Saturday, 9 August 2014

Week 34 August 3 - 9 2014


Antigua is an extremely popular and well known yachting destination. There are many beautiful anchorages, Antigua Sailing Week and for its history – English Harbour.

Mel and I spent 10 days in Antigua in December 2012 – we actually spent Christmas Day at Nelsons Dockyard, in English Harbour.

Falmouth and English Harbour are well protected ports and have been used to protect ships/boats from Hurricanes since 1745. In 1789, English Harbour was Britain’s main naval port in the Lesser Antilles.

Information taken from Chris Doyle’s The Cruising Guide to the Leeward Islands – 13 edition.

“In 1784, Horatio Nelson was stationed here under Sir Richard Hughes, who had recently blinded himself in one eye while chasing a cockroach with a fork. Later, Nelson took over as naval commander but he did not enjoy Antigua and did not get on well with the Governor General - Governor General Shirley (after who Shirley Heights is named) or the plantocracy who did not like the way Nelson insisted on enforcing the Navigation Act. This meant he kept the port closed to trade for all but British ships. “

Nelson’s Dockyard is named after Nelson – obviously.

Sunday was a lazy day spent on the boat and going to the local beach.

The celebrations for Jouvert actually start at 3.00am!!! We decided we would be at the bus stop by 7.00am to catch a bus into St Johns to see some of the celebrations.

We arrived in St Johns just after 7.00am to find it throbbing with extremely loud music and hordes of people drinking and dancing in a parade down the main street of St Johns – Market Street. We found a place to watch and observe the whole festivities – well it was an eye opener as we felt that it was just a public orgy. The “dance” moves were not dance moves – I am not trying to be a prude but they looked more like a  few positions out of the book of Kamasutra.

We stayed and watched for about 2 hours before heading back to the boat.

The rest of the day was spent doing domestics on the boat.

The Jouvert festivities take place over two days – Monday and Tuesday. Each day the festivities start at 3.00am, continue until about 10.00am, then the participants change into “elaborate” costumes for another street parade later in the day – starting at about 2.00pm.

We decided we would go back into St Johns on Tuesday afternoon to watch the street parade.

See photos below.

The rest of the week was spent on the boat cleaning, fixing and catching up with the many chores that had to be done. We went for walks on the lovely beach close by, going out for dinner at Shells, an outdoor restaurant that has a London double decker bus where if you want to, you can sit and have your meal. They serve English food – great fish and chips!

At the marina there is also cable T.V. which has been great as I have watch a bit of cricket and tennis and a “few” of my favourite T.V. series.

The weather hasn’t been great either as we have had quite a few days of rain but then again it is the tropics.

Our plans are as follows – Sunday, the weather looks good for us to leave Jolly Harbour Marina and head south and then east to Falmouth Harbour and English Harbour where we intend anchoring until next week Thursday or Friday when the weather looks good for us to sail south to Guadeloupe.

As you can see this week has been a week of chores on the boat – not that exciting.

Until next time – take care, keep well

Love

Captain Mel and Admiral Caryn/xx