CURACAO

To think that outside this lagoon the waves are five feet high, with white crests, leaves us a little bewildered about an anchorage in the Caribbean, since most anchorages are quite rolly. This anchorage, Spanish Water in Curacao, is more like being in a lake. Indeed the entrance from the sea is only about fifty yards wide and is nearly half a mile long between conglomerate rocks surmounted by mangrove bushes. The winding channel is sometimes forty feet in depth and sometimes only eleven feet and some fair sized yachts, (up to 70’) seem to make it into the anchorage.

The ‘lake’ consists of a considerable number of low sided fjords,( 20 to 30 feet high) each about a third of a mile long by 150 yards wide, surrounded by beautiful low rise houses. Each of these has a lake frontage of about 100 feet and usually has a concrete walled, painted, Dutch style, house perched just above the water, with a dock to the front. We are fortunate enough to be tied to one of these docks at the invitation of Cor and Marjolein Von Aanholt who live here and who have been very hospitable. We met Cor in Antigua two years ago when Will and Cor served on the international jury together for Antigua Sailing Week.

While Cor and Marjolein and their four children were away on holiday we have been looking after their three dogs, two Red Setters and a Jack Russell Terrier. Of course the Jack Russell rules the pack! Now that Cor and Marjolein have returned from their months holiday, we no longer walk the dogs, which is a shame.

. The buildings look Dutch because indeed they are. Curacao is part of the Dutch Antilles and, although independent of Government , still operates under the crown of Holland, and has done so for four hundred years. The main town, Willemstad, has a very Hanseatic League feel to its water front and was a great trading port and slave entrepot during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It has a wonderful floating bridge which is pulled aside when one of the many tankers or container ships wishes to pass a mile inland to the huge oil refinery and Freeport contained within a large lagoon in the interior.

There is an excellent museum here dedicated to the sophisticated and war like nature of African Culture during the eighteenth century, as well as to the abhorrent slave trade. Fortunately the slave trade is no longer with us, but Africa still seems to be at war with itself. Perhaps it is about time that mankind realised it is much more profitable to educate, and live by consensus, than to maim and kill. Perhaps our younger generation can do something about this. Certainly our present politicians appear to be ignorant of the fact.

The people of Curacao are every colour people could be. Although Curacao was a large slave market, not many Africans were slaves on the island, the past population being mostly Dutch or Dutch Jews escaping from persecution in Europe. Willemstad has the oldest practising synagogue in the Caribbean or South America. (275 years old). The Government of the country therefore appears quite balanced, although some of the Opposition parties talk of total independence from Holland. This has a number of the population wondering whether there will be any further money from the European Community for roads and infrastructure, and other things. They are right, there wouldn’t be, which is probably why the population voted in a recent referendum for autonomy for the island under the Dutch crown, and they are still discussing the money! Sensible people on Curacao! We have just had a power cut which seems to happen with great regularity. Perhaps the European Community isn’t putting the money in exactly the right places!

Curacao is a beautiful island about 35 miles long by 5 miles wide. The sun shines most of the time and the puffy trade wind clouds, and occasional thunderstorms, flow by overhead. The winds are almost always between 10 and 25 knots from the east, although very occasionally the Tropical systems and land mass in South America cause a light south westerly airstream for a few days. There have only been two hurricanes near here in the last hundred years which apparently puts it out of the hurricane belt. Certainly none of the cruising yachts here seem to be concerned. There are perhaps two hundred cruising yachts either at anchor or in the small marinas around Spanish Water. At least half of them are local boats, including one dragon, Deva, which sits in a marina.

There are over a hundred optimists, originally inspired to race by our friend Cor, and thirty sunsails (a bit like an older longer laser) of which Cor used to be World Champion. The inland water is ideal for small dinghies and there seems to be a considerable amount of coaching going on for the weenies! No wonder Cor’s daughter has just become Ladies World Champion in the ‘Splash’ Class (a little bit like a more modern, smaller, laser). It really seems that Spanish Water in Curacao is almost idyllic from a yachtsman’s point of view. Some people stay here on their yachts the year round.

