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Date: 08 Nov 2011 21:41:00
Title: Back in Antigua!!
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Here we are back in sunny Antigua where the weather is hot, and the beer ice cold - lovely!


We arrived back on Tuesday to find Seaduced, and the 2 other Discovery yachts all docked together in Catamaran Marina.  This week has been quite hard - we have been working full time to get the boat ship shape again.  It is quite strange moving onto Antigua time - everyone here gets up about 6am and goes to bed exhausted about 9pm if you are having a late night!  At the moment the marina where we are is quiet and getting the last few jobs done has not been too much of a problem so we are lucky, once the season starts properly a simple job can take a week at least.  As we have worked our way round the boat there seems at times to have been an ever increasing list of jobs to be done - each job you start seems to lead to at least another 3, but by Sunday we decided enough was enough and we headed to English Harbour, and our favourite eating place on the island, Catherine's Cafe. The food is French and fabulous and they sell Bollinger by the glass - how bad can that be?  

 Catherine's Cafe - English Harbour

 Nelson's Dockyard - English Harbour

 Nelson's Dockyard - English Harbour

Despite the work we have had a lot of fun this week, we have spent time with the two other Discovery skippers, Glenn from Sylvia, and Karli, from Saxon Blue, we have looked into all the nooks and crannies of each boat and pinched ideas and swapped tips, which is incredibly useful, there aren't that many Discovery yachts around so having 3 here is great.  
We are now waiting for the last of our jobs which is a test sail as we have had some work done on the rigging over the summer.  The idea is to go sailing with the guys who did the rigging so they can check the tension, however the wind is refusing to play ball, we have been waiting since Friday to go out and rumour has it that it won't be today either -  as I am writing this at 9am we have about 3knots of wind!!
Test sail or not, this will hopefully be our last night in the marina and later today we will head out to the Anchorage across the bay in Falmouth Harbour.  There have been a few problems with flies this week and the biters are out in force each evening - woe betide anyone who leaves the boat without a good dosing of 'Off" the local mossie spray.  Poor John has been suffering from 'cankles' since Thursday as a result of bites (for those of you who don't read Closer magazine a 'cankle' is when there is no shape change as the calf runs down into the foot).  I haven't added a photo as John's feet really are not particularly photogenic thanks to a football game over summer during which he managed to loose 3 toe nails which are currently in various states of re-growth.
Once we have completed the test sail and the rig is tuned to everyone's satisfaction we will leave and head south to Guadeloupe, a french owned island, and from there to The Saints, a small group of islands to the south of Guadeloupe - the current TV programme Death in Paradise is filmed there, and everyone we speak to says it is absolutely gorgeous.  The best thing however with the French islands is the easy access to french cheese, wine, baguettes, not to mention decent boiled ham which you can't buy anywhere else.

Part 2 - test sail done and in the marina for another night!! We found 2 or 3 very small issues with the sails which can't be dealt with until tomorrow, and to add to that the washing machine has thrown a hissy fit and needs some attention, again another job for tomorrow morning.  Best laid plans......
Anyway, plans on hold for 24 hours - watch this space, Guadeloupe here we come - eventually!!! 
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