gave some great information.

Hayden:

I could personally just stay in Antigua for a whole season. We have friends who do Our buddies, buddies do that, and I can see why. And we both said during the month of December. We both said you know what, if we don't leave Antigua, we will be completely happy to just sail between these places.

Capn Tinsley:

You say that about every place, like if you don't go any further, this right here is great. And then you go, and you know, if you don't go any further than that, that's great. Though that's true, you've given us some great tips.

Hayden:

You could just stay in Biscayne Bay and have a happy life also, there's nothing wrong with that and in the Bahamas.

Radeen:

So I see Roger has a question Are we moving to get away from the incoming swells yes. Yes.

Capn Tinsley:

Yes, oh, good question. Alright, anybody else Take?

Hayden:

time Roger, thank you, thanks everybody, thanks McHugh.

Capn Tinsley:

Alright. Well, mike. Mike, thanks for coming on here. I hope to see you again Soon. I'll be down there for sure. Alright, so that's it. And so how do we end it? Salty?

Hayden:

Abandon Salty. Abandon Salty.

Capn Tinsley:

Abandon.

Radeen:

Out Out Island Spirit Island, spirit Out Out Out Out.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Captain Tinsley

Host

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.