After our first long charter the season kinda slowed down...to a grinding halt. We sat on the dock from January until the end of March. What fun!
Some of the things we got up to follow below.
Our Biltong drying room ->1x forepeak + 1x fan + 1x freezer basket
Having procured the worlds best biltong recipe courtesy of a certain Aunt and Uncle down south, we proceeded to mangle it. Apparently where biltong takes two weeks to dry in the karoo, in the 80% humidity of the Caribbean we can get it bone dry within 3 days with the aid of:
a) the Caribbean Sun through a 1m squared hatch
b) 24hr fan directly at said meat
Unfortunately trial 1 went wrong when we neglected to remove the salt after salting it. So instead of a scrummy meaty treat we had turbolax that tasted like the inside of a full salt cellar.
Trial 2 ended with the obvious error of over compensation for error 1...tasteless...
Trial 3 pending
Monks hill Fort
After work and weekends were for exploring. When it wasnt too too hot we hiked around the old, forgotten forts. At the top of Monk's Hill is a fort that most people seem to have forgotten about. A lot of it is still standing despite the growth, like this guard house at its entryway. Theories on why a fort in such relatively good condition is not advertised as a tourist site:
a) Then money would have to be spent maintaining it
b) It is on prime land overlooking the entire Falmouth Harbour AND 10m in the other direction and you can see Green Island. So if everyone forgets about the fort one day it can be developed
c) The communications tower is up there and they dont want people messing with it
You choose.
On these excursions we would search for treasure.
Treasure [tre-shure] noun: The rubbish left behind by Nelson and his troops including broken bits of pottery, smoking pipes (the equivalent of the modern cigarette butt); musket balls; buttons; broken rum bottles; misc clay jars etc.
Clams
Then there was the random food that wandered up the dock, in the hands of entrepreneurial locals. We were slightly suspect of the clams that were apparently harvested in the bay next to the airport as we did not know the vendor but if you dont try... We were the only willing customers on the dock but our risk taking was well rewarded with two delicious dinners and no nasty consequences.
Building a WC....that is Wobbly Cup boat
The WC tradition has been revived thanks to Newport Shipyard and ABSAR (Antigua and Barbuda Search and Rescue). Teams are given 2 sheets of 8 x 4 and 4 hours to build a boat that has to take a member of the team from the beach on one side of the Catamaran Club Dock to the other side, picking up a mermaid along the way.
This is no casual, rock-up-on-the-day, build-whatever-design, kind of race. Nope, weeks of planning and designing go into this and some teams arrive with generators and powertools. Welcome to the yachting world, we're not competitive at all...
UShaka was built with muscle power and fast curing apoxy (it cured so fast that it was smoking). The building muscle work being done by our Captains and the artwork and paddling by the Stewies.
UShaka, The winninf vessel
Some teams simply strapped their 8 x 4 onto large fenders that hosted garden chairs and even a table; others built box shaped tubs; but we built the super canoe UShaka with her pointy bow and rockered hull she was powered by our professional paddler and unbeatable. By the time UShaka had paddled round the course, picked up the mermaid (yes, me of course) and finished to startled applause, the majority of the fleet were approaching the first corner.
The victorious UShaka was loaded onto the roof of our team mates' rangerover and ridden through Falmouth chariot style by our singing paddler and her daughter.
Sunset View from the Catamaran Dock
view from our 'back door' for 3 months
New Carbon Fibre Main Sail
It wasnt all hiking and WCs, there was some work included in our Antigua stay (8-5, Monday to Friday) and one of the more fun jobs was getting and trying the new mainsail. Shipped in from Peter Kay at One Sails it is incredible! It is all carbon fibres held together with sunprotection (simply put) It has incredible shape and allows us to sail 7.5knots at 30 degrees apparent in about 9 knots of wind :)We had fun putting it up for the first time (to check it and mark where the spreader patches had to go) as we took fellow crew from the 100ft Swan Virago along with us. Their boat is big and you push buttons to get lines in and out so we had them on our coffee grinder and pulling the main halyard etc. They also mentioned that it was novel being able to feel the seastate (on a 100footer you sort of well, plough through most waves)
Just another full moon between the rig and across the bay
Racing the Super Yacht Challenge
On a 100ft Swan
What better to do when you dont have charters than go racing on other people's yachts?
We started out on J122 which was cute and fun.. The couple owning it are in their 70s with him on the helm and her performing gymnastic feats on the bow at top volume. It was my first experience of a shouty boat but at least at the end there were handshakes all round and everyone was friends again.