We are allowed 90 days stay by immigration without seeking an extension to our welcome, but we are in fact leaving on Friday. We are going to Bonaire for the diving (it is apparently one of the best dive islands in the world) and although we will return here it will only be for a day on our way back from the east, westward towards Aruba and Cartagena. We have been reading about cruising the coast of Columbia and, in fact, how safe it is since 2005, when a new President came to power there. Both the American and the Columbian Coastguards patrol the coast, and as long as they know you are there, they keep an eye on you, which is very gratifying when one is a stranger to such a region. They are more than happy for you to submit a passage plan to help look after you, but it is not obligatory! Sounds good, and we will probably call in on the Columbian Coast on our way to Cartagena. More of that another time.

The snorkelling on Curacao is very picturesque.

We have seen trunk fish, pipe fish, cuttle fish mating (they flash with silver stripes when they get excited), squid, drum fish, surgeon fish, doctor fish, blue tang, barracuda (small ones!), angel fish, four eyed butterfly fish, sergeant majors (some in blue because they are mating), tarpon, jacks and blue wrasse. Also squirrel fish and spanish grunt and a host of parrot fish which have beaks like parrots to feed on the coral.

Margaret has even stroked a nurse shark and been kissed by a sea lion, although this was in the Sea Aquarium, where they also train dolphins and have children, some adults, and handicapped people, swimming with them.

We even have a loggerhead turtle that swims off the boat here.

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Bird life (the feathered variety) on Curacao is myriad. The national bird is the yellow oriole which is about the size of a British starling. It is yellow all over with a black chest and black wings and tail. A very pretty bird, even if its call is more like a caterwaul.

The yellow oriole has a most unusual nest.

A much more melodious call wakes us every morning at present. It is from the troupial, which is like a large British blackbird, but has very orange markings along its side and neck and over its rump. It is much more common than the yellow oriole.

It is the first time we have seen parakeets properly. They make a screeching racket as they fly away from our presence, mostly in pairs, but sometimes in flocks.

There is only one type of parrot on the island but we haven’t seen this yet. The major raptor on the island is the caracara Bird ( dear one,dear one!) Which doesn’t look at all dear! It has a fierce red face with a large buff bill and black crown over a pale nearly white neck, with body and legs brown and black and similar to a young British buzzard, whose size it is comparable with. It does a lot of strutting, a bit like the Griffin in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, as he takes Alice to hear the Mock Turtles story.

The american kestrel is a pretty bird and quite small, about the size of a merlin. It can be seen perching on top of the cactus waiting for its prey. Of course we have the magnificent frigate bird flying overhead with the occasional brown pelican flopping into the water for its lunch.

Believe it or not, we have the common house sparrow hopping about the restaurants trying to cadge a crumb or two. It was introduced as a caged bird here (as an exotic!) about thirty years ago and has escaped its captivity. No doubt one day it will take over the Caribbean and South America! The pink flamingo is indigenous here and can be seen in a number of the shallow lagoons. They are very graceful as they sift the water for krill and other small crustacean. There are always two or three on the outskirts of a flock who are not feeding, and who have their heads out of water watching for danger.

Most vegetation here is scrubby and low with the occasional manchineel tree standing to perhaps 60 feet in the lee of a bluff or cliff although generally much smaller. The manchineel tree, or bush is poisonous, and brought Margaret out in a rash on her elbow as she brushed past one in the wet one day, when we were walking the dogs. Fortunately the blisters didn’t last long, but the trees/bushes are all over the place! The fruit is also poisonous.

Mangrove trees abound around the five lagoons. Similar places to Spanish Water. They used to make a lot of salt on the islands and some of the original salt pans are still to be seen. They still make salt in this way in Bonaire, our next port of call.

The higher ground (up to 300 feet!) is dotted by the long high cacti similar to the ones seen sometimes with John Wayne in his Westerns, although the high bushy type, rather than the two armed variety, which we believe is Mexican. The birds and parakeets are particularly fond of the cactus fruits.

Overall Curacao is a particularly civilised island and puts out a very friendly welcome to visitors. The exception is perhaps the bus drivers who seem to be as arrogant here as they are in London. Do not take a taxi here, the cost is exorbitant. Despite these small drawbacks we have thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and can recommend Curacao to anyone taking a diving holiday, or even a holiday on one of the occasional beaches. Provided of course you speak Dutch, English or Spanish. They speak all three here, constantly and fluently!

We hope you like the pictures.

Love Atlantia.

