Oriole with the superyachts.
Oriole
Sun 17 Feb 2008 12:15
Falmouth Harbour Antigua 17:01.00N
61:46.40W
The social scene has been pretty heavy this week
while we have been waiting for our engine bits to arrive. TNT finally
delivered to the door of the engineering shop one day early inspite of the
tracking data insisting the package was still at Heathrow! The Woodvale
Rowing Challenge competitors who have been rowing from the Canaries to Antigua
have been arriving in dribs and drabs for ther last three weeks with still
two more crews to arrive. Crazy idea with the late comers having been at
sea for 60 days - quite a feat - and there has been a lot of wind and big seas
for the last week.
English Harbour.
A few of the boats which have
been rowed across the Atlantic
On Thursday evening we moved to the superyacht dock
for our work to be done. We are definately the smallest yacht here with the next
largest being a mere 50 feet and the largest around 200 feet.
Oriole on the superyacht dock. The
masts behind are at least 3 times higher than Oriole's
Alfa Nero (left) has just the owners
wife on board with 25 crew!
The engineers arrived first thing on Friday morning
and needless to say the job was not straightforward. Without going into
any boring details the radio waves were hot with advice early on Saturday
morning, but when the boss engineer arrived a little later the problem was
quickly resolved with a solution which none of the amateur experts had
suggested!! So now everything is back together again and we should be
ready to leave early this week, but the weather is not going to play ball
so we will have to decide if we want strong winds and big seas
again!
The offending item replaced with
considerable difficulty.
Andrew and Drumbeat returned yesterday afternoon
and we have arranged a Lytle family party (well 3 out of 5) for lunch
today The superyacht crews have been continuing their pranks when the
perpetrator of the marine grafiti (shown last week) returned to Antuigua on
Friday. This is apparently a longstanding
feud between Alfa Nero and Skat, both motor yachts of more than 200 feet.
As Skat was docking on Friday, Alfa Nero's crew were hurling water bombs with a
three man catapult onto the deck of Skat. Previously piglets have been
released on board and grease covered live chickens and grease bombs have also
been thrown between the two rival. We have wondered what the owners think,
but they apparently almost encourage the rivalry providing the mess is cleared
up. Boys will be boys!