30 March - We waved goodbye to Pat yesterday, hope you got back safely.

We have been chilling out. We mean it too. We were positively cold in the deluge yesterday. Reduced to watching the footie on telly with a beer or two. Anyway today 31 March, we are off to explore St John’s whilst we top up RT’s batteries stern to.

 

Pillars of Old Sail Loft, and Pat

 

English Harbour

 

Inner Harbour

 

Stern To Recharging Our Batteries

Going to St John’s on a Sunday and an Easter Sunday if that made any difference wasn’t our best move. The place was so dead there wasn’t a single shop open. I guess we could have gone to church but I’m afraid both Norm and myself aren’t of the persuasion. Anyway we had a look at the architecture, some nice old buildings. Unfortunately the St John’s Cathedral is derelict and no access. There is a restoration project supposedly but no work has started that we could see. One good thing about Sunday in Antigua is the Shirley Heights bash. Shirley Heights which includes the remains of an 18th century fort towers over English Harbour and hosts a massive noisy BBQ every Sunday evening. Norm and I headed off early to see the sunset and have our ears assailed by the warm up act, a fantastic rhythmic steel band followed by Mr Party who got the whole place having a ball. Norm’s not really my type for dancing the night away so it was a bit a wasted on us and we slung off to the sailors bar in English Harbour after a few hours to round off the night.

RT’s batteries are still a problem, the charge rate is not coming down and they are very hot and smelly. It appears that one of the four is finished so we are down to two batteries on our 24V system until I can get a replacement.

 

St John’s Architecture

 

St John’s Cathedral

 

Father of the Nation, Antigua and Barbuda St John’s

 

Shirley Heights Steel Band

 

The Shirley Heights BBQ

 

English Harbour with Falmouth in background taken from Shirley Heights

Must think what to do next. The likely plans at the moment are to head off in the direction of Montserrat, have a look at how it is redeveloping after the eruption back in 1995. Then northwards through St Kitts and Nevis and onwards to the Virgin Isles and Puerto Rico via St Martin and Anguilla.