Hi Folks - Hope you all had a really good time at New Year. 2008 arrived
here with a rousing welcome of reggae music and fireworks.
We moved round to Freemans Bay on the edge of English Harbour a few days ago
and anchored on the south side to snorkel and dive Charlotte Reef and the
Pillars of Hercules. We were warned that in the Bay the wind swirls around
'causing yachts to meet stern-to-stern in the middle of the night, so you
need plenty of swinging room. This has certainly been evident to us on a
number of occasions as incoming yachts anchor too closely due to lack of
space (and not knowing the local conditions). The wind and closeness of
neighbours has caused us to re-anchor a number of times so we are getting
plenty of practice....even in the early hours!
This is supposed to be the 'dry season'! We regularly get squalls but
Sunday night the wind gusted more than usual culminating in high winds,
deluges of rain and finally an electric storm or two - several boats were
struck by lightening and one 80' yacht was completely destroyed by fire at
6am. 1.73" of rain fell between 2pm Sunday and 8pm Monday.
However, between the squalls the sun comes out, and we have enjoyed videoing
and identifying colourful Reef Fish and have at least 2 resident Turtles in
the Bay, which we have seen from Barada.
We have also been able to welcome the Atlantic Rowers who left La Gomera in
the Canaries just after us on 2nd December '07. The first 4-man boat
arrived on Saturday morning to a welcome of foghorns and steel-band music,
having taken 38 days to row the 3,000 miles......and we thought we were slow
and tired!! The second and third 2-man boats arrived in early hours of this
morning.
It took us 2 weeks of taking it easy locally before energy and sanity
returned. Since then we have visited St Johns, the capital twice:
- first for a New Year Celebration party of Gospel and local music where we
were the only white English people surrounded by locals, and we shook hands
with the PM Baldwin Spencer, who sat in front of us,
- second time we were negotiating the local busses (all private minibuses)
en route to Betty's Hope, once the largest Sugar Plantation on
Antigua.......this was a thought-provoking experience, the way the black
African slaves had to live, and we felt an aura or atmosphere of sadness or
even hopelessness about the place.
St Johns is a colourful, bustling place and we enjoy the local food esp.
Chicken Roti (curried chicken and veg in a pancake wrap) v.tasty from the
locals eating places.
We also enjoyed 2 days of diving when the weather was more still and calm,
visiting four sites with www.seawolfdivingschool.com We were lucky to see
Flying Gurnards, Rays, Spiny Lobsters, a Great Barracuda, a pair of
Porcupine Fish, black & white spotted Moray Eels and the local Conch
shellfish, as well as many other brightly coloured tropical fish and a
variety of interesting coral.
We are now venturing off to anchor sites around the Island, some of which
will be more remote and hopefully less crowded. We will let you know :+)
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