17:03.97N 61:53.03W

Tuesday & Wednesday – 6^th, 7^th & 8^th Feb

Tuesday morning Salperton raised her anchor (yup we watch their every move) motored to the turn of the red buoys and then very gracefully sailed out under full sail – quite a sight.   The owner was still on his phone throughout.

We, however, launched the dinghy and went into town.  We moored the dinghy in the marina dinghy park despite the private moorings signs which have gone up this year.   Rob has a theory that these have been erected to ward off the liveaboards who have notoriously tatty dinghies which get left for a whole day while their owners go to work.   We are supposed to go on the possibly less secure public quay.   We then found that all the rubbish disposal facilities have been removed and we had to take ours to English Harbour’s dump.   We have subsequently discovered that rubbish can be got rid of between 0700–0900 and 1500-1700 directly into a garbage truck behind the petrol station.   We are definitely getting the feeling that smaller yachts are less welcome here.

The general opinion is that there are very much fewer charters of the superyachts occurring this season hence all the quay space is taken and double parked at that.  In English Harbour, where we had easily been able to back up to the quay last year, it is now completely taken over by the overspill of superyachts who have been unable to make the grade in Falmouth!   Consequently the anchoring area has been greatly reduced to allow for manoeuvring these huge boats.

We had a general mooch around and Rob visited the Signal Locker where Cap is based who is coming to have a look at our malfunctioning SSB radio.   We then squeezed into Antigua Yacht Club for a very leisurely lunch.   After lunch we dinghied over to the other side of the bay to visit Antigua Rigging who is dealing with the Seldon recall on our mast fittings.    It seems to help if you show your face out here, and they appreciate that we care and are interested.   The upshot is that it would be helpful if we got some closer photos of the tangs and surrounding fittings, so I need to go up the mast soon to take these shots.  

After a quick visit to Baileys, the nearby supermarket, which was surprisingly good and with better looking vegetables and fruit than the very over-refrigerated stuff at the Epicurean in Jolly, we went back to Serafina.   To discover that Salperton had returned and appeared to have dropped her anchor pretty well on top of Serafina (see photos!).   Sadly, it seems that the grand gesture of sailing out of the harbour had cost them a foresail as this had been removed and there was quite a bit of action up and down their mast.   She does seem to be an unlucky boat.

Rob was delighted to watch some very competitive Laser racing going on around us all evening.   He reckoned that there were some boats that were privately owned and some from the yacht club judging by how careful, or not, their sailors were!   Lots of capsizing and chat made it an entertaining spectacle.   Even Salperton’s owner relinquished his phone for a short time to watch!

On Wednesday morning we set off back to Jolly Harbour under just a foresail and motor.   We had decided we would go into the marina to allow Rob to catch up with work before the Curtii arrive on Saturday.   Once we had berthed with the accompanying rigmarole and had helped Halsway Grace into their berth, Rob winched me up the mast to take the photos and then up the backstay to have a look at our SSB aerial connection which looked decidedly dicey.   We think we should re-do the whole thing by cutting off the grotty bit and moving the cable up from the bottom to re-connect, hopefully this will all help in the black magic art of SSB Radio.

We then took off the bimini cover, unfortunately whacking Rob on the head in the process with one of the supports which we always forget drops down suddenly when released, so that I could give the stainless steel a clean.   I then also cleaned our rather grubby cockpit.   Anyone who knows me will be astonished to hear that I rarely wash down Serafina out here as the rain is more than sufficient most of the time, but the cockpit is nicely protected by said bimini  and so it doesn’t get the benefit of a good downpour, and since we are rarely in a marina or quay situation, doesn’t get a good hosing either.

After that Robin and Sue came for a drink to discuss their trip to Barbuda and our visit to Nonesuch Bay and the changes that have occurred there – buoys have been put in now apparently.

The next few days involve shifting stuff around in the boat to shoehorn in our guests (Tim, Pips and laura Curtis) and getting the boat stocked up with food and drink.   We are off to the veg market in St Johns by bus tomorrow morning in the hope of getting better fresh produce than that in this supermarket which has a tendency to go off almost instantly.  It is remarkable how different the food situation is between islands:  the French islands are great in all aspects and in Dominica they grow all their own fruit and veg, and are astonished that one bread fruit could cost EC$12 (£3) here when they are free there. I met a girl here yesterday from Dominica and she was stunned on moving to Antigua to work, to discover that you actually have to buy fruit here.