Falmouth Harbour, Antigua - (Again)

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Sun 19 Feb 2012 01:35

17:00.93N 61:46.48W

Friday & Saturday, 17th & 18th Feb

After a fairly reasonable night at anchor in Deep Bay – we had managed to creep all the way in and were sat right by the beach to avoid the swell making its way around the north of Antigua – and a leisurely breakfast, we set off back to Jolly Harbour Marina.   Yet more motoring and this time so little wind that we didn’t even bother with any sails.

Very sadly it was then that awful stage of packing and fiddling around until it was time for our wonderful guests, Tim, Pips and Laura to set off to the airport.   In fact we spotted their plane flying in on time which was reassuring!   We hope they enjoyed their trip (despite the lack of dolphins, whales and fish caught….) as much as we enjoyed their company.

After the Curtii departure, we got busy with cleaning, laundry and taking off the foresails ready for the riggers on Monday to replace the faulty tangs.   Following a night of loud and pretty dreadful steel band music (and the Lady Gaga disco in between) – the band obviously had one member who felt he was good at improvising off the tune, but he patently wasn’t – we got up early to complete our jobs list before kicking out time of 1200hrs from the marina.

Rob winched me up the backstay to remove, clean and reattach the SSB aerial.   This took about an hour and a half aloft by which time one ankle had nicely inflated and I was my usual grumpy, ex-rigger self!   We don’t know if this has had the desired effect on the SSB until we test it tomorrow.   After a quick deck wash and tidy up below we managed to be ready to leave before the deadline and pottered out into an anticipated gentle breeze.

We had decided to go round to Falmouth for the rigging job today as it was supposed to be  quiet weather-wise, as Rob was worried about damaging the Furlexs in the swell whilst we don’t have any sails on them.   In the event we got 24 knots from the south east, so put up the main and both runners on, to steady us as we motor-sailed into the wind.

As we neared Falmouth it became apparent that lots of the yachts racing in the RORC Caribbean 600 race which sets off on Monday, were out practising and there were some amazing sights.   Once we turned into the harbour it was obvious that there has been quite a changeover in the yachts on the marina pontoons:  the very large charter yachts seem to have left allowing the yachts that are taking part in the racing to have their places.   And quite a few of the huge motor vessels have also left or are having to anchor out in the bay.

We were just one of an afternoon flow of yachts trying to find a place to anchor in a much more crowded bay, but having been here quite a few times recently we knew where we could find enough depth so zipped past the dithering catamarans and several yachts failing to pick up buoys and managed to anchor first time again (Falmouth is known for poor holding).   We also met the turtle again that the Curti had spotted in this unlikely environment.

The rest of the day was spent watching the world go by – and there was a lot to see!