More March in Antigua

So here we are, another few adventurous weekends and working weeks in Antigua

Deciding to get a bit of fresh air and exercise we pulled ourselves away from cable tv and hiked Jones' trail from Galleon Beach to Shirley's Heights.

Some of the strange vegetation climbing up to Shirley's

The vegetation is rather strange, changing from what look like Gum Tree forests to cacti then ferns and back again, with every step up the hill.

View of English Harbour and Falmouth Harbour from Shirley's Height.

Even if the chicken wasnt really worth it, the hike itself and the view from the top definitely were! Its a bit difficult to distinguish from this angle but the bit in the foreground with all the yachts and the sort of C shaped bay above and to the right of it are joined and make up English Harbour. The Bay above that is not joined and is the massive Falmouth Harbour. Stunning, Home Sweet Home.

Work Day Lunch. Note the bananas (yes AND plantanes) in the cow hoof stew.

We spent a week sorting out the container where everything is stored. Living in the house, priority being the boat and working in the container can make organising lunch interesting. One day we decided to try the local flavours. Mmmm yummy cow hoof stew, of course with an unpronounceable Antiguan name.

The Container..........DumDumDaaaaaaaaaaah

A 40 foot container to store the extra stuff from a 60 foot yacht... I know, I know. But the thing is that she is a racer cruiser. So we have two of everything. 2 sets of lines, 2 sets of sails, 2 sets of stantions...then of course all the spare parts....and the things that the present crew doesnt deem necessary to have on board but previous crews felt was vital. Of course all too valuable to throw away as you really might use them some day...or maybe the next crew will.

Anyway, after a week of sweaty, back breaking tidying and organising it is way way better. We can actually find stuff, get to stuff and stuff is positioned according to the order in which we will need it next. Good huh?

Another weekend, another hike. Windmill from an old sugarcane plantation press

We were looking for a mountain to walk up with the promise of some interesting rock formations at the top. Well we were following an Antiguan map (need I say more) and eventually realised we were in the middle of nowhere and our car could definitely go no further if we wanted it to make it back without pushing/towing/levering etc. But it was a pretty enough place to be lost in so we put the car in the bushes, off the path and went exploring.

It must've been an old plantation as there was evidence of commercial agriculture but it is now a sort of jungle with small plots of subsistence farming going on. We even came across a substantial dam which, judging by the vegetation, had been there a long long while.

It was rather different, one minute walking between jungle type vegetation and the next being flanked by banana trees followed by a field of sugar cane, etc. The only thing i really could have done without was a nasty guard dog that wanted all passersby to know its territory but thankfully had no chance of extending its borders due to a substantial leash and tree!

Just another Caribbean Full Moon

A few months ago the Captain and I decided to do our open water 1 diving course with a lovely South African instructor based on the island. Due to everything going on we were doing it when we got the chance. Finally we were down to our last two dives before getting the ticket. We had the weekend free so phoned the instructor on the Thursday to organise everything. All was planned for that Saturday morning 9am. Sat 9am and there we were, sitting in the car waiting for the instructor. Finally 9.30 ticks by and a few young gents arrive and open the dive shop, but still no instructor. Confused we decide to ask. "Um well sorry" they said, "Brian had to leave the country quickly and unexpectedly and with no chance of contacting anyone" Weird, we thought. "Try phoning again next weekend" they said. Um ok, we thought, maybe it has something to do with the nasty divorce he was going through.

Back to the boat we went. Confused. But on chatting to a fellow yachty we discovered that a South African dive instructor was out fishing on Thursday and had decided to go diving. Something went wrong and he ended up 100m deep AND surfacing too fast. Thanks to the swift, skillfill reactions of the ABSAR team they managed to get him to the decompression chamber in Guadaloupe, alive.

Finally information and rumours begin to surface. Story goes that he was wearing a friends dive computer which was metric as opposed to his imperial one. BIG difference between 100m and 100ft...

Anyway, he is now recovering but will never dive again. After some typically American emails ("No legal obligations" and all that) from the company that took over his company, followed by some phone calls and meetings we finally persuaded the gents at Extreme Marine to help us out. They very kindly took us for our final two dives and signed all our papers (after redoing some of the exercises) and to end this long winded story...we are now, finally, qualified!

