Another year Antigua Week, another place higher on the podium. Its a definite watch this space to see if we can make it to the top next year.

I think this year was probably my best to date, our crew were amazing and Antigua is just a great place.

Now I have to remember where all the games began.... Russell was our first crew member to arrive, he flew all the way from Kiwi land to experience some Caribbean sunshine. Then we had Henry, Emma & Adam arriving on the Wednesday and Northy & Jane arriving on Thursday. So the first half the gang are landed and we meet up at Skullduggery for some cheeky Espresso Martinis and then off to Abracadabra's for dinner followed by Back II Soul with DJ Norman Jay. We didn't party to hard as we knew we would have to on Friday night with the arrival of Naked!

Naked & Alan arrived safely on Friday and we headed off to Galleon Beach for the Mount Gay hat party. We also caught up with the Perkster and eventually Tufty arrived at about 9.30pm. In usual style she was two-fisting in no time at all.

Practice day was interesting as we were lacking a rather important ingredient called wind! Well there was about 10knots but the swell was so huge it was very uncomfortable and made interesting practice as it took 3 of us to hold the boom out to stop it crashing around. Then we had the highlight of the practice session, we saw two whales, puffing away as they went past. Shortly after that we packed up and headed home. A very good choice as 2 hours later a wild squall came through the harbour with winds of 40knots and lots of the boats got pushed back onto the dock, Matt and I luckily got to watch all this from Disco's dry cockpit.

Bob, Ben & Monkey were the last to arrive Saturday night, they were all on very good form and glad to finally be out with the rest of the team. We had dinner in life and I think we went home earlyish but I really can't remember!

The racing finally starts. Race 1 was round to Dickenson Bay. It was a light winds race which is something that Disco just doesn't enjoy too much so we were pleased to see we came 4th that night. The party on the beach was brilliant. This year it was Sponsored by Virgin Atlantic and Richard Branson participated in his bath tub derby, of course he won!

Race 2a was eventually started and then eventually abandoned as the breeze completely died and the race committee felt it wasn't a real test of who was the better sailor. We were very pleased as we managed to find ourselves in a hole with Star & Northern Child and there didn't look like there was going to be a way out. We sat around then for an hour and eventually the wind picked up again to about 8knots and they decided they were going to start the sequence for race 2P, just before the first gun the wind dropped back to 5 knots and they decided to cancel the race. So we popped the cork as it was Jane's birthday and headed back to Falmouth Harbour. That night the crew split. Some went to the Dry Dock to watch the rugby and some of us went to Abra's for dinner. It was after a great meal there that we headed out from the restaurant and into the bar and we started on the Rockstar Colas with alcohol mixers, hmmmmm. Eventually we headed home!

Race 3. The wind had picked up and we were looking at over 12knots, yippee. We flew around the course keeping up with Murka, our hot competition. A few dolphins came along and said hi. Coming in to the dock, we were getting excited as we were quite confident that 2nd was ours and it was only as Matt & I were discussing the Swan 62 with some of the Aera team onboard we realised that 1st was a possibility! And it was 1st place we got. Over the moon, we were like cheshire cats and we made sure we found the Murka crew that night in Abra's! Our first 1st at Antigua Sailing Week, Burn Baby Burn.

Lay day. Most of the crew headed round to Non Such Bay for lunch at Harmony Hall, it was just a special as always although a little sad as it was our last visit of the season. Matt & I then met up with Perky & Tufty on Chippewa for a drink and then we wandered on to the Mongoose for a cheeky nightcap before an early bed.

Race 4, Thursday. We took camera man Pete out on Thursday which made some of the crew a little nervous but we pulled through and got ourselves a 2nd place, being beaten by Murka. The race finished quite early so we met for beers at the Admirals Inn before heading up to Shirley Heights to watch the sunset. A few of us broke away for a very pleasant dinner at the Yacht Club Marina restaurant. We then met up with the others at the Mongoose.

Last Day, we were quite confident we could hold onto our 2nd place but it didn't leave much room for error. The winds were light and it was quite a painful race and a rather disappointing end to the week, nothing like the highs of Tuesday's & Thursday's racing. We took 5th and kept our 2nd place so that was all that really mattered. We then motored in to Falmouth harbour and dropped the hook off of Pigeon beach for the start of Disco's 3rd Annual Champagne Party. We eventually got back into the dock around 3.30, giving Tufty enough time for one last Chocolate Martini before rushing for her flight. We met up a Skullies for a few sharpeners and then headed down to Abra's for dinner. I think they cleared our table around midnight. And we headed off to the dance floor and more rockstar colas! Myself & Naked made it onto the stage first. To be followed by Henry & Emma and then Adam or Ben was there next. It was very funny, I just remember seeing Russell laughing so hard as they did their funky thing on the stage. Coiler, from bangthecorner was crewing on Murka, he would swan over doing his hawaiian dance, shake his thing and then swan off again without even saying a word! Very amusing. A few hours later the tiredness was setting in and it was time to wander on back to Disco.

Saturday was a strange old day with lots of rain, so getting the kit back onto Disco took a lot longer than planned and we missed the afternoon prize giving. Luckily Peter made it, and when they announced Best Crewed Charter Boat, Disco Inferno he went up to collect our prize. The Lord Nelson's Ball was a bit of a wash out and during the prize giving it started to rain. We made it on stage to collect our 2nd prize trophy and had our pictures taken, but the big stage lights had gone out so they didn't come out very well. We then missed the 3 minute highlight video they show of the week as we were being squashed under a shelter. Behind the bar the staff were outnumbered by people looking for somewhere dry. We stayed a while but the week had taken its toll and so we headed home around midnight. Although our crew kept the part alive and ventured off to Abra's after the ball and had some great stories. There are two that stick in my mind, one was a Monkey story about a girl peeing in the urinals, she said she was from Slough and the other was from Emma who was grabbed by the shoulders and the lady shook her saying 'We won, we won!' and spat her tongue out, they named her Mrs Murka, she was quite scary as you can see from the photos and she was in hot pursuit of Ben!

Nothing ever compares to Antigua Sailing Week, bring on 2006!