17:01.0N 61:46.4W

Mon, Tues, Wed & Thurs – 20^th, 21^st, 22^nd & 23^rd Jan

Firstly we would like to thank all of you who got in touch or who checked the blog when the news broke about the murder of the English yachtsman in St Lucia.  It was a dreadful thing and the couple involved had only just started their adventure having crossed the Atlantic a month before. It was a rude reminder to us all not to take anywhere for granted, but we have been in much more dangerous places ourselves and it seems that they were just very unlucky.  St Lucia is becoming an island of extremes as the authorities make every effort to support and promote the rich tourist areas very much at the expense of the rest of the island where the descending poverty levels breed resentment and envy. There are basic precautions to take and situations to avoid ideally, but familiarity breeds contempt and we only have to look back to our incident in Maple Juice Cove in Maine, USA to remind ourselves that we are all vulnerable if we are not careful or simply unlucky.

The first three days of this week were spent in Jolly Harbour Marina taking advantage of the (expensive) water supply to get a number of cleaning jobs done.

The marina is far from full these days and this may be directly related to the very late running, very loud bar that they have on the quayside!  It seems slightly perverse to try to charge a decent rate for a slip when sleep is quite impossible until the early hours.   There is a new Greek restaurant there replacing the old ‘local’ one and we ate there on Tuesday evening with Paul and Janey from Shian.   The meal was excellent and we would have no difficulty in recommending it and may well return ourselves before we leave Antigua, but the Maître D, who is the son of the owner does not quite seemed to have grasped a few essentials of his trade.  He breezed up whilst we were studying the menus and told us a long and involved tale about their signature dish – ‘The Famous Acropolis Lamb Shank’.  He explained at length that they had found their basic lamb shank a big seller and then others copied it so they had renamed it the Acropolis Lamb Shank and added the term Famous because, well just because! They had then put the price up of course he explained and voila….  He was now feeling good about his selling skills and we were all independently thinking ‘over-hyped and over-priced’.  He now was getting into his stride though and recommended both of the fish dishes before telling us how good and popular the Moussaka was.  His throwaway line at the end was that his own favourite was the meatloaf.  So we were now confused as he had just read out and endorsed most of the menu.  It did not say much for the few dishes he failed to promote and apart from putting us off the top dish had achieved very little.  Am I getting old or something?

Shopping at the supermarket has been interesting too.  Billed as a European style Supermarket, the Epicurean grocery store was a breath of fresh air we felt three years ago when we first arrived out here, but it has recently changed hands we have been told which might explain the quirky re-stocking procedures. This is a good store and well worth the visit even if a tad expensive, but whilst they stock most things that you might want or need, they are unlikely to have it all in at any one time. The policy appears to be to re-stock items that have run out rather than when they are running out, so each day they have a different array of goods and vegetables but never ever everything at once.  So we were able to get all we needed, but had to visit the place each and every day to finally get the full list (except Sarah missed out on the Ben & Jerry’s coffee ice cream as she had decided to save this treat up – and eat it all in one go as our freezer isn’t up to maintaining ice cream –  but left it until it was too late….).

On Thursday we had had enough of being trapped in a marina environment (and if the lady on the karaoke very late last night ever tries to sing publically again I will personally strangle her as a favour to mankind)  and we headed off to sail round to Falmouth Harbour on the south side of the island. This is where all the real super yachts hide out and regardless of how you feel about these multi-million pound extravagancies it is very hard not to be a little bit impressed as you sail in and see them all packed into the two marinas side by side.

Sarah edged us further into the anchorage than we used to go a few years ago (two seasons in the USA makes you a lot more adventurous) and we found ourselves a lovely spot and the anchor set first time.  If there is a downside to this particular location, it is that we seem to be on a direct line between the marinas in Falmouth and the Cat Club Marina on the other side of the bay, so the smart and fast ribs (dinghies)  seem to speed past our stern rather a lot.  I plan to experiment floating some old fishing line downwind behind us to see if we can discourage these noisy pests….