Our first choice being closed, we ended up going to the “giraffe restaurant” that we had been with with Francesca last year.  We had had a delicious meal then and I very much admired the modern chairs and the mats like the ones that Duncan and Dolley gave us and we use at home.  This time was just as good and maybe even better.  I had delectable, well flavoured marlin tartare, Bob had crudites which were tasty with a quintessential French dressing.  I moved on to a divine sesame coated tuna steak, pink and moist with a wasabi cream (I needed two helpings of that) while Bob tucked into half a lamb coated with a “tasty sort of meaty sauce”.  Feeling piggy we went for puds.  My trois chocolate mousse was superb and Bob nearly married the chef in his ecstasy over his creme brulee.  All that food put me somewhat off balance as we climbed back into the dinghy and it was a very close thing that I didn’t fall into the water taking Bob with me, oh and we had had a carafe or two of rather tasty rose.

The alarm was set this morning to avoid a reoccurrence of Bob oversleeping, I just can’t cope with such excitement in the morning, but Bob was up bright and early as usual.  We had a more seemly departure as a result.  As soon as we left the shelter of the harbour we were met with a gutsy wind fluctuating between 20 and 24 knots with a few full on belches of 26.  Every sail that we have was hoisted and we soared along on a broad reach, rocking through the broadside waves that gradually bloomed as we met the long distance travellers from the Atlantic Ocean.  We are being so incredibly lucky and experiencing the most phenomenal sailing conditions.  We are loving it.

We arrived at English Harbour at 1pm and found that it has got even worse than our last visit for parking.  The live aboards have strung themselves across the piddly bit of bay that has been set aside for mere mortals and their regular sized yachts, leaving absolutely no decent anchorages for visitors.  We did attempt to park but couldn’t get the anchor to stick, got the anchor wrapped in a live aboards insanely long length of chain and after realising that we were in danger of grinding our bottom on the rocks decided to give up.  We pottered around to Falmouth Harbour and found an anchorage in the shadow of the mega watt super yachts.  We are feeling rather small.

We went to check in and out and fell foul of the new “Easiclear” system that isn’t easy at all and still required you to visit every official, at different windows, twice.  It also transpires that we can’t check out in Barbuda and have to check out in Antigua which would be fine except if you check out you then have to leave the country within 24 hours.  The result is that we can therefore officially only stay in Barbuda for 24 hours.  Once I had kicked Bob very hard for being far too honest about our intentions, we went for the Caribbean option and just said whatever they wanted to hear.  After such shenanigans we were in need of a beer but Hot Spot was closed for the first time in living memory.  The restaurant that we had set our eye on is also now closed except on Saturdays.  It appears that the powers that be have shot the restaurateurs in the foot by making it hard for ordinary mortals in ordinary boats to visit and thus use the onshore facilities.  The mega yachts have their own 4 Michelin starred chefs.  We might have to add it to the list of destinations spoiled by official greed, alongside Mustique.