10 December 2002
Our last 4 days before the off were busier than we imagined but it was all good fun.
Matt & Anna went to collect Tash at the airport, while Karen and I stayed onboard making dinner and testing the wine!! The three of them passed through Puerto Carmen in search of the 70s Disco Memorabilia Shop, unfortunately their search was unsuccessful so the Disco is still without afro wigs!
Tash arrived with the smallest kit bag but it was the most tightly packed and incredibly heavy! We enjoyed an evening chatting round the table and talked through the week's programme.
Wednesday was the Sea Survival seminar and I think I can safely say from the stories I heard back from the girls, it was absolute chaos. Anna volunteered to jump into one of the liferafts, flares were going off in all directions and the people she was in the liferaft with were trying to shut the doors, luckily she stopped them, as she had learnt on her survival course to keep the air flowing through to stop seasickness. That night we went to the Hotel Princess Yaiza for dinner. It was a really fun dinner and we got to sit with Tim Thomas from Yachting World who clearly took a shine to Karen! After dinner it was back to the bar for a few cocktails. Somehow lisa was allowed to order the first round and surprise, surprise it contained rum & orange! So it then seemed to become a challenge to order the most disgusting cocktail on the menu! Matt and I left leaving the three girls to continue partying!
Thursday was the day I had to say goodbye to my mum & auntie, they came over lunchtime and we dropped them back at their villa in time to get their transfer to the airport. I can't deny it, I cried! It was so good to spend sometime with my mum & auntie that when they said goodbye it was really sad to think I wouldn't be seeing them again until June 2003.
After leaving them, Matt and I went off to the supermarket to get more provisions for the trip. On leaving the supermarket we unfortunately took a wrong turn and it took us an extra hour to get back. We unloaded the car as quickly as possible, as the Caribbean Party was due to start in 30 minutes. The girls tried to get Matt to go have a drink while unloading the car but he wasn't having any of it, they were saying something about somebody wanting to meet him. He told me about it when he brought the bits down to the boat that I was stowing. Matt jumped in the shower as I continued to unpack, then the girls arrived back on the boat giggling away like only they know how..... Then Anna asked if I'd go ondeck as there was a skipper that wanted to meet us, I was like 'Now, its 8pm, can't they come back tomorrow?' So reluctantly I went on deck and Matt's parents were sitting there grinning from ear to ear, I almost cried again, for the second time that day. Waiting for Matt to come out of the shower seemed to take forever, and when he eventually came ondeck he was stunned to see his mum & dad sitting there, when he finally overcame his shock he hugged them both! They had come to surprise us and had missed us by minutes when we left with my mum, so they had waited 4 hours for us! We wandered up to the party and then we went on to have some dinner. It was so lovely to see them.
Friday was crazy day onboard, Matt and I got up early and took the hire car back, went in search of US dollars and were unsuccessful, bought a few final items and then back to Disco where the safety briefing started onboard and the watch system was finally revealed...
Matt and I wandered into town early evening to order the chinese takeaway for our first night at sea, when arriving back on Disco Matt managed to drop the bag and it was chinese all over the dock, I didn't cry this time!! We cleaned up the mess and decided we probably still had enough left so it would be fine. We then wandered back along the sea path to the restaurant of choice for that night's dinner, our last meal on dry land until the other side. We were also eating with the six crew members of Intuition and Matt's parents so it was huge party. There was a musician playing the piano for most of the evening and then moved onto the saxophone, it was a thoroughly relaxing evening.
Saturday morning came round quickly and passed faster than we could make lunch and wash the floor one last time! Then came the rain, so we sat downstairs while waiting for it to pass, Matt's parent's went off to buy us ice-creams for our last chocolate fix, or so the girls believed! Then it was all crew on deck in Disco shirts for our last pictures as pasty people! It was quite some photo shoot! Intuition was one of the first boats to leave the marina and we blasted our fog horn as a farewell, good luck gesture, it suddenly all began feeling very real. We said our goodbyes to Colin & Rhiannon, and they ran off to get on the press boat to wave us all the way out. So it was off with the mooring lines, fenders stowed and Disco Inferno blaring out of the speakers and we danced our way out of the marina. The excitement was electrifying, contagious, we were ready to rock.
Antigua, we're coming to get you.....
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