The weather in Antigua is now great with sensible winds and mostly reasonable temperatures. The sunrises are stunning and I have got into the habit of rising with the sun which will no doubt annoy Anita when she gets here. Another amazing chance encounter on the quay with non other than Jeremy Jackman who used to be our Sales Manager at Catalac. He is now running a charter company based in the UK but operating in the Caribbean. He is coming over from Montserrat on Monday and we will have dinner together. Thought I had finished with the smoke damage until I took the fly wires of the scuttles – they were a mess and took half a day to clean up and service the scuttles as well. I managed to loose one of the wires into the water doing all this but hopefully the diver will find it on Tuesday. Have fitted the new rubber seals to one scuttle as a test and although an absolute pain the fit seems to be working. The rubber may be slightly over size as I think a smaller size would be easier to fit and once compressed by the dogs would still do the job. I also got into the stern seal and saddle bearing yesterday and all are in good order and the new grease fitting seems solid. Fortunately I did check as the new fitting had not been filled with grease and the varnish team had dropped a load of cleaning cloth and sandings in the bilge which would have blocked the bilge suctions. Willy would have chuckled as when I refilled the grease gun I forgot I had an American one and opened the wrong end – springs, grease and bits everywhere!  Courtesy of our refit in Portland I have a long set of tongs similar to that used by rubbish collectors which makes retrieving things from the bilge simple. Had an email from Gareth this morning to say they had arrived in Sydney and William had been good on the flight having slept the whole way apart from feeds. He’s obviously not a Bowering as they are never that well behaved. Have not been able to find any charts of the northern island here and would like some general ones as back up even though we have a full set of electronic charts on board. Will see if Geoff can bring some for the latter section and try and pick up the others in St Martin on the way through. Race week finishes here this weekend with the usual parties.