We arrive in Antigua and meet Peter's wife the lovely lovely Ruth. We also find a lovely taxi driver Donald - he says he is no relation to President Trump. His son works in the marina we find and Donald takes us on a 5 hour tour of the island, from Falmouth Harbour, where the boat is; to Shirley's heights nearby and onto St John's (main town and where the cruise ships dock) ; to Jolly harbour which is a twee jolly wee place to Darkwood beach (marked Lignum Vitae on my chart (google that!) and some of the other beaches that abound around Antigua - hard to admit the beaches are better than Donegal but they are.
So the photograph above shows Doros Michail, Eamon McManus, me, Ruth Kirby-Smith, Donald and Peter Kirby-Smith. Ruth has flown out for a holiday as she has friends on the island, she is also visiting Nevis and nearly hitches a lift on Shadowmere - weather and timescales mean she ends up flying over for a carnival - the night we are rolling our way across in a big swell.
The view from Shirley's heights (no relation) and the nearby Blockhouse hill are amazing. There is a famous steelband and barbecue hooley on Shirley's heights every Sunday bit we will miss it this time.
A couple of snaps of the harbours in the South of the island - the background is Falmouth harbour, the foreground is English harbour - you can walk from one to the other in minutes. We arrive to anchor in Falmouth harbour as dusk falls and next morning I go ashore to clear us in. Returning to the boat Tim has visited - he had a punt for sale recommended by Craig and Cressie (Daal 2) Who we met in Barbados. In the end Tim's punt won't do but a second hand punt is advertised on the noticeboards around the cafes and I do purchase a new old nice big 4 man punt. rigid transom, great. Tim recommends moving over to the quieter West side of Falmouth bay - his anchorage has Wifi. We move and then ask at the small marina for a berth. Catamaran Marina has nothing to do with catamarans - it is full of superyachts (35 docks) but they squeeze us in. Marina staff are really lovely and the nearby open plan restaurant has free wifi and good sofas. We eat some Italian food there too - really good. Antigua is expensive, though not by UK standards.
The spit of land in English harbour (you can see the green roof above) is Nelson's dockyard - a Unesco Heritage site and containing old buildings etc., Also there are superyachts galore Including some lovely wooden yachts. I had seen weird "navigation lights" on some yachts, I met a 100 foot yacht showing a single red light at the top of its mast. My recollection from my yachtmaster classes that it is acceptable to show both a red and green light light at the masthead ( as well as conventional port and starboard and stern lights) I nearly radioed them to let them know their green lightbulb was blown. Glad I didn't - when we got to Falmouth harbour there were 60 superyachts here - all showing a single red light at the top of very very tall masts, even when at a dock.
Turns out they are flaunting international maritime regulations but embracing aeronautical regulations instead - these red lights warn off low flying aircraft. Considering lots of the owners have helicopters this is quite sensible. We debate that the actual aeronautical regulations don't consider 100 feet very high, but hey, size matters, let them pretend.
We also watch a motorboat (supermotoryacht) park, entertaining
The other thing in Antigua is that there are loads of yachty things happening - Antigua week is famous of course but there are lots of other events, seems to be fortnightly! in fact while we are there three things of note occur. A rowing challenge event is finishing - we see one of the Irish entries Well done Damian Brown. We shake his hand, his legs are wasted and he has difficulty walking. But Antigua do receptions well - had a garden party feel to it.
If that isn't enough, across the isthmus in Falmouth Harbour the Antigua Yacht club are hosting the finish of a "Pedalo across the Atlantic", I am expecting a pedalo swan such as what Bangor's picky pool can muster and am slightly disappointed to discover the boat looks like a converted Atlantic Rowing boat. It is dark when the boat comes in - I suppose the pedallers have wasted arms and can hardly do handstands, but have strong legs! I apologise for my glibness - to cross the Atlantic in anything is a tremendous achievement and these guys and gals deserve everyone's congratulations.
Again the Antigua Yacht club puts on a fantastic event.
At least when pedalling you can see where you are going, or at least one of them can. I am sure the journey was good craic. The third event is the ROC 600 - a superyacht race where upwards of 80 boars nip around a few islands for 600 miles and come back 2 days later (or so). Each superyacht has professional crew busy polishing and making ready for the owners who will arrive soon. The race starts on Monday so we steal a head start and leave Antigua on Saturday! The place is humming with hundreds and hundreds of yachty people.
After a busy day sightseeing we eat in a hectic restaurant run by an Aberdonian lady - Caribbean Chicken Curry. The sunset over this most busy yachty place is lovely, as is the sky.
Donald takes us around the island - beaches
Mind you the umbrellas and/or seats cost money... to be expected I suppose
Donald's wife works at the hotel on the far headland - the rooms are 3,000 East Caribbean dollars - about £850 a night. I find most things in Antigua expensive - an espresso coffee can cost a pound a mouthful.
Antigua is a micro-cosm of yachiness - one of the really significant nexus points in the yachting universe. If you are anybody in the yachting world you need to be here (Take note nephew Scott). The rest of the island is a bit more "normal" there are small houses and big houses.
St John has a street of brand shops that you walk along when you get off your cruise shop. Feels like Disney made it.
The other place we visited is Jolly bay - a totally manufactured yachting and property construction place. Ok I suppose but felt a bit unreal.
After buying a new secondhand dinghy, a new set of oars and getting the outboard serviced again we head out and cut inside some coral reefs to anchor (on sand of course) to dive the reefs. In the event we have a pleasant dive, not outstanding but we do see a crawfish and a stingray as well as fish of tropical fishtank quantities.
In my previous post I was told off by Doros - a photographer of note who makes the effort to take good and great shots (whereas I just snap as often as I can...) I had fallen into the beginners trap of showing all my shots - although to be fair the intent was to show the variety of fish types. I will learn restraint so I will only upload a dozen stills and maybe a couple of videos. I will cut down more next time.
Finally a stingray - the videos show it off better but it was a bit shy... That's all for now. After out dive we headed off to Nevis (after filling bottles, eating and having a snooze - we depart at 10pm and arrive at Nevis at 7 am - to a nice mooring bouy, we had a 25 knot rolly run across but not too bad and 9 hours is not too long to be at sea. More later.
