Buk, Buk, Buk.... To have my school friends come here to see us meant so much to me, it was soooo good to see them, catch up on the gossip and to be reminded quite how crazy they are. Even though they were a day late!
On the Monday, Matt and I took the bus to see them, we went and had lunch on the beach and then spent the afternoon chatting on the beach. We were joined by Valentino, who they introduced to us as they had met him the day before, Valentino is a local Antiguan who's real name is Lionel Valentino Borrington Price, with rasta name 'The Piper'. He likes to talk in rhymes and the girls were going to teach him rhyming slang if they met him again! He took a real shine to Sara who became his butterfly, Lucy his Pinky Girl, Matt his Pinky Boy, Natasha his grand speaker and I was just the one with the sharp tongue? After a dip in the sea, we headed back to their villa to get ready to go to English Harbour. The bus journeys were just as expected and had music about Jesus blairing out from all speakers, it was a real catchy tune. Dinner that night was in Trappas with a few beers.
The following day we left the girls to their own devices as we spent the day in English Harbour and a last supper with Lorna who was flying home the following day. We said our goodbyes around midday as we were taking both Disco and El Syd to Jolly Harbour. At the weekend we were delivering El Syd to Tortola to be put on a ship home. As we opened the hatch to El Syd we were greeted with a foul smell which was traced to the head, the charters had kindly left a bowl full of wee for us, and where it had been locked up for almost a week in this heat, oh it makes my stomach churn! We decide to deal with it later and head off to Jolly harbour with both the Disco and the Syd.. Not a quick trip, it took some three hours and the girls were expecting us for lunch! We arrived in Jolly Harbour at 6pm and put both boats on moorings. Now off to the villa for a BBQ - yay. Matt and I were so relieved to be there and put the El Syd wee problem behind us for the night and tucked into a fat BBQ prepared by the girls.
The following morning we picked the girls up and took them aboard Disco for their sail to Deep Bay, Lucy felt a bit sick but I think she still enjoyed herself, we listened to S-Club, drank tea and admired the island. Then Tash and Sara jumped in for a swim, Sara managed to find the only jellyfish in the Caribbean which luckily didn't sting her. Then we motored back round to Jolly Harbour, the girls went back to the villa, while Matt and I got onto El Syd and took her into the Marina, it all went very smoothly, with ARC Europe having left the day before the Marina was looking quite empty. So already it was the girls last night. We went to the Managers Rum Punch Party, where they even served hot nibbles which were extremely tasty. When the rum had run out, we moved on to the Dogwatch Tavern. Sara and Tasha kept on the rum while Lucy, Matt and I went onto Carib, the safer option. Suddenly we were playing drinking games starting with 'Say g'day to Bruce, Bruce' which was only so good because Sara and Natasha were steaming by then and I seemed to be following them, we gave up as Lucy never got it wrong and from somewhere the chicken came was created??? I can't explain it as you need the actions too, but all you have to say is 'Buk' or 'Buk Buk' or 'Buk Buk Buk', somehow it kept us amused and we took over 20 photos that night?? The guy on the next table was paying far more attention to us than his girlfriend but that might have been 'cos Tasha flashed her knickers! Matt then persuaded some local guys that Sara and Natasha were great at darts and challenged them to a game, the girls actually won! However it all went down hill from there. I remeber playing pool and I was swipping at the air above the white ball! We certainly showed them a thing or two! By 2AM we couldn't possibly entertain everyone anymore, the black zambucca was last drink and when that tastes good you know its time to go home!!
Oh, the following morning, Matt went off to the airport to collect El Syd's missing dinghy and sail. the girls called me over the walkie talkie about 9.30AM, I slowly dragged myself over there and we ventured out for breakfast. The day was lost as well as their money, which has now re-appeared since unpacking. Matt eventually got back at 3pm after the usual dramas of having to pay everyone they told you to, to stamp or sign various papers. We said goodbye to the girls at 6PM and headed home to bed.
Saturday brought the joys of emptying El Syd's storage locker, which was a dinghy journey, a walk across a yard and up a flight of stairs, my arms and legs ached by the end of it all. Poor El Syd she was definately in need of some TLC. We piled all the gear on no doubt with a few extra roaches as the locker was infested. We then received the good news that the ship was leaving next Friday which gave us an extra day and seeing that customs now seems to be open their own summer hours was probably a good thing. Sunday was spent catching up on e-mails, trying to work out why ElSyds engine wouldn't start and preparing the food for our trip as the kitchen was a no go area. we received an e-amil from Lucy saying they had had a nightmare journey home. A 20 year old guy had consumed a bottle of rum on the plane and was sitting behind Lucy, he broke her headrest, irritated the hell out of them and the poor young girl who was next to him, the stewardesses were just ignoring him and finally gave him a warning, then an old man collapsed so the young guy was able to start causing havoc again!
Monday morning and still no hope of starting the Syd's engine as the starter motor was totally dead, we were towed out of the Marina, and hoisted the jib at the entrance, we had decided that it would probably be best to go straight through the night. We were hitting 6kmots with just the jib, so while I was getting used to the boat we left the mainsail down. It wasn't till late in the afternoon that we put up the mainsail. It was amazing how much larger the sails were and with only the two of us were quite an effort to get up. We were averaging 8knots immediately and I think it was shortly after that that my hysteria set in. Matt had gone downstairs to put on the navigation lights, the ones you need for other boats to see you, well guess what, they didn't work!!! Oh my goodness, not only am I going to have to drive this thing at night but run the risk of not being seen. We considered altering our course, if we headed up we'd be in StMartin in 2hours but then we'd have the drama of getting the sails down and having to put them back up again in the morning, I agreed to go though the night. I think the maximum I steered for was 30minutes, most times I'd manage 15 and I'd be petrified. I couldn't make out the horizon between the sea and sky and powering along at 9.5knots was like driving a car at 90miles an hour with your eyes shut. Around 4AM we passed another sailing vessel, and with a cruise ship heading our way we called them up to give our position and course. The boat we had just passed replied saying he thought we were near him, Matt told him we'd just shot past him, he was quite determined we hadn't as he'd been keeping a good watch out, he then said he was doing 6.5knots so we must be going much faster than that!!!
Morning finally arrived, and eventually we arrived into the Francis Drake Channel, we dropped the main and sailed across to Road Harbour with just the jib, on arrival the nightmare was about to start again as no one was available to tow us into the Marina. An hour later, after lots of chat and us just hove to in the entrance of the harbour, they gave us the go ahead to sail in, we were greeted by two dinghys who attached lines to us and brought us in, they were relieved to see we were a race boat so lighter to manuover. They ran us aground while trying to put us into a berth! They managed to tug us off and put us somewhere else. After being harrassed by immigration about not having flights back to our own country, she agreed we could fly to Antigua! Next stop a hotel, El Syd has a blue hull and the heat inside was quite something and being infested with roaches, a hotel was much in need.
It was the first time we've slept in a bed since early October and we even had cable TV and watched an episode of Nash Bridges! That evening we bumped into some people from home, who are now friends, they are working on a charter boat, the next day we went and had a nose around. We flew back to Antigua that night and are happy to be back. We've moved Disco back to English Harbour, where we'll stay for the next few weeks.
Revised -- Tuesday 21st May 2002
Carry on to No Man's Land
Back to Fluffy's Cruising Diary