Antigua by car
Stream
Darrell Jackson and Sarah Barnes
Fri 20 Dec 2013 00:52
While Darrell busied himself with jobs around the boat, the three others headed out of Nelson's dockyard in easy reach of car hire which we found at Lion hire nearby. I had my licence and enough cash for the task but was told I needed a temporary driving licence from the police station next door. 20 mins later I emerged struggling to contain myself from the experience inside with four jolly cops exchanging banter with each other, not a word of which could I understand, and voluminous paperwork needed to get me going. We then set off in search of the propane gas cylinder filling plant on the edge of the capital, St. John's. Quent's navigation was superb given the dearth of road sign and street names. Our problem was that we have Calor and camping gaz cylinders but the local stuff is different. The equipment was out of order for at least two days, so we headed off to the airport to check tickets for Quent and Peter's return, but the BA terminal was shut, so we headed off for a beer by Jabberwock bay until it opened at 2. Soon, Students from the nearby American university of Antigua started arriving by car to celebrate the end of semester exams in medical school. The were all Indian /Asians. We can only speculate how that comes about.
At the airport one is greeted by, relics of the Stanford pyramid financial scam: the 'trust' fund buildings and the 20:20 cricket ground, then by major construction works of the chinese funded new terminal, with Chinese workers beavering away.
Thereafter we visited Halfmoon Bay for a dip in beautifully warm water and a drive through scrub land once famed for sugar plantations. Now there is none. Returning to Falmouth and the Antiguan yacht club we were impressed or disgusted (depending on one's perspectives) to see the superyachts and their cloned crews. Interesting to note from some jobseeker ads that absence of tatoos may be seen as an asset! Strange, that with the setting sun, I could see Sunderland beating Chelsea, live on the bar's tv.
(Adam now handing over to Darrell)
Thanks Adam. I now find after well over three weeks with them, both Quent and Peter want nothing to do with this web diary so please accept our apologies and anything written by Adam and myself has nothing to do with Q and P! No wonder they didn't want to write anything!
Before we left the safety of Nelson's Dockyard we had one final job to try and get done, namely the re-leading of the spinnaker halyard. Those keen followers of our diary will remember the halyard chaffed through mid Atlantic and was given a temporary lead externally on the mast so we could use it for a spinnaker pole up haul when flying twin headsails.
A further trip up aloft required the dropping of a fine "mousing line" over the mast head sheave, down through the mast, and then the difficult bit, retrieving this line out of the hole the halyard exits from some 4 or 5meters above deck level. Needless to say this was accomplished by the team in a smooth manner with absolutely no swearing or shouting and a final round of applause from the watching American tourists sitting outside the Galley Bar during a break in their Dockyard tour. So we're now ready to use the Purple Peril again (sorry Sarah!)
After the Halyard re-lead, we departed for the fuel berth and, on arriving at 11.50 were told it was lunchtime and we would have to wait until 13.00! This is the Caribbean of course and we are gradually adapting to this way of life, so went for a drink in the adjoining bar. A short sail around the west of Antigua over shallow waters took us to Deep Bay for our overnight anchorage. Here Adam, Peter and Darrell swam ashore ( much further than it looked) for a look around. There was nothing but a deserted beach - the hotel seemed deserted or not open yet and the only thing worthy of note was the large cruise liners leaving St Johns that we could see beyond the end of the beach.
The departure this morning was enlivened by our first catch of the trip, a large rope hauser brought up with the anchor. We finally freed the offending line and had another good sail around the north of the island to the Jumby Bay anchorage on Long Island. This is an exclusive resort and we were "allowed" to walk along the beach, but nowhere above the high water mark. Not very welcoming and all we wanted was to buy a beer! We had a short attempt to get to Bird Island but the skipper bottled out as the navigation is not easy in the shallow water between the coral heads and the light and waves made things even worse. He does not want to break the yacht before Sarah arrives in a couple of days! We may have another attempt in the morning if light and wave conditions are better.
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