Return to Django

So here we are. I haven't posted since our arrival because it has been rather busy, but here's some of what's been going on.

We arose at 4 a.m. on Saturday, in Montreal and, 12 hours later, we were on the Nelson Dockyard pier being greeted by the amiable Terry who loaded us into his dinghy and ferried us over to Django. He cared for her in our absence and she looked remarkably well, snuggled into the mangroves with a litany of anchors to keep her safe.

Once on board, of course, we discovered all the stuff that needed to be fixed. We launched Boffo from the foredeck where she had been sheeted down to keep her safe in the event of a blow. As we had no gas for her outboard, we paddled her over to the refuelling dock, but everything was closed. WW called on his intrepid genes and loaded Lady (or Tramp) with a very small gas can and proceeded to kayak off into the distance. He reappeared soon after with a very small amount of gas. Still, more than enough till Monday when the shops would open. And plenty for establishing that Boffo's outboard was poorly -- coughing, wheezing, near-death experiences.

We had been invited to a meeting of the Royal Navy Tot Club of Antigua and Barbuda but, due to early boat prep and gasping outboard (and first mate's getting the time wrong) we were too late. We did however join the members still at the bar in Life Bar and Grill, just down the road. We left soon after for dinner at a very nice place called Trappa's where we had his and hers grouper (his: grilled, hers: fried). It is lovely to be back in the land of the grouper...an admirable fish!

Sunday morning we headed into English Harbour to see if we could pick up a few provisions. The off-season is still going, so we found things that will be open all the time all winter are still in a semi-dormant state. The grocery store will open on Sundays starting in a week's time. Naturally. We did stop in at a very typical tiny shop selling the essentials...bottled water, mayonnaise, a limited selection of fresh fruit (we got tomatoes, limes, grapefruit, bananas), and bags of in-the-shell roasted peanuts which turned out to be tiny and very delicious.

On our return to the boat, WW started rigging the jib. This always requires a bit of doing and redoing. It goes onto a furler so it has to be wound up and unwound and it is absolutely critical the he do some section of the work backwards. He really outdid himself in that we had the jib up and furled before he realized he had it reversed and we had to take the whole mess down and start over from scratch.

In other joyful news, the head is being a trial. It sits sullenly in its little compartment and suffers from a severe reflux condition. This has resulted in WW saying "feck" a lot and trying to think of ways to avoid taking the whole thing apart. His latest idea was to find a giant stopper and just cork the bugger. I said I was not looking forward to the midnight explosion that might result. He said, "Feck."

Tucked in among the mangroves is a very nice safe place to be during hurricane season, but it is hot, buggy and airless. It was time to move. Two of Django's anchors were so firmly embedded in the muck that we decided to put a buoy on their chains and come back for them later.

We headed across the harbour to a very nice anchorage with a good bottom. Now, just a few details about how our anchor works. It hangs from the middle of the bar that connects our two bows and its chain feeds back over the windlass, through a small hole, into the chain locker. By slacking off on the windlass, I can tip the anchor into the water and, in theory, the chain rattles out after it. Unless the chain has sat, moistly, rusting happily for several months. Then little nuggets of rusted-together links arrive at the small hole, grin impishly and have a little palaver. These need to be dealt with firmly. A hammer does wonders. However, it does slow the anchor dropping down, not to mention making a foul mess of the foredeck which gets coated with rust shards. So we drifted. The anchorage being somewhat crowded, this wasn't really good. So WW finally decided we should pull up our anchor and try again in a slightly different spot. As we weighed anchor and started to move to the new position, we heard frantic shouting and saw we had managed to pick up another boat's anchor chain and were pulling the boat along behind us. Fortunately, a fellow heading past in a dinghy stopped and cleared the foul, but not before the other boat had been dragged well out of its original position.

Blush.

We finally decided to cross to another anchorage with not so good a bottom. It took a couple of tries to get the anchor set but at last we could relax, have a nice RP and head over to Life for our first ever tot with the Tot Club. (Don't worry, I'll be providing details later.)

We dined at a truly wonderful pizzeria, complete with wood-burning oven. Thin crusts, yummy choices and excellent spicy oil. Then it was back to Django to collapse in preparation for exigencies yet to come.