Arrived in Falmouth
Harbour, Antigua
at 1330 on the 21st November. Jonathan will not be surprised to hear
I again had trouble furling the mainsail and eventually pulled in behind a
headland to get a lee and managed to get a reasonable furl. There is definitely
something amiss with the way it has been recut to accommodate the new furling
system, but at this stage I am still not sure what. I will get North Sails to
have a look at it whilst we are here as it will have to be properly sorted
before we head for Europe next year. Another
of those seemingly endless loose ends from the work we had done in Florida. The anchorage
in Falmouth was reasonably crowded and I had to adopt my old single handed
anchoring technique – go upwind – upstream of the desired position
and let the boat drift back to the correct location then let go three times the
water depth even if it means powering out the cable on the gipsy. Then back to
the controls and dig it in with the engines. It certainly makes the adjacent
boats look at you quit hard as they realize there is no one on the helm as you
drift back down on them! Antigua is a great
place to arrive at – as I walked away from the Dinghy to go to customs Mr.
Big who owns the local car hire company came up to me and said simple welcome
back John – still on schedule I see. How he remembered my name is beyond
me as I have only met him a few times. Incidentally and by a pure fluke rather
than design Osprey arrived at 1330 on the 21st having given an ETA
on Departure from Falmouth
last year of 1127 on the 21st. Unfortunately our friendly competitor
Lions Whelp will not be here this year so I wont be getting the free drinks
from them. For Jonathan – Hound from Vinalhaven (hope I spelt that
correctly) is already here having beaten here ETA by two days. Again she has a
female skipper but a different one from last year – I wonder what the
owner has that’s so attractive. Cleared customs by 1500 and they were
their usual cheerful selves, remembering both me and Anita and wanting to know
all the news. The chatting took a lot longer than the clearance! From customs I
went straight over to see Helen Bailey who had a nice outside berth ready for
us and we were alongside, washed and tidy by 1800 by which time I was fading
fast from little sleep over the past 30 hours. Nevertheless I went up to the
Cat Club hotel for a drink and a meal. The only remaining staff member there
from last year was Fiona, the manager. They had apparently had a pretty dire
summer with the hotel being empty most of the time. It looks as though the
global recession has hit home here quite hard. Neville our driver here was down
at the boat at 0700 this morning just say hello and to say he had seen us coming
in from his house yesterday. I plan to stay on this berth through the weekend
and perhaps Monday to service the machinery, dry and fold sails etc. Then I
plan to go out to anchor for while in some clean water so that I can give the
water maker a good run for a few days and then pickle it so it is ready for our
next travels. The blog will become a little irregular from now.