LANDFALL

A cruising sailor prepares for the worst and hopes for the best. This is often our mindset before we set off for a voyage, although there are obviously conflicts in the head when we have prepared something that does not appear perfect (so we hope for the best!) We are often asked what it is like to make landfall after voyaging on the ocean for days or weeks. Firstly one has to examine what the feelings and emotions are like prior to the voyage. Apprehension is one feeling, as if an important examination was impending. All the preparation (no longer entirely mental!) that has to go into ensuring the boat is seaworthy, and ‘home’ for weeks, means long ‘to do’ lists, and hurrying against deadlines. Then, of course, the chandlery doesn’t have the part you require, and so it has to be ordered in, or you take the bus, or cadge a lift, to another town for further search! The smooth flow chart is disrupted, but you can still make the departure date if you juggle this activity with that one. (maybe!). Of course in tightening the odd bolt, the odd bolt shears under the torque! Many happy hours later, after drilling, and tapping, and muttering, the disrepair is repaired. Another extension to the flow chart. One saying which we learnt in the United States is “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it!” What a marvellous way to prepare for a voyage. Full of hope. We heard of a transatlantic sailor with three other crew who hoped that the amount of food they had (enough for two weeks) would last the three weeks it took them to sail the ocean. The last mars bar changed hands at £35.00 the day before they made landfall. The time before leaving is full of turmoil and stress and is not unlike the usual everyday business that is experienced in running a go ahead Civil Engineering Consultancy. In other words Will leaps from the frying pan to the fire! However everything will be alright when we leave and it will calm down. It has to. There will be no one else to rely on 1000 miles from land. We heard of one member of a two man team who suffered so much from the pre depart stress that he literally ran away, leaving his friend very much in the lurch. Needless to say the boat didn’t depart. It is easy to crack under the strain, especially when one is stressed out already and when the whole idea is to leave the stresses behind! People used to urban life, with known stresses, can push such stresses a long way before exceptional strain or breaking point occurs. Not so if there has been no experience of that which is to come. It is a leap into the unknown. Cold sweats break out and the nightmares of waiting for exam results recur as in younger days.

And you have to go! You have said you will go, and you cannot allow fear to hold you back. Why should it? Life is not a dress rehearsal. Go for it. Do we have to?! If we stay longer it will cost more in the marina or at the mooring. Our friends will never believe us again. Confucius said ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with but one step.’ He was right. We can’t walk on water but the theory is the same. We do go. Friends and Relations wave us goodbye and hoot horns. We are off, like a bubble being pushed from the blowing ring, with a bit of help from all our friends. How delightful to be soaring away from the society we lived in, and into the blue yonder. We are on our own for four, fourteen, twenty days. No real hope of help unless the very worst happens, and even then nothing will be certain. Certainly no reliance can be placed on help. Just ourselves. Thunder, lightning, storms, tsunamis, rocks, pirates. All could be ahead of us. Possibly none of these things, and only downwind sailing under puffy clouds and under mostly blue skies with 15 to 20 knots of breeze. The one thing that is certain is we will have to keep awake to ensure we see other ships or bad weather approaching. There were four of us as crew across the Atlantic and we started carrying out watches of four hours on and four hours off, having a companion to talk to. We varied it later on by sliding watches having four hours on standby, four hours on watch, and eight hours off. You could sleep on standby if you wished although you had to be ready for a jump on deck and to work for a living if required. This only occurred once, when all of us were on deck in the middle of the night struggling with the two large genoas of the papillon (butterfly) rig, because a cotter pin had escaped its housing, and the bottom of the forestay, and thus the genoas, were banging around inside the pulpit. It took two of us two hours to take off the genoas and set the main and staysail in a relatively smooth sea. Everything on a boat seems to take twice as long as you think it is going to, and is at least twice as difficult. When there are two of us on passage we stand three hour watches, which seems to give enough sleep to be able to maintain the watch of the next three hours. We always seem to have enough sleep, even if it is just a catnap in between cooking or mending something.