But the point really is that our two dives with Chris were AWESOME!!!! He took us to some stunning reefs where we saw massive fan coral, brain coral (all other coral), funny big eyed orange fish, a shy eel, school of snapper, a serving dish size common ray and the cherry on the top: a MASSIVE person sized spotted ray. And all the rest of course.

Pillars of Hercules outside English Harbour

Inspired by the diving and due to the recent launch of our big dingy we decided to venture out on a morning of snorkeling (without the snorkel of course). So out of Falmouth we went to the beach between Falmouth and English Harbours. Anchored in 3m deep crystal clear waters we dived into the best kept giant aquarium ever!!!! Aah it was incredible. The water was perfectly clear and wonderfully cool. Diving down and swimming among fearless fish between coral covered boulders was like getting an energetic, cool all over body massage with an interactive view.

Enough said.

Look closely, it is a turtle, i promise.

After our cooling adventure we took on the substantial rollers to get to English Harbour where we made the acquaintance of Myrtle the Turtle and a few of her friends.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, more snorkeling may be in store (maybe this time with a snorkel - all that underwater time has resulted in an ocean in my head)

Yip, Mom, thinking of you with every swim and really wishing you were here!

A few things about our life in Antigua

Sorry about the photo order mix-up again. but couldnt leave these guys out

Our new neighbours' pets who seem to think sunrise is 3am...

An easy way to compare cultures is to inspect their driving habits. In Sicily the driving is chaotic to say the least. It flows like a river full of debris, with no real lanes, every car bus and scooter muddling their way along and no internationally understood rules. Dodging in and out of the traffic can even be fun. And it works. The only annoying thing is when the traffic pauses even for the merest moment, someone starts hooting. This happens often due to the previously discussed Palermo parking habits but we even experienced this at red robots...

In Antigua there are a lot more cars than you would expect but obviously nothing compared to the concentration in Palermo. The roads are single lane two way, just, and littered with potholes. Due to car cost and pride, it is very rare to find an Antiguan willing to drive through these craters. As in Palermo, the Antiguans will only park directly outside their destination. Add to the two previously mentioned habits the Antiguan tendency to stop in the middle of the road to chat, either to pedestrians or an oncoming vehicle, and you understand the propensity for the traffic to stop.

Parked Cars and a 'short-cut' - the Antiguan way of getting water across a road

But the big difference, Nobody Hoots. Nope, whether you are queing to pass a parked car, pothole or waiting for someone to finish a conversation, everyone is chilled. There is no hooting or shouting and everyone is perfectly happy just to sit and wait. Its wonderful. Granted, when youre in a hurry it takes some deep breathing to keep your hand off the horn but with so many good examples of patience around you its hard not to feel like an idiot if you are impatient.

It does also mean that when summiting a blind rise or rounding a corner you never quite know what to expect: pothole, parked car, que of cars....

Tree Frog

The wildlife here consists mainly of frogs, centipedes (deadly apparently), tortoises, mongooses mongeese mongeeses (?), um goats and cows, cattle egrets, and of course mosquitoes (based on what we've seen). The tree frogs are tiny but at night are easily audible all over the island, very audible. Its amazing how much sound can come from something so small.

The travelling tortoise

Our painted tortoise is currently a resident of the Catamaran Marina Office. He is waiting for his ride across the sea for his summer holiday in the States. Yip, this little guy hitches a ride in a yacht across the Caribbean Seas escaping the oppressive heat and hurricanes.

The baby tortoise residents of the CatClub

These little guys were born in the owner of the Catamaran Marina's garden. Apparently the landcrabs (oh add them to the wildlife list) EAT the baby tortoises. So these guys are living in a newspaper lined box, munching on lettuce and being taken out to swim once a day. You read right. These are tortoises that go for daily swims. A couple of centimetres of water are poured into the box and the tortoises wade around. They seem to enjoy it and apparently it helps them poop which keeps their home clean. The perfect pet -> Cute, full of character (these ones at least), travel well, and poop on command.

Our cute little cottage

The owner was very generous and said we could stay ashore on his dime. So we went on a house hunt and found Spice Cottages. Ours is called Mint (um a spice?) It is wonderfully rustic but has everything we could possibly want. You know, all the essentials like ceiling fans, wifi internet, aircon in the bedrooms, cable tv, high ceilings that keep the cottage unbelievably cool ... and the luxuries like a big fridge and decent size stove.... and of course the front and back verandahs all surrounded by a cute picket fence.

