Catching Up

I'd like to say I've been so frantically busy, I haven't had time to post. Truth is, however, I have been lazy. WW, on the other hand, has been frantically busy and the boat is now ready to sally forth on her next series of adventures.

Trampoline back in place.

The trampoline is back in place, the rewound electromagnetic clutch has been installed in our big autopilot, and a fancy fishing pole has appeared in a holder on our port side aft. (One evening we actually went fishing, just outside the cut. WW motored about in Boffo while I trolled. He swears we had a strike. Yeah, sure. Whatever.) The rigging is all in place with jib and main neatly in their furlers and lines stowed neatly. All shipshape and Bristol fashion we are.

WW spotted a large Danforth anchor in the garbage dump and, with some local help, got it moved to the beach beside the dinghy dock. There he hammered away at it with a cold chisel since it was completely seized up. Once he got it moving again, he brought it out to where we lie, in Tot Club Corner just under a hill that provides blessed shade at about 3:30 every day. We now have a mooring. For those who don't know what that is, it is a fixed place to come to in the harbour. We have a friend who will use it in our absence so it will not be taken up by some unknown member of the Great Unwashed. There are no recognised moorings in English Harbour, so you have to defend yours valiantly.

WW would like to beef up our mooring's weight.
Here he's trying to get some really big chain.
The guy on the table is our friend the water taxi driver.

We also pulled out all the sails we have never looked at before. There were three: a sort of storm jib, a huge light spinnaker, and a common or garden jib. This last we lashed up over the foredeck. It was a bit of a hodgepodge mess, but it gave us a taste for the cool and air of a shaded deck. WW headed over to the sailmaker and was given a rubbish spinnaker which we are in the process of converting to an awning. Much painful forcing of needles with waxed thread through layers of ripstop nylon. Thank heaven for the sailmaker's palm and pliers.

We had our friends Peter and Sam (Joy) and Bob and Carol (Rubens) on board for dinner. Bob and Carol returned the favour and we had a delicious spaghetti dinner on Rubens...and perhaps just a leetle too much rum.

The next day we went up to the hills to have dinner with the Tot Chair Mike and his wife Anne in their brand new, absolutely gorgeous house. Of course I forgot the camera. It was roast leg of lamb, cooking to a glowing turn of pinkly goodness, with all the trimmings. Including, brussel sprouts. On Antigua. Who knew?

Tot Club members at the Waterfront Bar for the tot:
Moya, Carol, Bob, Mike, Sam (and WW in the back there).

Today we are going to take Django over to the Slipway to fill her tanks and refuel her. Then a garbage dumping, food gathering run over to Dockside market. We head off on Friday for Guadeloupe where we will meet up with our seasoned sailing companions Dana and Enn. A couple of weeks exploring yet more of Caribbean Europe will be fun. We need to lay in puncheons of rum since all we'll be able to get there is rhum -- best used for engine degreasing.

I promise to take more pictures and write more often.