Antigua
MALARKEY
Jo & Trevor Bush
Sun 15 Apr 2007 22:21
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Antigua turned out to be quite a surprise.
Falmouth & English Harbour are the bases for
the Classic and Antigua Race Week and are generally thought of as being the
Mecca for Yatching in the Caribbean. The harbours are right next to each other
and only separated by a narrow strip of land. Once ashore you can easily walk
from one to the other. Falmouth is a huge natural harbour and has two marinas
that can accommodate alot of very big yachts. English harbour is smaller,
almost 'Wooten Creek' like and is infamous for being Nelsons hideaway. We
could see the attraction for the mega yachts 'cos it is the only yachting
center we have come across so far that can cater for them but other than
that we couldnt see many other redeeming features. In fact the whole
place was pretty disappointing, no decent chandlery, a sad excuse for
a supermarket but all was not completely lost, there were a couple of good bars.
I guess it may have been that we were expecting too much or the fact that
it was raining most of the time we were there that put a
downer on the place. The only bright spell was seeing Ross & Sue, our
Aussie pals, for a couple of days, before they start heading west for home.
Having a gander at the mega yachts was good too.
  The maga sailing yacht is the Maltese Falcon. Other
than it being absolutely huge (note the 45 ft catarmaran just
beyond it), it is rigged in an unusual way for a modern day yacht. The
sails unfurl from the cross spars and are controlled electronically from the
bridge. It would seem that the days of sailors on square riggers climbing the
rigging under the threat of the cat-o-ninetails are long gone. It would be
interesting to know what they would do if they needed to reef and the boat
suffered a catostrophic power failure!
The large motor yacht is the Grand Blue. Hear say
has it that it belonged to that Branovitch guy, you know that stinking rich
Rusky that owns Chelsea FC. If you look at the picture you can see that it has a
60 ft sports motor yacht on its aft deck and a helicopter behind &
above it on its helipad. You may also think that there is a big sailing
yacht with its mast showing just along side it, but you would be wrong. That
70ft sailing yacht is also on the aft deck and adds to the boys toys on offer by
this monstrous extravaganza. Not that I am jealous..... the bastard!! Any
way, as the story goes, he gave it all away just recently to a pal of his. To be
able to afford to buy it would be pretty cool, to be able to simply give it
away, suggests obscene wealth. Ho hum, cant complain.
So filled with envy and dissappointment, we moved
round to Jolly Harbour. Now I dont know whether it was cos of the sun had got
his hat on again but Jolly, was as its name suggests, was much nicer. We
anchored outside the harbour with perfect shelter just off a lovely sandy beach
and took the dingy into the harbour. What a contrast. There were lots of bars
and restaurants, a night club, casino and a swimming pool all housed in a swanky
marina complex. If there was room and enough depth of water, I am sure all the
mega yachts would be there instead. The supermarket was the best yet, stocking
all the best loved goodies like cheddar cheese and Branston pickle and just
about everything else. Needless to say we made the most of everything. I watched
the cricket on a big screen TV in one of the sports bars while using free WiFi
and Joanne got in some retail therapy. We also got to see England bat against
Sri Lanka live at the stadium. There was an announcement on the radio saying
that tickets were being given away free at the box office. Jo & I did the
Billy big steps thing and yomped tout suit to the stadium where we did indeed
get two $75 tickets free. It was a very exciting and close match with England
just loosing by 2 runs. Even Jo enjoyed it!
From Jolly we moved on to North Sound via a dive on
a wreck in Deep Bay. At first glance this looks like a no go area. There are
that many reefs shown on the chart it looked as though someone had taken a hand
full of poridge and slung it at the chart and just drew round the numerous
blobs. But the pilot book said it was possible and not to be missed. They were
right on both counts. You had to watch the pilotage very closely and some of the
passes were a bit narrow and it definately should not be tempted
in anything other than bright sunlight so that you can see the reefs. But it was
very do-able and the passes were no shallower than 4m. The area is huge and
totally protected from the Atlantic swell. It reminded me of Poole Harbour, same
sort of size & shape, but no tide, no marinas, no boats, just mostly
uninhabited islands to anchor behind. It was very nice there and the snorkelling
was the best since Tobago Cays. The coral was alive, the fish abundant and the
visibilty excellent. We stayed there for the best part of a week and only saw
about 10 boats during our stay. It was nice to just toodle from one little
anchorage to another and do some proper relaxing cruising with out having
to be arsed with checking in or out and filling in those poxy Customs
& Immigration forms everytime you leave or enter a new
country.
  One of the islands, Jumby Island, is a privately
owned development aimed at the rich and famous. We figured that we might be
famous one day so we went to have a look. We got as far as the landing dock
before we were leapt on by the Gestapo. We were told that it was an all
inclusive resort and would not be able to cater for the likes of
us. Next time I will remember to put on my
Armani suit before I get in the dinghy to get ashore.... my 'stoned again in
Ireland' tee shirt and scruffy shorts didnt quite make the grade but we did
manage to talk them into letting us have a drink at one of the bars. What a
swanky resort. Everything was there and you had your own private golf buggy to
take you from A to B so that you didnt tire your rich & famous legs.
The barman at the our bar was great. I think he took pity on us and gave us
free drinks, which kind of evened things up a bit cos the drink bill for the two
drinks we actually ordered was not cheap to say the least and clearly designed
to discourage us from coming again. It worked.... beause the following day we
moved off heading back to Falmouth Harbour ready for the Classic
Rally.
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