“She is here, she is here! Awwww, Bini!”, the kids exclaim as we approach JACE. Everybody is so excited.
My sister Sabine, or Bini, is an absolute sweetheart and much adored “Tante Bini” by her niece and nephew. Her visit onboard has been highly anticipated. We carefully planned her visit to overlap with the kids for a few days. And now she is here. And a stowaway onboard. How? Well, read on.
But let me first fill you in on the goings-on of the past few days. For New Year’s we return to Falmouth Harbour. We are a bit low on food again and need to top up water also. We arrive in the afternoon and make a quick run ashore to the grocery and laundry. But, alas, the latter is closed for the holidays and we’ll have to deal with slightly salty towels for just a couple more days.
Our New Year’s celebration turns out to be quite unique: We’ve heard there will be fireworks over the harbor. Just before midnight we jump in the water off the back of our boat. The water has quite some bioluminescence and the temperature is perfect. While watching the fireworks above, we swim in the dark and create our own underwater fireworks with our movements in the water. What an amazing and memorable experience!
The next morning we dock JACE in the marina to fill up our water tank. Otherwise, we spend the day relaxing and preparing for our trip south to Guadalupe to pick up Bini.
Our sail down is fast, on a nice beam reach. We complete the 40nm in just over six hours. The extra day is spent cleaning up, doing laundry, and getting Bini’s cabin ready.
The anticipation is intense. After lunch ashore it is time. Karin and I head to the airport while the kids watch JACE – and their favorite netflix show. The process at their airport is swift and before we know it she is here. It is quite dark by the time we ride the dinghy back and Bini gets a hero’s welcome on JACE. It is wonderful to have her here and see the interaction between the kids and their aunt and we stay up and talk in our cockpit until very late.
Now is a good time to explain the “stowaway”: Checking in and out of these island countries is quite a pain and time sink. Since Bini arrives into Guadeloupe and the kids depart from Antigua just three days later, we would have to check out of Antigua, check into Guadeloupe, then add Bini to the crew list and check back out, just to check back into Antigua so we can drop the kids and check back out to sail south again (Bini will fly out of Martinique and we need to head toward Grenada) and check back into Guadeloupe. You get the idea – just too much overhead and time wasted. So we decide to go rouge. First we never check out of Antigua and our visit to Guadeloupe is a secret mission. And so Bini becomes a stowaway onboard, never gets declared in Antigua, and only formally joins our crew as we finally check into Guadeloupe on our trip south after the kids leave. While not exactly by the book, it works out beautifully and Bini and us have quite some fun with calling her our “stowaway”.
We planned to give Bini a day to chill and acclimatize before attempting the long sail to Antigua. But that plan disregarded the weather, which is rainy and forecasted to breeze up on days two and three. So on our first morning we make a snap decision to take advantage of today’s more moderate wind and head right back to Antigua.
Soon the rain clouds hovering over Guadeloupe disappear behind us and the sun is back. We motor for quite a while until we reach the open Atlantic and a steady 15kn breeze. The sail back is relatively smooth and fast and Bini masters her baptism by fire with flying colors. In fact, she finishes in second place in our speed sailing competition, in which we time how long each of us needs to complete 2 miles while steering the boat.
The kids fly back in two days. We take those days slow, do some sightseeing, a bit of provisioning, and visit Jolly Harbour on the west coast again. We swim and talk and laugh a lot and enjoy each other’s company and, of course, more board games are involved as well.
When the day of departure comes, we are all a bit sad to have to say goodbye. We had such a good time and the two weeks flew by too fast. We load Anika and Krissi with their luggage in our dinghy and slowly ride to the marina where the taxi is waiting for them. And just like that we send them off with hugs and kisses. We are grateful for this special time together and that everything worked out and they enjoyed their trip so much.
Now onwards, for the next adventure awaits: a night sail! More on that in our next post.