Then we were invited to do the Nelson's Persuit Race on a 100ft Swan. Wow. I was just rail meat. Captain was a trimmer and obviously did such a sterling job that we were invited back for the Round Antigua Race and Super Yacht Challenge. There is nothing quite like being the second to smallest boat in a race while standing on the decks of a 100 footer... Downwind with all those rugby field spinnakars up is quite something else. Then there are the Super Yacht Rules. They are slightly different due to the size of these splendid Leviathans.
The yachts have to keep ____feet apart at all times
If yacht A is approaching yacht B to overtake, yacht B is considered overtaken when yacht A is within ____ feet of yacht B
They are ever so polite to each other over the VHF: Yacht A yacht A this is yacht B yacht B, We are preparing to tack, what are your intentions?
Distant Spinnakars
I unfortunately did not get to do the Around Antigua Race as we had guests that did not want to go sailing and were staying in a hotel so we decided we had to do something for them with the result that I took them on a tour of the Southern end of Antigua. Which turned out to be great anyway.
But the Super Yacht Challenge was tons of FUN!
It all came down to the last race where we had to win the race to win the regatta.
As we were the smallest yacht we were the only one that could pack our spinnakar in time to fly it on the final leg. We were well in the lead and approaching the final leg where the captain called for the spinnakar to go forward in case we needed the extra speed across the line.
Having just reached the rail after packing said spinnakar we were watching the bow crew drag the kite bag forward when our luck was blown away.
Substantially more people fit on a 100footer's rail
There was a call from the bow, "Steve has broken his ankle, we are bringing him back."
Followed immediately by a call from the aft cockpit, "Ready to Tack"
Suddenly us kite-packing-rail-meat realised that the Aft crew (Helmsman, tactition, trimmers, skipper etc) had no idea there was a situation on the bow. They were 100ft apart and couldnt hear each other. So KPRMs shouted back, "no no no no" mixed in with "we're not ready to tack"
Not understanding why they were suddenly getting instructions from the KPRMs, the Aft crew shouted slightly louder "ok, we're ready to tack" followed by a slightly more coherent "No, there, no, is, no, an, injury, no, on the, no, bow"
Finally we got through to them when they saw a man being dragged along the side deck.
After the first mate/exnurse had had a look, the skipper to a hard look at the final rounding mark and called the race and ABSAR.
We heard later at the prizegiving (where we took 3rd place overall anyway) from people who had being watching the race from the lofty Shirley's Heights that we had our competition in the bag and there would have been no way they could have caught us. Ah well, good to know that we would have won and that an entire race short, we still came 3rd.
Oh and Steve had his ankle operated on in Antigua following which he was flown back home to the USA where we hear he is recovering well.
This year's birthday beach
Rendevous
For my birthday this year The Captain took me to Rendesvouz for a braai. Stunning beach, caribbean blue seas, yummy food and fun company. Entertainment was provided right on our beachmat as a crab kept tentatively poking out of his hole but dashing back the moment he remembered us there. That is, until we figured out he liked sausage and would come all the way out of his hole for cooked duck fat...
Nothing like Strawberries and Champs on a secluded beach to log in another year
We returned to the Catamaran Club for a dinner at the dock Italian Restuarant - Cambusa - with all our yachtie friends.
Snorkeling at Windward
Everyday, when we finished early enough and it wasnt too windy, we took the dingy round to our favourite snorkelling spot. Dont tell anyone, it's just windward beach. Bizarrely, despite it being literally just around the corner and having some of the best coral in Antigua, we very rarely see another boat there. So we claim it as Our Snorkelling spot.
Another Underwater World shot.
The fish are too quick for my disturbingly slow camera
Everytime we swim here we see some new, slightly different thing.
Moray eel; Giant Spotted Ray; school of cuttlefish; lionfish; baracuda; octopus and so on
Preparations begin
pork sosaties that are to be frozen then braaied when required
But alas, despite what many of you might think (or the fact that I only display the highlights in this blog) we do actually work and one of the things that all this time we were preparing for was the BVI Spring Regatta.
This entails prepping the boat for racing followed by sailing it to the BVIs. There the owner and his wife arrive for a cruising charter following which there is a day to change the boat from cruising to racing with the arrival of our 15 or so crew, the organising of the prebooked villa and rental cars, and all the cleaning and cooking that is involved with 15 people for 10 days. So here is the head start on cooking...
