We collected Jacqui, Glenda's sister and after a day of provisioning we set off to do a tour of the anchorages of Antigua. First we went to Deep Bay, then Carlisle Bay, where we had sundowners on board Lilli the 62ft yacht from our rally Then on to Falmouth harbour from where we went to the Sunday night jump up at Shirley Heights, overlooking Nelson's Dockyard. Several rum punches were downed here and we were glad we took a taxi back. Whilst in Falmouth harbour at anchor the wind turned to the West (unheard of) and this caused some excitement as yachts here are not used to turning like we do at home in tidal waters. We survived this and then moved on to Carlisle Bay and then round to Nonsuch Bay where we picked up a buoy just behind the pelican colony on Bird Island. It was here we were invited on to an Oyster 62, La Luna of London to see how the other half lives!
The weather was showing signs of breaking up so we moved from Nonsuch Bay and went back to Carlisle Bay before coming back to Jolly Harbour and picking up one of their mooring buoys. We wanted a secure mooring as we had booked to do a day trip to Barbuda on the express ferry. This was a bumpy ride in 20 knot winds but once there we were taken to the caves, frigate bird colony and then a beachside meal and swim. I nearly died on the skiff ride across the lagoon to the frigate birds as the lagoon is about 2 feet deep with quite a chop in the 20 knot winds, and with a 60HP outboard pushing us on the boat was rising and then crashing down on the surf. I was lucky to come back with a spine still where it was meant to be. The beaches on Barbuda are amazing, mile after mile of deserted sand, they have so much that they export it. Anyway after a swim we returned to St.John and then back to Jolly Harbour. The next two days were spent exploring the island in a hire car and then on the Friday we took Jacqui back to the airport for her return to the UK. We moved into the marina to do this and have stayed there all week whlie the rain, squalls and strong winds have battered us.
Our friends on Inga, who we towed to St.Anne in Martinique, had to have a new engine as the problem with starting was seawater ingress. We hope to see them around the coming weekend as we move on towards Nevis. They have some new watermaker brushes for me as my refurbished ones failed after an hour. We were also fortunate to find a part for our forward heads, which developed a bad leak due to a hairline crack in the part connecting the bowl to the pump( nasty). so that is fixed now. Needless to say the generator is still U/S but what else would we expect. So we are hunkering down until the weekend when all the bad weather should have passed.