We left Hermitage Bay to sail down around the south end of Antigua and up into Nonsuch Bay to spend some time with Banyan and to meet up with Henrik and Signe on Capibara. It was very good to see them!

Nonsuch is a large bay with many smaller bays and anchorages. The busiest, behind Green Island, has mooring balls and a small beach daily covered with kite-boarding gear. One day there were 15 kite-boarders out buzzing around! So colorful and pretty. It did get a little too busy and windy though, so we moved to anchor briefly for a lovely lunch at Heritage Hill with Banyans’ Dave, Alex, Bill and Darren, and then tucked into the mangroves in Cloverleaf Bay. We spent a quiet, peaceful, relaxing few days there visiting with Capibara, resting Roberta’s knee and snorkeling (M only). Roberta also got all the stainless polished and gleaming.

Then we headed back to Falmouth to get ready for Roberta’s brother David and his wife Elaine to arrive and spend two weeks with us, and for Antigua Classics Race Week. WOW! What a party! Antigua Classics is a week-long indulgence of beautiful old or replica sailboats, rum, exiting racing, rum, music, rum, friends from across the Caribbean, rum, and oh, did we mention rum? Mt. Gay and Panerai are generous sponsors.

Cruiser volunteers are the wheels that help it all happen. Antigua Classics acts as a big draw that brings us all together near the end of the season. What fun! Roberta worked Hospitality for 5 days and Michael was a dinghy tugboat (“dinghy wrangler”) to, as Roberta put it, “get the old girls out of their slips!” Actually, he and five other guys in inflatables helped the boats in and out of their marina berths as many don’t have engines, or have teeny, tiny props, or don’t have reverse. Roberta set up the Hospitality room, distributed volunteer t-shirts, stuffed owner and Captain gift bags, met all the Captains as they checked in, distributed info, etc. This worked out really well, because she was able to get her brother David on as crew on two boats for the races. Very high on his life wish list!

Mistress is a 60’, two-masted, gaff-rigged schooner built in 1930, owned by Glenn McCormick – coincidentally a Naval Academy graduate! Eleda is a 45’ Bermuda Sloop, built at home in 1992 by Ross Gannon (of Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway in Martha’s Vineyard) for his family. Both owner-Captains and their families were very gracious, very generous… and David had the time of his life sailing in the 20-30k breeze. Said it was his best sailing ever, and he is an experienced offshore racer! Unfortunately, after a wonderful day with a “very cohesive crew” Mistress cracked her mast, and could not complete the races, which is when David moved over to Eleda to have much fun with that lovely family. And Eleda won her class!

Elaine volunteered for three mornings with Roberta, and then they would head up the hill overlooking the race course to watch. With a hand-held radio tuned to the Committee Boat channel, it was pretty interesting, sometimes very funny.
“Ahhhh, Race Committee, was there one horn or two at the start?”
“Just the one.”
“Were any boats over the line early?”
“Yes, two.”
“May I assume we were one of those?”
“That would be correct!”

The Committee Boat was a classic itself… an old tug called the Flying Buzzard, currently being restored, which we all fondly called the Rusty Buzzard.

Each night there were parties – either at Antigua Yacht Club, a local bar, or on the dock. There were “Red Cap” parties sponsored by Mt Gay where purchase of a specific amount of rum would earn a red hat or a t-shirt; free Prosecco, etc. sponsored by Panerai; and a Sail Maine night with free dark and stormies and lobster chowder. On Good Friday, it is against the law in Antigua to sell alcohol, so the cruisers put on their own party – a concert provided by Dave and Trudy from Persephone on top of trawler Bodacious, and a dinghy raft-up and “sundowner” - everyone brought their own drinks and hors de ouvres to share and tied up behind the trawler. We had almost 50 dinghies tied up!

Well, after all that fun, we needed a break. So when Race Week ended, we headed up to Barbuda for a very quiet couple of days, then to St Barth’s for great snorkeling with turtles, a couple of hikes, and music on Celilo with Steve and Eva from Music, and finally to St. Maarten to deliver David and Elaine to their flight home.

We arrived to discover we were in time for the Carnival Parade in Philipsburg. So we hopped on a local bus and had a long, hot, fun day watching scantily clothed and very feathered characters in between about 20 flatbeds of very loud live bands – gave new definition to what we think of as a parade band!!!

Now we are waiting for weather to head south, watching planes land over Maho Beach from infamous Sunset Bar, and eating French pastry!