Trip Update - 18th April 2009 Falmouth Harbour, Antigua
Position: 17:00:89N
61:46:37W Well, my last week in the Caribbean
was spent being hectic, which is against the grain of the last few months, but
necessary in order to get Nutmeg ready for returning to Europe and it’s not much
fun doing nothing when you’re on your own. Once the girls had gone, I spent my
time cleaning and tidying away all traces of family life, just as we did in
Jim and Jo from “Starblazer” invited
me round for supper one evening, which was lovely and I was enthralled by their
girls – Josephine (9) and Clemmie (7), who just seem generations older than
Millie and Mima. Clearly we need to
make the most of our girls being young as these two seemed so grown-up, yet are
only a few years ahead of ours. A
lovely evening. Then on Tuesday, I motored round to
the fuel dock – my first close-quarters handling on my own – and I am pleased to
say I moored alongside without so much as grazing the fenders, so I was very
pleased. I then managed to reverse
into the haulout dock without hitting anything, which was a
bonus. Then Nutmeg was lifted out of the
water for the first time since the Canaries last November, and I got to see all
those bits of her that I’d only seen through snorkel and mask. All that muck and barnacles was finally
blasted off with a jet wash. Just
as the guys were finishing jet washing her, a small crab peered out of one of
the seacocks! Two long, hard days were spent
sanding, priming and antifouling the bottom. Various local guys came up to offer
their services but at US$12 / ft, I could not afford them so did it all
myself. One friendly guy did
however help me out by lending me his sander, and giving me a few tips – he
could obviously spot a bodger when he saw one! By the end, Nutmeg was looking smarter
than ever, and Ollie was looking scruffier than ever - very tired and covered in
red paint! Nutmeg hauled out in Jolly
Harbour We were lifted back in at 1330 on
the Thursday, so I decided that rather than hang around in The following day, delivery skipper
David Hunnable and his crew arrived from the From the point that David and John
turned up, I transitioned from being the luckiest man in the world, sitting on
my own yacht in So I found myself in the lounge at
Antigua airport, at the end of our I jotted down my random thoughts as
I sat there: I love this traveling lifestyle, and
I love meeting new and interesting people, where everyone respects the other for
what they’ve done, not what they’ve got.
Everyone is equal, and age, sex, material wealth don’t really matter.
There’s no hierarchy. I love seeing new places and
peoples. I love the community feel
of a small island, something which we wish we still had in the
What I’ve learnt from all the
amazing people we’ve met is that there are lots of people out there who have
found their happy niche, be it sailing for 6 months of every year in the Carib,
living in Antigua flogging T-shirts, delivering boats etc. There is a lot more to this world and
this life than becoming a big cheese in someone else’s big company. True success is about achieving your
personal goals in your way – for us this year: sailing the |