Trip Update - 31st March 2009 Falmouth Harbour, Antigua

Nutmeg of Shoreham
Ollie Holden
Tue 7 Apr 2009 11:17


Position: 17:00:89N 61:46:37W

 

In order to get on with a few jobs, we sailed back round to Falmouth Harbour and re-anchored in the same spot we’d left when we were here before.  It felt like a homecoming!  We feel really comfortable here, I think in part because we love the yacht club and it’s friendliness.

 

I bit the bullet and ordered a new wind generator blade to be Fedex’d out here - £20 for the blade, £80 for the joy of getting it sent from the UK.  It was a great relief as it's only when you haven't got it that you realise how much you relied on it!  If I didn't have a wind generator I'd have to get a more powerful alternator, as we seem to have to run the engine for a long time to get the charge back into the batteries.  The wind generator is excellent over here – I reckon it puts around 75Ah a day into the batteries.

 

I've also ordered a new mainsail after lots of haggling with Hoods, so I am looking forward to getting that in a few weeks too – assuming it turns up before we leave to come home!  The old main is OK in light airs but is so baggy now that going upwind is pretty slow, and I think it will tear soon in a blow as the leech is really strained.

 

We met up with another family with young kids, on a catamaran called “Brio” and spent an afternoon on Pigeon Beach with them, the kids having a wonderful time playing in the sea.  Paul, the father, had the strangest set of accents I’ve heard – a mix of Leicester, Australian and American, all mixed up in the same sentence!

 

We bumped into our friends Sam & Ed, and ended up stopping for some impromptu beers in the Mad Mongoose, a crew hangout in Falmouth Harbour.  The kids ran wild round the bar whilst the adults drank bottles of Carib with a wedge of fresh lime.  Isn’t this how life is supposed to be?  Sarah (by her own admission) was smashed after 3 bottles, so we had to cart her home.  She had a tempestuous hangover the next day, so that is the last time she is allowed 3 bottles of beer!!

 

Sam flew home the next day, so Ed sailed “Blue Juice” round from English to Falmouth Harbour and anchored off our stern, and joined us for Saturday lunch.  The kids love Sam and Ed, and it will be lovely to meet up with them back in the UK.  It is refreshing to meet such “normal” people without pretensions and yet with immense achievements and experience under their belts.

 

Saturday afternoon was spent at the Yacht Club, where I went out racing in the Lasers against some of the local lads, whilst Sarah read magazines all afternoon and the kids played with the toys and books in the clubhouse – a luxurious afternoon for all.  The sailing was superb, with close racing and a fair but shifty breeze to keep us all on our toes.

 

Sunday family day out

 

Sunday was spent having a family day out to Nelson’s Dockyard, where we checked out the museum and shops before having a great lunch at the Copper and Lumber Store Hotel.  This beautiful place is situated within one of the old buildings of the dockyard, and is, like all the old buildings here, lovely and breezy with the shutters all open and the wind blowing through.  It looks straight out onto English harbour, and as we sat, we could see that there was a small crowd gathering on the quay in front of the hotel.

 

Lunch at the Copper and Lumber Store Hotel

 

It turned out that there was a singlehanded rower about to arrive after 88 days at sea, having crossed from the Canaries.  What amazing luck and coincidence for us to be there when he came in – he was a 25-yr old American chap called Paul who had rowed the Atlantic as a way to raise funds for cancer research, after his mum had died a few years ago.  His whole family and lots of friends had turned up to see him arrive, and it was an emotional moment when he pulled in at the Dockyard.  What an amazing achievement – it makes our achievements pale into insignificance.

 

Paul Ridley achieves his goal – 88 days across the Atlantic

 

He was remarkably fit and healthy considering what he’d just been through and he came ashore and gave a short speech to the small crowd and cameras, before having a first sip of beer and spraying a bottle of champagne over everyone.  It was absolutely inspirational just to witness him arrive, and Millie in particular was spellbound.  His website is www.rowforhope.com – I would recommend having a look because it looked like he had put together a very professional campaign and project.

 

The girls with Paul’s boat in the background

 

Sarah finds perfect transport for our Pink Pirates!

