We arrived back OK and cleared our 5 bags (£90 extra on BA) through Customs and Immigration and took a taxi down to the marina at Jolly Harbour. Suzie Too looked good but had a fine layer of dust inside and out, so we had a couple of girls give her a spit and polish inside and had the topsides and the hull polished, then finally had a diver down to scrub her bottom clean, so that we were all ready for our next cruising destinations.

 

We picked up a rental on Tuesday and collected the sails from Antigua Sails the local North Sails Agent – Ouch USD$3,106 for new UV strips – seems bloody expensive!! Then in the evening we drove down again to Falmouth to meet John & Jane from Seaduced (Discovery 55) for a meal at Hamilton's in Nelsons Dockyard – very pleasant – a nice grown up place - and we got to hear the results of the Antigua Classics Week racing at the presentations below us, which one of our friends, Aurelis (we had 2 weeks with them in Mamaroneck shipyard), came second in class.

 

Then on Thursday our friends Andrew and Celia, with the Moody 54 Alice, were on holiday on the island, while their yacht is skippered back to the UK for sale (because of Andrew’s heart scare), and we had lunch with them at Castaways on the beach at Jolly Harbour.

 

In the meantime we have had to fix a shower pump – and we feel sorry for ourselves thinking, “Not fixing the boat again” !! – but then see what some of our friends have had to put up with !!

 

African Seawing – robbed while anchored in Colon, Panama – also posted on www.noonsite.com/Members/sue/R2012-04-03-1 – as a sanitised version, it doesn’t explain how terrified he was when they put cable ties around his hands and feet and he thought they would throw him overboard

 

Joalea – A brand new Hyalas 54 – a new Yanmar engine, after a trip from Fort Lauderdale to the Caribbean and poor Margaret hiding in her cabin while they cut the wood panelling away to remove the “old” engine, with less than 200 hours which was smoking badly and despite lots of investigation could not be repaired

 

African Seawing (Again) – Dis-masted off Florida, after giving up on his Pacific trip because of the robbery, poor old Frank, such a nice guy – but his boat has been a bloody nightmare – see piccies on the following blog

 

Minnie B – Made it through the Panama Canal and were heading to the Galapagos islands when they hit a submerged object and damaged their rudder and autopilot and had to sail back to Panama hand steering upwind for 3.5 days and nights, and are now waiting for repairs and will cancel their Pacific crossing until 2013. SO maybe 3 of our friends may go for a 2013 crossing, African Seawing, Spruce 2 and Minnie B – but we’re not – definitely probably not.

 

On Friday we made another trip down to Falmouth for a sixsome lunch at Catherine's Cafe, all very French and lots of snogging with strangers, (you know how it is with Les Francais) with John & Jane and also Alan & Sue of Sulana, an Oyster 56 (he was a Director at Oyster) and had first met them in Rodney Bay, St Lucia.