St. Martin to Antigua

On January 5th around 4 PM we departed St. Martin to Antigua. We had to tack around Tintamarre and St. Barts and then we were off the whole way down on the same tack. Like her namesake, Renegade wanted gallop away at 9 knots when the wind picked up but we know best boat speed is not always a good thing and slowed down a bit when slamming upwind into ocean waves. So we pulled out the stay sail (always good for a 3.5 knot speed decrease), rolled in the genoa, and pulled out the main reef. Full main and stay sail are a great sail plan for us beating upwind in normal ocean conditions. We had a few 20 degree headers on the way but our course to Antigua always came back. It was a pleasant ride for yet another of our many upwind trips. If you are thinking about getting a offshore cruising boat, our advise is to ignore all those yacht brokers that say you will never have to sail upwind. Their experience must be based on cruising the ICW and Bahamas. We arrived in Falmouth Harbour around midday, launched the dinghy, and checked in at English Harbour. We learned that our Garmin Inreach turned off for some reason midway on the trip down. Sorry for the scare for those following. We will do some testing to try to keep that from happening again. Untouched by hurricanes unlike Barbuda, south Antigua so far looks almost unchanged from when we were here in 2016. The economy of Falmouth/English Harbours is set up for superyacht services vs. pure tourism so it has a different vibe than the Virgin Islands and St. Martin. Today we motored next door to English Harbor but the anchorage was packed so we found a nice spot near the beach back in Falmouth. Big winds are on the way so we plan to stay here for at least a week.