 

After the fun of the weekend, another Monday morning bus ride into St Johns for me, and another trip to my friend the ophthalmologist.  I figure that, given this is the tenth visit to an ophthalmologist I’ve made, you’re going to get the odd visit where they are a bit scatty in their examination.  He was thorough enough but quickly came to the conclusion that I should move onto systemic steroids for a week, but after a bit of questioning from me, he talked himself out of it and kept me on for another week of drops every 30 mins.

 

I went and bought a new watch so I can set a timer to beep every 30 mins to remind me to do my drops. Very tedious, and a damn-awful taste in my mouth where the drops must drain down into my throat.  Yuk!

 

I do enjoy my little bus trips though.  The local buses turn up every couple of minutes and you just hop on and off wherever you need to.  They are very cheap.  It gives a great insight into the character of the local people.  Most of the people getting on the bus (or for that matter, entering a room) say “Good morning/afternoon” and everyone replies back – how civilized!  There is usually someone playing music through his mobile phone for the benefit of all other passengers, and often some friendly banter.  I don’t miss the silence and avoidance of eye contact which is so prevalent in the UK.

 

Our daily routine has extended to a trip ashore in the late afternoon to let the kids run off some energy.  We usually end up doing some rowing practice in the lovely sheltered dinghy dock while Sarah nips round the adjacent supermarket, before settling ourselves on the terrace for an ice cream for the kids.  I feel like the luckiest man in the whole harbour, teaching my kids to row in a place like this.  There cannot be many happier than us, even those in their 150 ft yachts!

 

31st March was Emilia’s 5th birthday, and we did our best to give her the full works and give her as “normal” a birthday as possible despite the fact that she did not have lots of friends to come round for a party, and a limited number of presents which we’d bought.  She was so excited, and both girls were awake at 0500 but, good girls that they are, stayed in their room until 0600 when they burst in and the fun started. 

 

It was a day of pancakes, party lunch, ice creams, presents, balloons, phone calls to family in England and South Africa, and to top it all, a horse riding lesson at a local stable!  Emilia was a very happy girl. 

 

Birthday girl opening presents

 

A Pirate set for our pink pirates!

 

Daddy hoisting the pirate flag; Jemima searching for treasure

 

Birthday Lunch

 

Yummy Mummy and her lovely daughter

 

Happy Birthday kiss from little sister

 

Emilia on horseriding lesson.  Possibly the most expensive half hour I will ever pay for…

 

Jemima horseriding

 

Daddy managed to screw up on the drugs and ran out of his drops, so had to charge back into St Johns to pick up more supplies whilst the girls went horseriding.  They had a lovely time and I met them on the bus on the way home, stopping for a nice glass of wine before heading back to Nutmeg.

 

Well, we’re definitely feeling like we are getting to the end of this chapter of the trip, with only a short time until the girls all fly home on April 12th.  We’re all starting to think about home and sorting ourselves out when we get back to England.  We don’t get our house back until possibly late June, so in the meantime, Sarah and the girls will be living with Grandad & Grandma on Shoreham Beach until we find out when our tenant is moving out.  Then it will be a case of digging out all our possessions from the random places that they were stored, and putting our house back together.  In the meantime, Millie starts school on 20th April, and Sarah has ideas and plans to initiate for Thumbkin, her online business, so she is going to have a lot to sort out when she gets home. 

 

For me, I haven’t thought much about the being back in England bit, or work - yet.  I have spent plenty of time thinking about the trip home, and worrying about various aspects, as I suppose is only natural.  It is effectively going to be a minimum of one month at sea, in the North Atlantic, and I think this, rather than the trip across with the ARC, will be the true test as the weather is just so much less predictable, and apart from a pit-stop in the Azores, is so much longer.  Everyone else I know who is sailing back are leaving 2 or 3 weeks later (apart from Ed on Blue Juice who is heading out a week ahead of me) and everyone goes a bit quiet when you say that you are leaving in April, because it is a little early in the season and the chances of hitting bad weather are greater.  We will just have to see.

 

 

Jemima filling a water bottle, by standing on the foot pump with both feet (the only way she can see over the sink)