Well, here we are nearly at the end of April, and tomorrow Jan climbs into the big silver bird for the overnight trip home. Emotions are quite mixed - it's sort of sad that Irie's on her farewell tour of these places that we've got to know pretty well over the last couple of years, but it'll be great to see the family and chums, spend more time with Millie, and really good to have the boat in easy reach again. The Caribbean has been excellent - stunning islands with friendly people, a unique culture and a welcoming warming sea that's stuffed full of exotic interest. Seeing it all from a boat is just an amazing privilege. Anyway, this is all rather jumping the gun, as the boat's still here and there'll be plenty of time to mull and distil the highs and slightly less highs (no lows) of the past couple of years    

Spending the last couple of weeks here has been great timing. It's a lovely anchorage, there's a basketful of history and heritage a short walk away, and the Classics, followed by Antigua week sets a stimulating seal on an iconic sailing location. There were dozens of stunning old boats in the classics racing, ranging from the huge J class rich toys of Valsheda and Ranger, down through ageing schooners, vintage ketches and then to Thalia, oldest in the fleet and still racing well over a hundred years after her launch in the late 1800's. There were spills as well as thrills. Valsheda and Ranger came to blows - the former with the right of way but the latter with the owner driving - say no more other than to wince at the long scrapes in the paintwork. Still with sail budgets alone in the millions of dollars, it's hard to shed too many tears. We had much more sympathy for little Zeevonk, the lone Dutchman we'd seen all through the islands from back as far as the Cays. He's only thirty feet or so, but had a collision with a larger boat and was dismasted. He's still living aboard while trying to fix a wooden mast that ends in matchwood.

Picton Castle trundled in and anchored a few hundred yards away, and then had an open afternoon so we finally made it aboard. She's a 1920's North Sea trawler that had a long history fishing, then was a freighter, general cargo boat and a minesweeper before being converted to a three masted nearly full rigged ship with a clipper bow in 1997. She's run as a training ship in a very traditional manner, with twelve fulltime crew and some forty trainees. The skipper has been the driving force behind the project. She was refitted at his yard in Nova Scotia which is now her base, and sails the world with a trainee crew who generally stay for a year or so. It looks pretty character forming, part of the character being knowing how to party, and the rest in genuine sailing skills. All the sails are hand-made aboard, and she's virtually self sufficient once provisioned. She's been a frequent anchor companion over the last couple of years, and it was great to get aboard.

Pigeon Beach has also been an excellent base. It's a beautiful swathe of sand, and hardly ever busy except when the locals turn up at the weekend. Then they bring loud music, and it's party time. There's a low key bar called Bumpkins which opens in a slightly erratic manner, but it's a perfect vantage point, and on Saturday features 'The Survivors, a reggae playing Rasta family affair with ages from seven to seventy and great voices underpinned by a stiff reggae rhythm and melodic, bluesy guitar - perfect at sundown with a small something (mostly fruit). The beach is a daily swimming destination - exercise and a nature lesson in one. There's a resident turtle bobbing his head at regular intervals, a host of shoals of fish,  and a large grey ray who glides underneath and then leaps out of the water on occasions to sort those annoying old parasites. Most bizarre are a couple of large but very spindly, green spider crabs who peer up at you and wave their claws warningly before sidling off over the grass. It’s also a meeting place, and a number of boats here have been regular neighbours through the islands. Anchored beside us last week was another example of the small world we inhabit. We'd seen a boat called Starblazer on a number of occasions and they turned up here again beside us. We got chatting and it transpired that they are completing a year's Atlantic round trip, mostly with their two young daughters aboard. He's a journalist and his father used to farm at West Bagborough under the Quantocks. Footwear came up, then Clarks -' You might know my uncle Johnny' he said 'John Clothier's my mother's brother'. So there you go.

This week is Antigua week, with extremely competitive racing in a fair amount of wind. It all looks pretty serious, and the sailmakers are working all hours to keep up with the damage. There is a great deal of serious partying, but none the less, it's quieter than we'd expected, bars empty and restaurants with plenty of room. It transpires that last year there were two hundred and forty boats, and this year some one hundred less. In these austere times there are probably less supporters for the boats that are here so it's rather a disaster for the island. Stil there was a good party at English Harbour last night, and the band included former Windies cricket stars Ritchie Richardson and Courtney Walsh. Ex fast bowler Courtney plays base, and looks about seven feet tall. On a cricket note, we refuelled last week, and there was local chat about cricket in the dock office: 'My girlfriend's dat keen on Chandrapaul' said one of the guys 'She don know nuttin about cricket, but she knows that once he's in, he don't come out'. 

So here we are. A flurry of boat jobs have been completed, and Skipper Pete's had a good look round with no surprises to date. Tomorrow we run the gauntlet of customs and immigration as the crews change. This already promising paperwork of governmental proportions with letters and disclaimers and forms with innumerable copies that are illegible  no matter how hard you press. Still it'll all happen, and on Thursday Irie should be heading to St Maarten, sadly shorn of an owner and long term companion, but settling in to a pattern to carry her the next four thousand miles or so, and with a newish moon to peer down at her early progress.

Looking back to Falmouth from the English Harbour path

Home for twelve months - a shelf with a curtain

Picton on her way