We finally made it back to Jolly Harbour early this morning and I got a bunch of post up loaded to Sailblogs. Antigua, like much of the Caribbean Islands doesn't really have great internet and if you can get it, it's dreadfully slow and the signal drops off at always the worst time.
As I wrote in my last post, we are getting things tied up for the run to the US Virgin Islands with the hope of taking on early Friday morning(about 0500). It's a 200 mile run and with our new mainsail and a very clean bottom, we hope to make good time. In the past, we were lucky to make 5.5 knots. Recently, we run at over 7 for much of our trips. We plan on checking in at on St. John upon our arrival as we've heard it's very easy there.
We dropped of laundry this morning and can pick it up tomorrow morning so that's off the list. A few more provisions to top off the cabinets. We don't want to buy to much as the US Virgins should be cheaper than here in Antigua.
I'll be going in tomorrow to use some more of the internet we bought so I can get this posted.

When we were in the internet cafe, we asked if they knew a place where we could get lunch that didn't cost a fortune. A simple hamburger meal can cost upwards of $18US. Way out of our budget for a simple burger. The security guard that was visiting the cafe suggested we try the Jolly Castle a short walk down the road. Good food that the locals frequent. We hiked down and thought we found it but we were wrong and as we walked back, a man stuck his head out of a doorway and asked what we were looking for. We told him the Jolly Castle restaurant. Well, it happened to be in the back room of the store he was in. It's not like any restaurant we've been in as it was truly in the back room of a grocery store. Tables set up with clothes and several locals and three women in the back kitchen cooking food. We asked what was available as the manager was writing on the blackboard what they had. Two things stood out--goat curry and baked chicken. We asked the price and it came to just about what I had in my wallet. I told them I'd need to go and get some more money(no credit cards accepted here). She asked me what I had and I told here $40EC. She said fine and tossed in two bottles of water. Lunch for the two of us was under $15US and boy was it great!! The best goat curry of curry I've had(outside of Tracys) in a long time. Tender and very flavorful while Tracys was nice and moist. Both meals came with a spicy rice dish, some mixed veggies, a chunk of bread fruit and a dried sliced yam along with a nice serving of mashed potatoes. We were, needless to say, the only non locals in the place. We couldn't rave enough about the food and finished everything on the plate. The owner/manager was amazed we finished it all. As I was paying for the meal(out in the grocery store), Tracy got a picture of the cook that made the meal. If I can figure out how to get it off her phone, I'll try and add it to the post.

We walked back to do our grocery shopping and stopped in at the internet cafe to check our mail. It was just coming up on 1400 and, well, it was time for a "shift" change from the morning manager. He gets off at 1400 and the afternoon crew shows up at 1500. They would be closed for an hour to take care of closing out the business that was done in the morning. Say what!!! A new shift(one person)change takes an hour and they are closed while doing it?? We walked over to Puff and returned to Zephyr. Since I bought a 24 hour pass($20EC $7.50US) I can come back in the morning and finish what I need to do. They open at 0800 so I expect we will be there shortly after that as we have till about 1100.

We bought a new guide book for the Virgin Islands as the last one we had dated back to 2005 when we were last here and many things have changed since then. National Park fees(most of St. John Island) have gone from $15 to $26 to stay the night on a mooring ball plus many other changes. Tomorrow, we will be picking up our laundry and checking out of Antigua. It should be a nice trip if the weather reports are even close to what is forecast.
the forecast has changed and we are leaving as soon as we get back to Zephyr. Bigger winds are due a bit earlier than was forecast yesterday. We've already checked out and once we get our laundry, we are out of here.