Sun, Wind, Cricket
Irie
Thu 14 Feb 2008 00:23
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Wednesday 13th
The weekend rolled on into Sunday, with further
doses of swiming, kayaking and beach, plus the imperative of a visit to Shirley
Heights. The imposing view over the harbours from this outpost fort is just
amazing, and as the sun descends through the thin bands of cloud to
the ocean, the sky and sea burst into a fiery pink that's echoed in the
silhouetted anchorages below. The steel band has been lilting through their
repertoire, and now bursts into a final rolling crescendo before handing the
evening to the resident group. They're the same crowd the girls saw
playing during a night of debauchery in the Mad Mongoose a few evenings
ago; they're not bad, but not a patch on the harsh reggae of earlier years.
Still it's in the fresh air, the view over the now dark and light spangled
roadsteads is magic, the band get heavier and some of the crowd are in a
real party mood - not bad.
Monday morning,and a trip to St Johns becomes due.
The bus trip is a real treat, and not just because it's a fifth of the taxi
price. We board a bus that's initially heading in the wrong direction for
half a mile or so. This is in part so that the driver denies our four fares to
somebody else, but also so that we bag the seats in case it should be
full on the way back. We soon proceed in the right direction for three
miles or so, before the driver's screeching ringtone alerts him to the phone,
there's a short, one sided interchange, and we head half way back again. Here we
pick up a couple of very jolly local ladies with tightly braided hair, who
were late for work and just missed on the initial way past. On its way again,
the bus fills up and for half an hour the driver and a gentleman at the very
back conduct a shouted conversation, mostly in pigeon, occasionally in English,
and underscored with Anglo Saxon. It becomes clear that the topic is
basketball, a sport that's growing hugely here and seems to be supplanting
cricket. Anyway it certainly entertains the customers before somehow turning to
politics. Life becomes very animated, with politicians, and
especialy GWB getting short shrift before one of our braided
ladies smites the driver on the back, and tells him to 'Go wash his mout'
out' then subsiding in a gale of mirth. St Johns doesn't have a huge amount
to commend it on the best of days, so is rather an anticlimax after the trip
in. Back on the boat, we're joined by Tom and Colette and also Alan and
Gillian from Kumari who've just flown back for the first time since leaving the
boat last May. It's a jolly ARC reunion.
We're still anchored off Pigeon each, partly as the
temporary crew's turbulent baptism last week has coloured their view of moving
around, and partly because for the last two days it's blown an
absolute hooley. Outside the harbour, the wind has consistently been
blowing 30 knots, and the sea running at 8-10 feet. This is capped by occasional
showers, when the rain thrashes down for fifteen minutes, and the wind howls
even harder. We're fairly sheltered here, but there's enough of a swell and wind
chop to make boarding the dinghy an exciting, athletic opportunity. Three more
of the rowing boats are due in today. We saw a couple of French guys
landing, and I heard one of them say that today they had experienced
their greatest speed of the trip while surfing down the waves. A little
later, we scrambled out to the point beyond English Harbour and watched a
girls pair fight their way in. Antigua is approached from the east, the harbour
is on the south and there is a risk of being swept past both the finishing
line and harbour by the prevailing easterly wind and current, something that has
happened to competitors in the past. Today the high seas and strong wind were a
real problem, the boat appearing around the headland from the east some
half a mile away, but taking over an hour to negotiate the wind and waves, while
being driven across instead of towards us. Once they finally reached the
shelter they seemed to fly, before climbing very unsteadily ashore to
another emotional set of reunions.
The ladies are off to a 20-20 cricket match this
evening between St Vincent and the Grenadine versus Trinidad and Tobago. It's
called the Stamford competition, Stamford being a wealthy American banker who
has set up financial operations in the country, and has take the game of cricket
to heart, building great facilities out by the airport and running sponsorship
and competitions. This current clash runs through most of Februry and is a
knockout involving all of the islands from Bermuda to Trinidad. It's created
huge local interest, all the games are a sell-out and maybe it will overcome
some of the inertia and cynicism caused by the World Cup last spring.
Unfortunately the unsettled conditions and the presence of other boats
attempting to anchor caused the skipper to bail out and remain on anchor
watch - hence the epistle. However it's clear outside now and half a moon is
beaming down, so maybe time for a small something and a refrain from the
other evening - 'I don't like cricket, . . Oh no,
. . . . I love it!'
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