A Merry Christmas to all our readers
Stream
Darrell Jackson and Sarah Barnes
Wed 25 Dec 2013 16:29
Our sail down from Jolly Harbour was uneventful under a full genoa with 6 knots for the southern leg and then some hard motoring into big seas to English Harbour for the easterly leg of the journey. 2 large sailing cruise liners were anchored off Falmouth harbour, The Wind Surf and Sea Cloud, the former looking like a normal cruise liner with 6 large masts, but the later much more like a true sailing ship.
We arrived in the harbour just as a huge black cloud also arrived and the Dockmaster requested that we waited for 10 minutes for the rain to stop. Once the initial rain had finished we called again and he told us where to moor , but the rain started again. This resulted in us motoring around for over half an hour in rain of monsoon proportions and the skipper becoming absolutely soaked whilst the crew sheltered under the spray hood or busied themselves with "domestic duties" below decks. It seems that whenever Sarah arrives somewhere she has to circle around and then arrive in pouring rain. Apparently the Dockmaster does not like to go out in the rain in case he " gets a fever"! We did have the last laugh though as one of his "helpers" managed to land face down in a large puddle when he attempted to catch a line that was slightly short of target. (Not on purpose of course)
We had a domestic bliss morning. Laundry, shopping for Christmas (including a lovely Caribbean angel for the top of Adam's Christmas tree next year) and then a coffe/tea at the local cafe so we could access their wifi.
Afternoon was spent on a futile attempt to scale Shirley Heights from Freeman's Bay following instructions given by a Canadian on a catamaran in Jolly Harbour. Either his memory was failing or he failed his communication badge in cubs because his instructions did not match with reality. We did have a good walk though to stretch those sailing legs, even though Roxie's bar was shut on our way back (at 16.50) and so we had to make do with our "local" the GalleyBar for a sundowner.
Our last night in English Harbour was celebrated by trying to put some money into the local economy and eating at Taste of Caribbean where the food was truly local and a reasonable price, though the Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon was a tad over priced.
Sarah is gradually building up her Caribbean wardrobe and is hoping Father Christmas may help in that process!
Interesting to find that Antiguans have ham and turkey for Christmas, same as us, and the Sally Army plays and sings our traditional carols in approximately similar manner. But with no chimneys, how does Santa manage?
Tomorrow (Tues) we depart for Nevis, with a reasonable forecast for the 60nm passage, so hopefully we will be spending our Christmas moored off Charlestown and probably with no wifi. We will be thinking of you all in, from what we have heard, will be very different weather conditions than what we are in! We were hoping to spend Christmas in Barbuda or Montserrat, but weather conditions are not favourable for these anchorages and so they will have to wait for later.
We would like to wish all our friends and anyone who reads our web diary a very Merry Christmas and we will update this as soon as we can with news of how we spent our Christmas (no turkey and no ham!)
With love
Adam, Sarah and Darrell
Sent from my iPad