Antigua - 3rd - 18th March 2011 - Jobs and a quick look around!
Nimue
Thu 3 Mar 2011 15:25
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Antigua somehow felt quite different from the other Caribbean islands we
had visited. It’s full of history and beautiful beaches (apparently
there is one for each day of the year!), so we were looking forward to spend
some time exploring. However we were also here to sort out a few jobs
which had built up over the last few weeks.
After clearing Customs and Immigration, our first mission was
to get someone on board Nimue to sort out the continual problems we were having
with our on board fridge and freezer units– one minute they both worked fine and
then one would stop working completely. However, after a day or so they
would work perfectly again! Anyway we took a trip to ‘Signal Locker’
located in Nelson’s Dockyard to make arrangements for an engineer to have a
look. The next day a nice guy called Philmore came on board and instantly
recognised the problem. Basically water was building up in the cooling
gas, thus stopping the units from working properly, so we ended up having gas
filters fitted to each unit to stop the problem. We were landed with a
bill of nearly £250 for the job, but ‘touch wood’ we’ve incurred no further
problems since!
One of the most pretty Customs & Immigration buildings we visited A mooch around the harbour and we found one of the former
Whitbread Round the World Race yachts, Steinlager. I remember last seeing
and drooling over this yacht (ketch rigged) in Southampton back in the late
80’s, just before the start of the race. I’m also please to say it
won. Not too sure why it was moored in English Harbour, but it was good to
see her and it brought back some fond memories!
Steinlager, a former winner of one of the Whitbread Round the World yacht races The next day we dropped off our laundry with one of the
laundry ladies, Mrs Baltimore, who sits in the dockyard and touts for
business. Mrs Baltimore is in her 80’s, but still enjoys working, although
now has many helpers. We also saw the arrival of Sea Otter (Jonas, Heather and
Stormy), but as they had anchor windlass problems, they decided to take a stern
to mooring in English Harbour . This was ideal and it meant that Stormy
was only a few yards from lush green grass – a real treat for her.
  Mrs Baltimore’s laundry
services
Falmouth harbour lies just slightly to the west of English
harbour and is divided by an isthmus just 200m wide, so it was an easy walk to
get between the two, which we did on most days. One one occasion whilst in
Falmouth harbour, we wondered around the pontoons to google at the large number
of Superyachts and stumbled across the Maltese Falcon (one the largest in the
world). We also located and ate in a recommended eating establishment, called
Trappas, which has an amazing variety of dishes at very reasonable
prices.
  The enormous Maltese Falcon (Michael walking next to it)
Our favourite, Maria
She was immaculate
and I mean immaculate!
Just look at that beautiful tender on deck.
Next instalment English Harbour and Nelson’s Dockyard........................ |
