Visitors from HELL!

Oriole
Sun 23 Feb 2014 18:21
Falmouth Harbour, Antigua                                             Sunday 23rd February                            17:01.11N   61:46.26W   
 
We have now been sitting quietly at anchor in our favoured spot in Falmouth Harbour for a month. Nobody comes to bug us - not even the mosquitoes.  The anchor chain is growing hair almost as long as the skipper's who gets a haircut on Tuesday.The chain will have to be scrubbed before it comes into the chain locker and stinks out the boat.  The propellor which alway gets fouled when we are in any one place for a while was cleaned as a great and very economic favour by the diver who normally deals only with the superyachts.  All this is in preparation for our departure from Antigua this week.  About time too some of you might say!
 
 
Somewhere underneath this growth is some chain, and John scrubbeed it clean 10 days ago.
 
However the main reason for staying so long was the problem with John's eye.  We went back to see the excellent ophthalmologist, Dr Ian Walwyn, on Tuesday and he pronounced the eye to be "very quiet" and the patient can now see again.  So the treatment is being slowly tailed off, but there will be no contact lenses for a few weeks which is a bore for one who has grown used to not wearing glasses - not that the problem is related to contact lenses. 
On Thursday we celebrated a birthday with the crew of Eowyn at our favourite Rum Baba, where for supper you need to book up at least a week in advance if not longer.  Sadly for them they got back to Eowyn to find a steady large electrical discharge from their batteries which would have flattened them in 24 hours.  They spent many hours in vain during the night trying to locate it. They left early next morning for Jolly Harbour where their favoured expert diagnosed the problem, where Graham who is by no means electrically incompetent had drawn a blank. 
 
 
Graham did not look quite so perky after his electical night in!
 
The visitors from HELL were Mike and Annie who are having a week's break from the HELL of the English Winter.  It was really lovely to see them!  Another meal at Rum Baba was followed by a conducted tour of the superyacht docks, Nelson's Dockyard, tea on Oriole and beers at Skullduggery before they piled back into their taxi to return to their luxury resort.
 
 
We hope Mike and Annie will not retrun to the HELL of an English Spring.
 
Saturday of course was 6 Nations Rugby which we managed to watch live with a very vocal crowd at Temo Sports - and what a fantastic match between England and Ireland.  It could have gone either way and there were only 3 points in favour of England at the final whistle for those who did not know.   
We are beginning to forget what it is like to go to sea, but no doubt we will remember pretty quickly!