Antigua?

A moon illuminated the night sky but there was little wind to fill our sails.
I was on the bow, looking out for signs of land anywhere around us in the distance. Seeing some lights sparkling faintly on the horizon would have been a clue but nothing caught the eye.
I looked down to one of my favourite views from the bow, down to where the bow met the waterline and forced a path through the water. What were those changes to light in the dark colour of the sea I was looking at? Light to dark, to light again in an irregular pattern as we poodled along.
Oh my God. I knew what that was.

“I can see the bottom.” I shouted back from my vantage point on the pulpit. My brother was at the mast, also looking for some sign of land, and clambered quickly across the unsteady deck to join me.
“And it’s not very deep either.” He shouted back to Skip.
Skip let the sails fly free and turned the tiller hard over. We drifted around in circles whilst we decided what to do.
Skip didn’t have a clue where we were, the charts didn’t help him either because he just did not know where we were, only where we were meant to be…….

We were supposed to have arrived in English Harbour on the south coast of Antigua at dawn two days earlier, just in time to enjoy the end of Antigua Race Week before catching a lift on a boat heading south to Grenada. What on earth were we doing in the middle of god knows where?
Our unbelievable voyage had started in Grenada, several Islands south of wherever we were. ‘Skip’ needed crew help to deliver a 32’ sloop to Antigua in time for a bare-boat charter. It would mean a non-stop sail for a few days, depending on the wind. My brother and I were approached to help him. I was 15 and my brother was 14. He had sailed up through the Islands a few times before as crew on charter boats and knew the waters well. I was just useful as another pair of hands. Skip did all the provisioning and preparation of the boat.
The first few days passed without incident, then Skip decided to stop in a bay on the North end of Guadeloupe, have some dinner, then leave at midnight so that we would arrive at English Harbour at dawn. At the midnight hour we left Guadeloupe and headed off on the course for our destination.
“ We need to allow for the current that sweeps eastward when setting our course, I think we need to alter course a bit,” said my brother helpfully.
“No,” said Skip “ There isn’t a current here.”

So off we headed, into the night, sleeping in shifts and looking forward to our arrival. My brother was concerned though, but Skip wouldn’t hear of it.

At daybreak we spotted the shadow of land as expected, but not where it should be, it was to our west, and a long way away on the horizon, and only just discernable from the clouds.

“Aha,” said Skip. “If we head on this new course, then we’ll get to English Harbour.”

During that day on our new heading my brother and I could see that the land got further away, not closer, and commented on this to Skip but he would not be budged from his convictions. Eventually we couldn’t see land at all, just mile upon mile of empty sea around us as far as the eye could see. We didn’t have any more food aboard either. Skip only brought enough for the anticipated journey because he didn’t want to leave any aboard, so we had to rely on the never-ending supply of freshly caught boiled tuna, (not even a bit of oil to fry it in), with tomato ketchup as flavouring. We had water, dry biscuits, chicken noodle soup, and beer for Skip, but no other soft drinks left. Seems daft now but there we were.

That night our course changed several times as Skip decided on a new one and my brother and I were unable to have a voice, anyway we wouldn’t have known where to head by this point. Skip was the man in charge.

By dawn the next day we were completely lost and this was before the days of GPS. There wasn’t a sextant on board either. We were completely alone with about 25 miles visibility and nothing at all in sight, not even another sail.

All through that long day we sailed, hoping for sight of land but none appeared. Then darkness fell again and so did our hopes…….

So what were we to do with this all darkness around us, and the bottom in view below us?

Anchoring seemed the best option, so we dropped the hook and settled down for a restless night on a rolling boat.

The next morning revealed the extent of our predicament. We were surrounded on three sides by a breaking reef, how we hadn’t seen or heard the waves breaking over it the previous night I just don’t know, but there we were in the middle of a horse shoe shaped reef, anchored in what at any other time would have been a beautiful turquoise sea, and a reef ripe for snorkelling and spear fishing. Skip puzzled over the chart of Antigua. He couldn’t find anything that matched up with what was around us, and the very low-lying land ahead of us didn’t tie in with the hills of Antigua either. There were no other boats around us and the binoculars revealed no buildings in sight on the Island ahead.
Then a small fishing boat powered by an outboard zoomed towards us from the island, which looked miles away because it was so low but in fact was only about a mile away.

“We’d better find out where we are, we’ll have to ask them.” Skip wasn’t keen at all but what choice did we have? We waved the boat over and two black arms waved in response as the boat drew nearer.
“Whereabouts on Antigua is this?” I shouted to the fishermen as the boat stopped beside us.
They laughed and one of them called back, “Antigua? Antigua 26 mile dat way, Dis Barbuda.” One of them pointed southwards. “Ya’ll aright?”
We were embarrassed but fine, thank you very much. They sped off shaking their heads and laughing at our dumb question.
No wonder the island was so low, Barbuda is the lowest lying of all the islands and we were very lucky not to have had a worse fate.
Now all we had to do was get beyond the reef and head south as quicklty as possible. Our path was clear to open sea and within a few miles Antigua came into view. This time we did not lose sight of it and eventually arrived in English Harbour after dark, following a long afternoon sail down the west coast with Tuna as sustenance.

We missed Antigua Race week altogether and a few people were a bit worried about our whereabouts. My brother and I decided then that we would not sail with 'Skip' again. That was a close one that was.