11 January 2003
On Friday the 20th December, Charlie arrived in Antigua, we met him in Jolly Harbour Marina. He brought plenty of goodies; bottles of poo, yachting mags & girlie mags, and Mark & Charlie's dive bag. We just about managed to get it all stored below and once he was settled we were off down the beach in search of Coco's. We found Coco's up on the cliff edge in a typical caribbean style restaurant. We enjoyed a pleasant dinner until our bill arrived, it turned out to be a very expensive dinner after all the tax had been added, certainly not like the bills we were used to receiving in Palma!!!!
Saturday, was slow as we seemed to be stuck in a rain cloud for most of the morning then eventually we main the break and motored round to English Harbour. While eating ice-cream in Falmouth Harbour, we bumped into Intuition and arranged to meet them at Trappas for dinner. Mark & Charlie came over to collect their dive bag, which wouldn't fit in their dinghy with two of them as it was soooooo big and we invited them to join us for dinner too. We said our goodbyes to Ben who was off home late that night, leaving just Brett, Lisa, Suki & Chris. Another GREAT meal was had in Trappas and then it was round to the Mongoose for a "one for the road" beer.
Sunday, what else would we do other than Sunday Night at Shirley Heights, all was well until it was time to eat and the BBQ wasn't looking too good, charcoal springs to mind. As it wasn't our favourite Revo Band playing we headed back down for some dinner. We thought we'd try Columbos but after a glance at the menu and the memories of Matt's pigs jaw there Antigua Week, we moved on. We found ourselves in Life, were I enjoyed the best Sunday Roast with brussel sprouts and the full works, they'll be seeing me again on a Sunday night!
Due to the wind and weather, we decided to hang out in English Harbour till after Christmas. We had Mark and Charlie over one night for dinner and then dinner alone Christmas Eve, we had mentioned going to Abra's but settled for an early night before the champagne party!!!
Christmas Day wasn't the hottest of days but that wasn't a bad thing considering the amount of poo we were about to consume. We arrived on the dock around 11.30 and met up with Mark & Charlie. Then Lisa, Brett, Suki & Chris appeared with sandwiches - eating is cheating!!! Charlie then went off to the bakery to get us some!!! The afternoon was quite entertaining with the two cute dogs in the dinghy, the hula hope girl and our tour of Tenacious, thanks to Charlie! And honestly we only stayed above decks, we have no idea if its air-conditioned!! At 4pm we left the dockyard after collecting the Christmas cake & Snowmen cookies I'd made, I let Charlie decorate the snowmen! We headed up to Hodge's Bay, were the Intuition Villa was. They had made a feast of lobster, shrimp, swordfish & snapper, unfortunately I only managed nachos and then lobster and suddenly I was asleep, it was 6.30pm!!!! I did get up again around an hour later to cut my Christmas cake, I drunk a glass of water but the sofa clearly had my name on it. While I was sleeping, however, much fun was had, surprise surprise! Charlie was the first to go skinny dipping in the pool, Suki wasn't game but once the pool lights went out she'd changed her mind. Charlie snuck down to the poolside and stole her clothes!!! Shortly after that our taxi home arrived and we were off back to Disco.
Boxing Day - Disco's first inshore race. We'd head about the Hightide series but unfortunately had missed the first race but it seemed like a fun idea, we invited the guys down from the villa and the Fidgets, making a crew of nine, which was perfect when you only have two sails, (a main and a number 3) not even a pole to use downwind! Lisa & Brett were the rock stars of the day and I think we picked up a few tips here and there, and Charlie made a great winch-bitch. We were 2 minutes late for the start, unfortunately we didn't know which channel to listen on and each of our watches gave a different time. It didn't take long to overtake most of the fleet, we powered away upwind, it was fantastic. We had a few close tussles and tried to fire a few water bombs at our competition! We were 4th over the line. We motored back to English and got the tables out and ate the leftovers from our Christmas feast and the fresh brownies I baked that morning. Everyone departed and early that evening, Matt, Charlie & I wandered up to the Yacht Club to see the results.
DISCO came 1ST in the cruiser/racer division!!!!
So we rung Scotty as we knew he'd be really thrilled that we were having such a great time while he would be going back to work the next morning!!! We stopped off in trappas for a few nibbles for supper. We bumped into Mark & Charlie who were stunned that we'd one, it must have been the easiest race of all time, with no hoists, drops & gibes with a kite!
Friday we were off to Fidgets for dinner, it was delightful, I picked up a few tips there for the Disco Menu! Charlie made a truly great feast. Mark and our Charlie weren't tired, and while the rest of us headed for our beds they went to Abra's......