There is no doubt that the general pace of life slows down at sea and that some of the cares and woes of modern life on land are left behind. For one thing there is not a lot one can do to help others from the middle of the ocean except perhaps to talk to land through the satellite phone we have for emergencies, or to say Happy Christmas or Happy Birthday. We do not use the satellite phone usually, since calls cost a pound a minute, but it is good for peace of mind once a day to hear that there is no hurricane or tropical storm forecast. This was particularly true during our three and a half day passage from Antigua to Curacao, during the beginning of the hurricane season in the first week of July, when we spoke to our friend Mogens, in Antigua, for the first two days, and were informed that we would experience no winds over 20 knots and no seas over 6 feet. At least that is what the weather forecast said. They were not quite right since on the front of a tropical wave , which only overtook us after the first two days, having started with us, there is rain, thunder, lightning and squalls of up to 30 knots of wind. Of course this is not too bad if you are going downwind, which we were, and if you have a self draining cockpit to help the unbelievably dense rain run straight into the sea, which we have. Despite the routine of watches, life at sea in a sailing boat is not necessarily all calm and peaceful sailing, and the anticipation of the unknown is always there gnawing away at the pit of the stomach. Coming from higher up in the northern hemisphere we know that the weather can change drastically every half an hour or less. This is not necessarily the case in the trade wind belt where the wind, at least, is remarkably constant between 10 and 25 knots from the east, or thereabouts! This does give some relaxation and sometimes we can pick up a book if we are used to the rolling motion. Admiral Nelson was sea sick for the first four days every time he went to sea. Mind you he spent long periods at sea, up to two years on one occasion, without setting foot on land.

So having left the hurly burly of life on shore, worried ourselves, not quite sick, as to whether we are going to sink or be run over or blown over, or run aground, and yet still survived, we have nearly reached our destination. What is the feeling like? Firstly there is a known entity coming our way. Land. That is a knobbly bit sticking up out of our friend the sea, who has actually looked after us for the past few days or weeks. Assuming we miss the knobbly bit, and this is where the chart plotter and pilot book come in, we will have to find a sheltered place to anchor. Those are the first thoughts. The second thoughts are that just maybe (although unlikely in some places) if we now have a problem we can call for help instead of being totally self reliant. This is not necessarily a good thing since we probably know more about our craft and the way she handles in most conditions than anybody else; nevertheless there is a comfort there that has crept in to reduce the acidity in the stomach. Then there comes the curiosity. What does the land look like? What are the people like? Are they friendly to yachting tourists? Are we going to pay the skin colour tax by being the unknowing underdog? Will the customs and immigration be friendly or will they take themselves far too seriously as a very few have on our travels? After all, this discovery is why we set sail in the first place.

The land looms closer. Sometimes the visibility is such that the landfall cannot be seen until about three miles off the coast, and then we wonder whether the land shown on the chart plotter is just a myth or whether we really are going to land there. Indeed, is the chart plotter(which usually shows exactly where we are in relation to the land) functioning at all, or is the blob close by the boat on the screen a hallucination? They say hallucinations can happen at sea but we have never seen one. Perhaps because all our alcohol is stored away! In the last Century, and before, it was apparently hard to find Barbados, since there is a magnetic anomaly and strange currents that surround it, and also a haze that usually makes it difficult to see from far off. They kept a pig on board the local sailing traders, which they threw over the side when they thought they were near the island. They followed the direction it swam in. We were never informed whether the pig was picked up again or whether it had to make its own way to land. When we first sighted Barbados from the Atlantic crossing we could see the loom of the lights from over 20 miles away at night, it was exceptional visibility. We felt quite elated and relieved by the sight and felt that all the rolling, and being tossed up and down by the sea, for 22 days, had actually delivered a result! We were going to land in another culture.

The problem with pictures of a crossing or lengthy voyage is that on a good day there are puffy white clouds in a blue sky over a blue sea, with the odd dolphin and petrel, and on a bad day of rain you can’t see anything. There is no doubt that coastal weather and scenery is more photogenic with its crepuscular rays and mountains. Except of course for the shapes in the trade wind cumulus clouds. Sometimes a dragon, sometimes a castle, sometimes little miss Muffet. Of course there is also sometimes the great dark and foreboding thundercloud that creeps up from behind. So the pictures are limited for this posting.. We hope you enjoyed making landfall with us though.

Love Atlantia

We are sitting in the house once more but this time on someone else’s furniture! Our new tenants for the north house are Nick and Kaye and we are delighted that they are taking the house for at least a year. They are providing their own furniture and are therefore renting from us unfurnished. They run a business taking charter guests sailing on Jabberwocky and will therefore be pleased to use the jetty which goes with the house. Altogether an idyllic life although charter guests can be quite tiring sometimes!

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The last piece of the houses to be constructed is happening now. The new jetty is nearly in place for Vic and Lizzie in the south house and should be finished next week.

