Post Wide Depression.... We sailed back to Bequia with an empty Disco after the departure of the Wides, we kept expecting to see two smiling faces appear with funny stories to tell but they didn't appear. We knew we had to head back to St Lucia which I'm sure was adding to the depression.
We were checking the weather and we realised that we had to make a move the following day otherwise we'd be in Bequia another week, which as nice as it would have been we needed to start making tracks. We sailed straight up to Marigot Bay where we had spent Christmas Day, we were surprised that it didn't seem as nice but then having seen the beautiful places that were in the Grenadines of course it wasn't going to be as nice. Heading up to Rodney Bay was pleasant and we anchored in the main bay outside the marina. Our task here was to collect our new boom. After many phone calls over a few days we eventually tracked it down to an airport and set out to collect it, having been sent to the wrong airport first then waiting two hours for customs to release it we finally got the thing back to the boat. Well, I've never known so many unhelpful people on one island, no wonder we didn't want to go back there! We decided to venture off the boat one evening for a BBQ at a local bar, we heard about how a man had been shot on his doorstep the night before by theives, a boat had been robbed two nights previous to that and that day a woman had thrown herself in front of a friend's car because she couldn't afford to put her son through school, and the travel guides call this paradise??? We left StLucia with a hope of if we have to return it will be for minimum time.
Martinque greeted us with open arms, we stayed in St Pierre which is at the bottom of St Pele. St Pele last erupted 100 years ago and killed over 30,000 people, the residents of St Pierre, with its poisonous boiling gases. The following morning we headed up to South Dominica, we stopped in the town of Roseau. A cruise ship was in the following morning and the whole town was waiting for them to sell tours, t-shirts and souvenirs, it was chaos. That afternoon we headed round to Portsmouth, where we met the friendliest boat boys yet. That night we were woken with a bang as a sailing boat infront of us had dragged its anchor back and hit us. Matt luckily caught the skipper on deck and asked him if he was going to move the boat after the second time it happened.
We got up early the following morning for our sail to Guadaloupe, it was a very strange day as we had to motor most of the 40nmiles we had to travel due to uncharacterisically light winds. We finally made it to Deshaies a nice secluded bay with good anchoring. We managed to sleep most of the way through the night but were woken in the morning by a woman screaming and shouting. It was FruityFruits a 67ft yacht that came over with us on the ARC and they had managed to get our anchor line wrapped around their prop, what a palava, it gave Matt his earliest snorkel of the trip. When she had calmed down a little and we'd cut our anchor rope free, she turned out to be very nice and we pulled the disco alongside and had morning tea with them plus a guided tour round their boat. By 8.30AM we were on our way to Antigua, chuckling about the morning's goings on. We arrived in English Harbour, Antigua and were not very impressed when we could not set the anchor. this led to another night of little sleep and we moved to another anchorage the following morning. Now having been here for four days we've settled in nicely and are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Sian and James on Wednesday, we've also been checking out Falmouth marina. Oh my goodness, Matt and I walked down the dock with our jaws on the floor. First we saw Leander, the biggest bluest powerboat ever seen, then Endeavour, one of the America's Cup J Class, then next door but one, Shamrock V, another J Class, then on the end of the dock was Mari Cha III, what a collection.
Its three weeks now until our first regatta in St Martin and we are very excited about getting ourselves and the Disco out there. In Antigua she is already quite well known and we've had tenders passing by doing the dance and one even sung the song....just wait until they see the spinnaker...
Revised -- Tuesday 12th February 2002
Carry on with Life in Antigua
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