Back to Antigua
Kaimin
John & Pam Clarke
Tue 27 Jan 2015 19:03
The trip back to Antigua was horrible with confused seas, winds of force 5 on the nose. Several yachts that left at the same time as us turned around and went back but we battled on, we had new sails waiting for us!. However, we were very pleased to get into the shelter of English Harbour about 6pm drop anchor, have something to eat and collapse in bed.
The next morning we moved to Nelsons dockyard, berthed up, I did the usual immigrations, customs, port authorities and paid for 5 nights berth. When I got back to the boat, the guys tell me that we don’t have an electric plug that fits the supply and the marine office doesn’t have any to hire and the chandlers got every type of plug but the one in use in the marina. This means we will have to run the generator every day, not a problem, but what have I just paid marine fees for. We then try to fill our water tanks, the water is a trickle, not acceptable at all and will probable take a day to fill our tank, the marina just doesn’t seem to be very well organised at all, but we’re in the historic dock yard and have a number of things we want to get done on Kaimin - just chill!
The next day John and I take a walk to find the sail loft where our new sails are waiting for us. We easily find the loft and are shown guys at work, cutting and sewing sails, we arrange for our sails to be delivered and fitted in the morning. When we get back Denz has been on the case of finding an electric plug, a boat next but one to us is leaving in them morning and he’s arranged for the skipper to give us a knock when he’s taking the plug back to the marine office so that we can make sure we have it next.
In the morning Denz goes to the marine office chasing the plug, to be told it’s been promised to someone else - he’s now like a dog with a bone, determined to get plug from somewhere. A guy in a leather hat passes by our boat and asks if we need any leather work doing, John decides to have the steering wheel covered, the guys name is Davey Thomas ‘king of the wild frontiere’ he takes the old leather off and agrees to come back the next day. Andrew Dove, the sail man arrives and its all hands on deck taking down the old sails and putting the new ones on. They are absolutely fabulous and the guys are really excited about trying them out.
We also found someone at last that understands what the problem is with our stop/start engine button that’s not been working properly since Sardinia, and has had about four mechanics pretend to fix it. Denz ‘dog with bone’ has been visiting the marina office nearly every hour for a plug and eventually he wears them down and they find one for us. Life’s good, as the guys describe it we have sexy new sails, sexy leather wheel, the engine starts and stops first push and we have electric, and sunshine what more could anyone want?
Nelsons dockyard was built in 1745 and used for about 150 years, after which the Georgian building fell into disrepair. Restoration work started in 1950 and now most of the brick and stone buildings are being reused. The lovely small bakery, from where we fetched fresh bread and pies most days used to be the officers kitchen and still has the old stone hearth. The hotel used to be sailors quarters, the sail loft is once again a sail loft and the carpenters shed once again has carpenters at work, there’s also numerous bars and restaurants and some touristy trinket shops but no supermarket. Virtually every berth is taken and with other boats anchored off its a busy place for yachts. The old cobbled walk ways are still in existence but are now bordered with palms and spot lights, so off course it attracts a lot of day trippers.
One evening whilst in Nelsons Dockyard we invite Lynne and Alan off Jenny on board for sun downers. Unfortunately their rigging has been damaged and they have had to delay their cruising whilst it is replaced. We spend a pleasant evening together going ashore for a special fish supper, which was very good.
On the Sunday evening we do what all tourists have to do once; visit Shirley heights, you can walk up but we’d been told it is a very steep mile up, scrambling over rocks on all fours, so we chickened out and took the taxi. The views were spectacular with all the boats at anchor in English and Falmouth Harbours. An excellent steel band played the night away, there was couple of bars and the usual BBQ in oil drums. Guys were selling Maracas and it seemed that most of the crowd had purchased them, shaking them in time to the music. It was a fun evening and we drank and danced the night away.
On Tuesday 13th January we decided to leave Nelsons Dock Yard and call at Jolly Harbour to do a big supermarket shop before sailing on to Barbuda. We left about 11.00 am fuelled up and by 1pm we had our new sails up and were on our way to Jolly Harbour, fantastic!