Once again, we are varnishing the floorboards. Our perfect house proved the perfect venue. So for a while our verandah, chairs, and outside concrete block were covered in boards.

Granted the parking is a muddy puddle which resulted in us having to push the car out (good luck trying to drive an automatic under powered tank out of mud) and our neighbour is a strange, dreaded (hair) character who wanders the street talking to the trees and demanding that cars come back immediately, not to mention his pets (see first photo) but it is absolutely wonderful. It has everything and best of all, is away from work!!!! (well mostly)

And now the boards are lining our walls while they dry to full strength. um does this count as bringing your work home??

Racing in the Caribbean

The Caribbean 600!!! 600 (or there abouts) nautical miles of offshore racing, around the Caribbean Leewards Islands!

Talk about a 'Baptism of Fire'. My first ever proper race (the Pursuit Race doesnt really count) and it was three and a bit days offshore in 15 to 25 knots of wind, 4m high swell and a crew of 10 (half of whom are um double my age or more)

What Fun!!!!

It was challenging enough to make it interesting and relaxed enough to be fun!

Strangely, afterwards when we were chatting about it, a few of our more distinguished crew members and Moanina (a female crew member renamed for her favourite pastime - i mean seriously, who comes on an all expenses paid trip to race offshore and on the first night announces that she hates offshore racing....and that was only the beginning) maintained that this was one of the most difficult offshore races that they had done. Granted it was exhausting but then again, I was up at all hours preparing whatever people wanted to eat or drink, in a boat that was teetering dramatically close to what felt like a 90' heel and slamming into waves with a passion that would put a prize bronco to shame. The crew believed that the most tiring part was moving around the boat but the only time they were required to do this was coming on and off watch and for tacks or jibes....Anyway.

Luckily we have not yet become TOO superstitious as sailors go. The morning of the race dawned with the usual frenzy of activity, getting sails up, crew fed, last minute fresh bread purchases etc. Activity came to an abrupt halt as the Captain/Skipper rushed down the companionway stairs clutching his bleeding hand. The safety catch on his leatherman had failed and the knife he was using in the all important task of opening bags of ice, had snapped shut cutting his pinky to the bone. While we were trying to stop the bleeding an Irish member of our crew ran to the boat next door where he knew there was a doctor on their crew (a fellow Irishman that he had shared a taxi from the airport with) The cheerful Irish doctor patched our Skipper back together with two stiches and a can of cocacola. So began our race.

Out we sailed to the start line, using every available minute before the gun to perfect crossing the line at maximum speed. Unfortunately our start was a mixed up scurry of problem solving as during our final tack before the tack over the startline I managed to get a rider in the primary winch holding the genoa sheet. What I was doing tailing this all important winch at this critical moment, I still do not understand, but somehow all the experienced crew were busy with something else. No matter, we crossed in style (if late) and sat determinedly on the rail, in our striking blue crew shirts, looking contrastingly dazzling with the smooth white hull of our speed demon, for all the professional photographers to enjoy.

The galley more heeled over than i have ever seen it before

The poor galley simply could not keep up with the heel of the boat. The stove could not gimble enough and the stew/curry/whatever kept sloshing out of the pan. If you look carefully in the sink you can see that it was filling with water. This was because the boat was heeled over so much that the sink outlet was below waterlevel. Yip, that white line of water you can see in the basin is the level of the sea. What fun conditions to provided sustenance for 10 people. My injuries included: burnt feet from emptying the scalding curry over them (you try and figure out the ridiculous angle a tray of curry has to be taken out of the oven at when the boats at that angle), stripe burns on my thighs from the oven falling open onto them on several occasions and a chunk of flesh trying to escape from my finger.

Dont try and catch a broken dish as it tacks itself across the boat at high velocity (after 3 days healing at sea, how stupidly embarrassing)

Despite the owners and guests (sorry, crew) being on board there is no place for hotel pristine in racing. Our A-Symmetric kite tied to the couch.

