Friday 16th December
Nowcrew
Sat 17 Dec 2005 18:45
English
Harbour - Antigua
We Left Des Haises
at dawn and set off on a 40 mile sail to Antigua. The wind was on the nose of
the boat so we crashed through the waves and had a lot of spray over the decks
and into the cockpit. We made good time sailing at about 8 knots and we soon had
Antigua in sight. The only event of the crossing was a pan pan alarm call over
the radio to say that a fisherman had injured himself about 30 miles south of
us. This was too far for us to do anything so we carried on into English
Harbour.
We pulled up on the
quay side in English Harbour at mid day and were soon setting about sorting and
cleaning the boat. The longest task of the afternoon was trying to hook up to
the power supply. first we had to rent a local plug for the marina sockets and
then had lengthy problems with the power tripping out all the time. Ron, Ian and
Nico persevered to trace the problem and ended up spending 3 hours sorting it
out! Not what we had planned for Friday afternoon.
Tom Jnr. disappeared
to find a friend who lived close by and we found someone to take the laundry and
clean the salt off the boat. The skipper wanted it looking in top form for when
the girls arrived the next day.
We bumped into
several other crews who had been in the ARC during the afternoon and Shalan
pulled in 3 boats down from us. Before we knew it the annoying voice of the
owner was barking at the back of the boat, "Is Simon still with you?". We all
ran for cover to avoid him as the last thing we wanted was another conversation
about the motoring hours in the Atlantic crossing! (He had annoyed us a lot in
St Lucia)
Late afternoon was
spent exploring the harbour which is a wonderful place. It has a long history
and is best known as Nelsons home when he was in the Caribbean. The harbour is
in a fortified inlet and is known in the region as the most secure place to
leave a boat in hurricane season. A lot of the original buildings from that time
still exist and have been very well restored.
The evening was
spend with Ron taking us on a tour of some of his favourite watering holes and
we dined at a great local restaurant called Trapars. Nothing salubrious but
great food. Surprisingly we ended up sitting next to the crew from a boat we met
the previous night in Des Haises. As we chatted again one of the guys introduced
himself to Andy as Simon King "King of Shaves". Great product said Andy I use it
all the time!! ( White lie.... but touting for business as they are big
advertisers!)
We had a night cap
at the HQ restaurant next to the boat and booked a table for the following
evening when the families arrived. There will be 12 of us as of tomorrow! A full
boat I think.
Nowcrew
out.