Antigua - Falmouth Harbour
Escapade
Sun 18 Dec 2016 12:11
We arrived in the dark at 20.30 actually expecting it to be quite illuminated by the huge moon as was the night before, but unfortunately the moon didn’t make it out from the clouds, never mind, anchoring went without incident. Big grins all round (and a teary eye) we had made it and were now surrounded by mega yachts, lights running around the harbour, music and frog croaks drifting off the shore and the unmistakable aromas of civilisation. 20 days, 1 hour after departing from Gran Canaria. Nothing and nobody broken.
We woke early after a fab 10 hour straight sleep, I stripped the beds and put four huge piles of laundry together, whilst James inflated and deployed the dingy. We went ashore to clear customs, had a naughty burger and chips lunch and a glass of vino overlooking the marina, then back to the boat to don the swimmers before heading to the little beach for our much anticipated first swim. The water was glorious and we were accompanied by some live music wafting through from the trees, James went to investigate and came back grinning from ear to ear, after finding an amazing and packed open air bistro on the sand with a local group playing on the deck and bean bags and rocking deck chairs dotted around under the shade of the palm trees. Needless to say, the laundry could wait so it only took me the time to drag around a pair of deckchairs to face the group for James to dingy back to the boat to collect the wallet for a few cheeky pina coladas. What an amazing place to stumble across on our first day, full of tipsy revellers and off duty crews chilling, great people watching from behind the shades. One woman kept leaping off her beanbag to gyrate and sway to the music, lost in her own little world, she looked like she could have been a dancer in her earlier days. Before we left, we passed the woman and chatted briefly saying it was great to watch her so obviously lost in the music, she lived on her little blue 20 foot yacht in the marina, sailed it around the bay and just anchors and swims ashore wherever she fancies, she was obviously a very free spirit….she then looked into James’ eyes and drooled ‘you are a very hansom man', ‘I’m working on it’ he said with a wink, ‘you don’t need to work at it” she replied with a glint in her eye!!! Well! Back to dingy at sunset, I made us a pasta meal whilst James set the table out in the cockpit (along with battery operated flickering candles…Bless). Perfect end to the most perfect first day.