Having not had much contact with other ARC boats and crew since returning to St Lucia, things have warmed up a bit in Antigua. We spotted Aztec Dream in English Harbour marina as we cleared in through customs on arrival, though the boat was obviously closed up with no one aboard. Saltwhistle was anchored in the bay opposite, and then we saw Chiscos in the marina at Baileys. Beyond these boats whose crews we knew, there were other boats we recognised around the marinas.

The contact with Chiscos led to an excellent evening at a café restaurant in English Harbour, where John and Michaela had been invited to bring their musical instruments along last night for an impromptu session. There were six musicians who had not played together before, but they were absolutely excellent if a little uncertain as to what they would play next! We had put off sailing round to Five Islands anchorage to see them perform, and were very glad we had….it was one of those magnificent spontaneous happenings that turn out to be hugely enjoyable.

Getting up this morning, we had a call from Mervyn and Amanda from Aztec Dream, who had arrived back from the UK last night. We met for coffee which turned into an invitation to dinner this evening, so Five Islands will have to wait once more….

Communications Complications

It has become so much easier to keep in contact since we first went sailing. Mobile phones which handle email, fast laptops, satellite phones and wi-fi hotspots have transformed the communications landscape. The Caribbean has proven to be a bit more complicated and expensive than Europe, however, and when things go wrong……

We bought a local sim card and phone in St Lucia, which was marketed as being a Caribbean-wide system with access to cheap calls (about 25% of calls using our UK phones). It worked brilliantly in St Lucia, failed to work at all on the French islands, recovered its poise in Dominica and operated for one day in Antigua before the commercial agreement between the (non-French) operators was cancelled for some obscure reason. Back to Vodafone and O2, we thought….

…and then our main UK mobile stopped working! Texts were tried and found to be fine, but voice calls to the UK were not. Ali’s phone did work, but as a pay-as-you-go sim. Calling the Vodafone UK helpline swallowed the residual £20 credit in short order, and terminated the call mid-conversation, after the usual extended IVR nonsense about which service we really wanted, and what button we needed to press to be put on musical hold.

Much later, and by accident, we did eventually manage to ascertain the problem – a special prefix number required by the Digicel mobile company (the only accessible one that Vodafone will work with here), so we are back in contact again – for the moment, probably….

Watergaw