17:00.52N 61:45.89W

Nelson’s Dockyard, English Harbour, Antigua

Please see http://picasaweb.google.com/neroli.of.fowey for another set of pictures. These will be the last (aside from a few small ones in the blog) until we reach the Azores. When we’re at sea the blog will be uploaded over a satellite phone link with very limited bandwidth.

The trip through the Riviere Salee (a short cut through the centre of Guadeloupe, avoiding a long sail around the island) went very well if you don’t count the grounding as we looked for an anchorage in two meters of water the night before. This was quickly resolved by wash from one of the procession of muscle boats hurtling past on their way to the marina.

We were up at 4:00am and the passage was interesting and without incident. We breakfasted after the bridges, and then again (more seriously) when we reached the open sea.

We enjoyed ideal sailing to Antigua, tying up at Nelson's Dockyard in English Harbour – developed in Nelson’s day and with most of the original buildings intact.

We were warmly greeted by Allan Collison, our fourth crew member. The injured back that caused him to stay in Antigua rather than meeting us in St Lucia has healed. Allan declared himself available for light duties during daylight hours.

So we’re now set for departure on Wednesday morning and any items still on our many checklists will be dealt with at sea. We hasten to emphasise that the departure date is only slightly connected with the Royal Navy Tot Club, a group of ex Naval Officers who continue nightly the tradition (ended in 1970) under which every person in the Royal Navy received half a gill (one eighth of a pint) of rum. Allan is a member of this exclusive group and was kind enough to invite Neroli’s crew to the Monday evening meeting. Suffice it to say that the most was made of this last opportunity to enjoy refreshment without worrying about the impact on our vessel’s performance.

We spent most of Tuesday working on safety and emergency procedures and we’ll depart tomorrow morning. All are very excited and ready to go.