Day 12 Antigua

One of the British Leeward Islands, roughly 12 miles in diameter and boasting over 350 beaches, it was not colonised by the British until 1632 and is the place where Nelson refitted his fleet chasing Admiral Villeneuve, which ended at the Battle of Trafalgar.  Antigua gained full independence in 1981.  Like many Caribbean islands, sugar is no longer a major export item, it’s now tourism and to a lesser degree bananas and pineapples.

Up early again to watch the ship slide up the channel and berth in the port at St John’s.  Somehow or another the German ship that left Tortola after us was already alongside and to make matters worse there was a huge Tui liner berthed up as well.  Anyway Captain Carr from Wigan did another magnificent job of bringing us alongside without so much as a nudge – top marks.

We were also relived that we had not been boarded overnight by Jonny and the pirates – Depp that is, not Kidd – I think he died long ago. 

It was time to attend a meeting of the full English club in the restaurant, before going ashore for a tour around the island.  We were soon accosted by a buxom Antiguan lady taxi driver, with whom you would not want to say no to her offer of a tour round the island.  You may just as well go with the first one that verbally grabs you as they all have similar vehicles and all charge the same price and all go to the same places.  However, this one turned out to be very different.  Having press ganged the appropriate number of passengers; we head off to a back street where all the minibuses are parked.  We all get in and that’s as far as we got – it wouldn’t start.  There was either a flat battery, a loose terminal on the battery or the starter motor was stuck.  The temperature in the minibus was increasing rapidly as we were parked in full blazing sunshine.  She seemed to have a way with words and soon had some of the other taxi drivers asking how high, when she asked them to jump.  A set of jump leads materialised from another taxi and yet another one pulled up alongside us, ready to connect up. Regrettably, this was not going to happen as he was blocking the road and an emergency ambulance wanted to get through.  Our driver’s way with words carried no weight against the wailing sirens and the taxi had to back away from us. Eventually he managed to connect the jump leads, but still no life in the engine. The unanimous diagnosis was a sticking starter motor, so a number of taxi drivers were seconded into pushing duties, whilst we, in true British tradition,  just sat there getting hotter .  Bingo, after a short push the engine roared into life and we were on our way.  Whether we would get back before the ship sailed was another matter.  It has to be said that the passengers on this tour were a great bunch and in particular a widower from Scunthorpe, who I’m convinced owns a B&B.  Her repartee and quick wittedness was second to none.  Anyway, we got as far as Nelson’s Dockyard and a group of 5 Germans suddenly became additional passengers. One of them had an excellent command of English and our sense of humour.  He and the widower kept us in stitches, until 4 of them got out at one of the stunning beaches en route.  We’ve done the tour before, but Antigua is one of our favourite Islands.

Arriving back on board about 1.30, we popped in for a buffet lunch before heading back out into St John’s for a short walk.  The temperatures topped 30 degrees C today, so the walk was perhaps not quite as long as we had anticipated.  Maureen had her usual afternoon nap and I opted for an hour or so on the sun deck, before a sharp shower of rain stopped play.  We then both went up on deck to see us sail off into the sunset, leaving the two German ships alongside.

At 7.30pm we have travelled 24 nm from Antigua and have some 209 nm to go to Casteries in St Lucia.  The temperature is a healthy 28 deg C and the wind is blowing at 28 knots.  The sea state is slight and we are currently steaming at 16 knots.

Another superb menu at dinner this evening and we thought that the Welsh eating machine was in trouble and he was going to fall at the consumé course.  However, he swiftly made up for it by devouring two sirloin steaks, but faltered again at the cheese and biscuits.

After dinner we all went to watch a Simply Red tribute band, but regrettably Mick Hucknall was not a patch on Elton John the other evening.

Another early start tomorrow as we will be picking up the pilot at 07.00 for the run into  the port of Casteries on the island of St Lucia.