Saturday, after waiting 4 hours for a delivery of bottled water we set off for Deep Bay, we weren't sure what the swell was going to be like up there but thought it would be worth a look. Charlie and I began our fishing competition. I won, I won, I won, well he wasn't very big and we didn't eat him as Charlie was concerned it was Spanish mackrel, but I do have a picture of him. By the time we got up to Deep Bay we knew it was a no go area, the swell was piling in there, Fidgets were already anchored but were keen to follow us back round to Jolly for a flat night's sleep.
On Sunday we sailed round to Mamora Bay, we arrived early evening and enjoyed a stir fry on board.
Monday was Charlie's Birthday, how did we know this, luckily his dad rung our Antigua Mobile and asked me to pass on the message as Charlie was ashore. Matt had gone out of the bay in Burn rubber to guide the Fidgets in as one of the marks was missing. I told Matt as soon as he got back. We put a giant cookie in the oven and got the old bubbly glasses out again! Matt dinghied over to pick up the Fidgets and then collected Charlie from the dock. Unfortunately the cookie wasn't ready so we all just loitered around while charlie was trying to pick up his voice mail, I knew the messages were from his dad but didn't dare let on that I'd spoken to him. While Charlie was in his cabin we sneaked the poo & glasses outside, wrote on the cookie and waited for him to arrive back on deck. He was listening to his voice mail. He appeared upstairs and I asked if it was anything interesting, he then said "I've been rumbled!" It was all very funny, no wonder he was so keen to get a table at Harmony Hall for lunch. We jumped in a taxi at 1pm and sat down to eat about 2.30pm, luckily we had Jude with us who used to work there so she secured us our table! The Fidgets ate their first lobster in the Caribbean with Matt showing them how to massacre it!! It was the hugest lunch, we had to ask to have our cheese boards put in a doggy bag!
New Years Eve we motored back to Falmouth for the party. We met Lisa, Brett & Suki at the Admirals Inn along with Soapy, Ollie & Zahir and then 3 other friends who were right down the far end of the table. It was fun but the food was a little sad, especially the shrimp cocktail which was the best choice of starters available, it contained 6 small shrimps, 1 lettuce leaf and a few spoons of thousand island dressing!! And it cost an outrageous amount of money, we weren't very impressed at all. We wandered into the dockyard for the fireworks but after being stung for dinner we weren't really in the party mood. We had a few drinks and at 1.30am we headed back to the boat. Charlie came with us as he said Abra's was like a zoo!!!
New Years Day was much better, we went to Pigeon Beach had some lunch at a reasonable price the food was great, then we went swimming and then wandered along the beach before heading home, a very relaxing day!
Thursday we sailed round to Non Such Bay, home of Harmony Hall. Just as we were coming into the entrance between Antigua & Green Island, Charlie caught a fish, it was the same type of thing as mine but MUCH smaller!!! Although Charlie reckons it was bigger, we let him off the hook back into the sea! We had a great lunch and eventually headed up to Harmony Hall for a sundowner. It was quite a breezy night so in the morning we went and tucked in behind Green Island. Lisa & Brett etc turned up with the Harmony Hall launch. They came and had a chat on Disco, then we all headed off to the beach in our snorkels. We said goodbye to Suki and then headed back to English Harbour for sushi @ 6 in HQs. We then moved on to Trappas for a spot of dinner.
Saturday, we sailed round to Jolly Harbour. We met Lisa & Brett for lunch for a final farewell as they too were going home. That night we hit the Dogwatch with the Fidgets for Charlie's farewell dinner.
Sunday - Charlie's departure, the morning was strange as we all got on with stuff and busied around the boat, eventually 1pm came and we walked Charlie round to reception to say goodbye. Disco seemed all quite when we returned its the first time its been the two of us since Gibraltar. We spent the afternoon cleaning and then had an alcohol free early night!
Monday, we cleaned baby Disco, we gave her a good scrub down and she looks much better for it. Fidgets was taken out of the water and is sleeping 5 boats down from Disco 1. Monday night we went to the Fidget's villa and invaded their last night alone together before they started work on Miss Molly. We had a really great night just chilling out and relaxing in air conditioning!
So here we are now, a week on in English Harbour, Fidgets are now 'Mollyians' and have only been seen to salute at from a distance. We've had a heat wave here and its scorching hot. Scotty arrives on Wednesday for 10days which is very exciting, we have a great trip planned for him but not a northerly swell! So its "Over & Out, roger, roger, from Disco Inferno"
Move on to The BIG Catch
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