The course was a wonderful 'Mixed Bag' of upwind beating and reaching and running with the kite. My sole responsibility in terms of ondeck duties during tacks and jibes was tacking the waterbottles. Having found myself on the rail with the water rolling around on the low side of the boat on several occasions, I took this position upon myself. Jokes aside, the crew was great. It was wonderful watching such an experienced bunch of people working together to manoeuvre the boat just so. I had several moments thinking of family. On quite a regular basis Gran's saying "Too many chiefs and not enough Indians" came to mind (the poor Captain really had his job cut out for him with so many experienced opinions on board) and Granddad, it seems i was wrong when I told you we dont really stay wet for all that long...I was wet for 3 and a bit days (while everyone else took advantage of the downwind streches for the luxuary of a shower/wetwipe down and change of clothes, I was frantically preparing all the lunch and desserts necessary for the next leg - dinners were sitting ready in the freezer)

Flying our kite around Rodonda. Inhabitants: a few well discussed goats (thats what happens after 3 days on the rail)

At 1.07pm on Thursday we crossed the finish line with much relief and jubilation!

On the arrivals dock our finger injured were whisked off for medical attention (the final one being Moanina who, despite her 30 years sailing experience, out her hand on the mainsheet as it swung over dragging her finger into the block and literally exploding the tip off. Gross!) Then it was all beers and showers. Taking down the brand new foresail 5 holes were counted (dont ask, its basically a story involving the sailmaker being a member of the crew; the leech line breaking about 3 hours after the start etc etc etc) and it was noted that had we continued sailing for another day our genoa halyared would have exploded.... Fun times and now lots to fix!!!

My shorts practically walking out the door without me. Not kidding, they are so salty they are standing up all on their own.

Oh yes, at the end of it all a full 3rd of the fleet had retired and our results were:

We came 3rd in our class, which was the biggest class i'll have you know (2nd beat us by 5 MINUTES - 3 days racing and they beat us by 5 minutes....ah well);

9th under the one handicap; 12 under the other and

we won Best Swan :)

Happy days! what fun and thank Poseidon (and Dr Fourie) for seasick tablets that work!!!!!

My Birthday and the rest of February

February is the month of our first race, the Captain's birthday and my birthday... But before all that we decided to explore the interior of the island and all the city of St Johns had to offer.

For the first time on our travels we found a cinema that played...movies...in...English!!!!! Ah the small things

Caribbean Cinemas offer a personalised service: Us and our neighbours keeping the cinema open

Back to Crab um Cove, Corner, um Point. Well Crab Something for a swim and a drink at OJ's

But February is not all about play. We had to get the boat ready to race. This means taking anything that posseses any sort of mass off the boat. Everything from the engine spare parts, bow roller, anchor and chain, to the food deemed excess and my beloved cook books. We were by no means a dry boat so some alcohol had to be kept on board (a pitiful two bottles of red, two bottles of white and two bottles of Rose...per day of the 10 day trip) But the rest had to go.

The alcohol that did not make the cut for the race. Baring in mind that we have already purged the boat once before crossing the Atlantic.

Time for my birthday. I had previously requested the day off from the Captain as last year we were so busy we ended up working. My oh my was i spoilt!!! I woke somewhat confused as my usual awakening smell of rooibos tea had been replaced by a rubbery smell. The Captain had covered my bunk with balloons and was merrily baking away in my galley. After bouncing the balloons all over the boat and sketching some party guests (Sarah the bilge cat and Endangered Mouse) who positively flew around, thanks to the fan, we breakfasted on chocolate cake alla Captain. While the Captain dozed the cake off (he doesnt do so well with all that chocolate) I got to speak to you all at home :) Then it was off to my surprise day.

A brilliant Braai. No man need fear the shame of a non starter again!

I was whisked away with a coolerbox and some bulging shopping bags to Halfmoon Bay. On arrival i was introduced to The Braai in the Box. What a wonderful invention. Simply an aluminium tray with a grate on top and braai coals covered in a flammable bag inside, it is easy to light and ready in a moment. The Captain put men the world over to shame, bringing both meat AND side dishes to a braai. We steadily filled ourselves with steak and sausage, hummus and chips, cheese and crackers and there was even a selection of salad ingredients....left untouched... oh and of course melon.

After the braai (and um well nearly 20min) we rolled ourselves into the Caribbean equivalent of surf for a snorkel. To bring the perfect day to a close we sipped the sun down with a bottle of Champagne.

The view from our braai spot