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Next week we depart for the ABC islands and the continuation of our voyage around the world. We have heard of various difficulties on our trip, such as a six week wait for the Panama Canal and no fuel for foreigners to Ecuador, but no doubt we will meet these problems when we come to them. We have also heard that Colon at the mouth of the Panama Canal lives up to its intestinal description! But we will see. Our route, leaving on Wednesday night will be directly to the ABC islands about 500 miles southwest of here. Hopefully we will see Cor there. He will have just finished running a major Optimist Championship and could probably do without Atlantia dropping in on him! After the ABC Islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao) which are Dutch, we intend to go to Cartagena. Drake sacked the city a long time ago and apparently its Spanish defences are still in place and formidable. We look forward to showing you the pictures when we get there.

We had intended carrying on our travels after the Rum Cruise, but somehow it has taken an extra month to legally separate the houses, and to put in new, separate, meters for the electricity and water. This was done very efficiently by the Jolly Harbour maintenance team. A joy to be on the receiving end! Below is a photo of a night heron on our forestay:

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The Rum Cruise was wonderful and we were very sorry that none of our friends from Europe or the United States wanted to join us! Four boats departed from Jolly Harbour at the beginning of May. Atlantia, two Beneteaus and a beautiful Island Packet.

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There were ten crew in all and very smart we looked in our matching t-shirts.

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The close reach to Guadeloupe was most exhilarating with a sparkling sea and many flying fish scattering on either side as our bow crashed into the wave in front. We met up with the dashing Lady Commodore of the Antigua Yacht Club at Deshais on the North end of Guadeloupe for a lobster meal at a cliff edge restaurant overlooking the anchorage.

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Paul and Marguerite Jackson in their yacht Mackenzi led us off the following day to a superb snorkelling site at pigeon island.

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This is the Cousteau National underwater park and the underwater scenery is beautiful. Will saw an octopus that crawled back into the tiniest hole under a rock. It really squeezed itself into a hole about an eighth the size of that which the octopus looked capable of reducing into! Amazing animals octopi. Tests have shown that they have a degree of intelligence and their chameleon like skin changes, mean they can be all colours of the rainbow when required. Will’s octopus stayed brown however, the colour of the sand and surrounding rocks.

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From there we went south to the Isles Des Saintes and Marguerite caught a 30 lb Dorado en route. This fish is also called a Mahi Mahi or Dolphin fish and really is very good to eat. The crew of Mackenzi tried to sell the fish to some restaurants at our anchorage but regrettably they were full of fish since there was a fishing competition on at the time!

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After a good wander around the streets of the main town of the Saintes the next day we enjoyed a Ti punch at a small restaurant. You are right we helped Mackenzi eat the first of a number of meals of various parts of the Dorado. The standard of cuisine from Kathy and Marguerite in Mackenzi was so good that it cured Will of a slight aversion to fish which has crept in over the last couple of years. The rum probably helps as well.

A Ti Punch? You cry! Rum! To be more exact:- One fifth of sucre de canne ( sugar cane syrup), four fifths Rum Blanc Agricole (as rough as you can get but not more than 80% proof!) and the juice of half a lime together with all the bits of lime pulp. The important part is to mix it all together with your swizzle stick. We bought one just to show you how exactly to aerate your ti punch. The ‘ti’ is actually short for Petite, but since Hans and Will made them rather large this seems somewhat of a misnomer.

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The following day we motored upwind to Marie Gallant to a beautiful palm tree lined white beach. Possibly the epitome of the Caribbean shoreline.

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The object of our trip to Marie Gallant was the distillery at Bellevue. We reached the distillery on hired scooters, which are eminently suitable for travel out here as long as you don’t encounter a load coming the other way which takes up the whole road! One such load that nearly side swiped Will was a very wide piece of welded steel mesh to be used on a building site. It would have been rather ironic had such a load put him out of action.

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The distillery was wonderful, although not working at the time of our visit. The primary source of power is a very large single cylinder steam engine.

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The boiler, which produces steam for the distillation, as well as for the engine, is fired using crushed sugar cane. The crushed cane is the product after all the juice has been squeezed out to make the fermented potage which is then distilled into rum. A very energy efficient system. The sample room was however open and although only a very small libation was taken, it was extremely good.

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Unfortunately later that day, Christine from the island packet fell and broke her leg, and although the local hospital was very good, nevertheless Marx took Christine and the island packet back to Antigua the next day, with the expert help of Hans, who deserted Mackenzi for the day, to rejoin her in Dominica. Although one might expect a few thrills and spills on a rum cruise we can assure you that rum played no part at all in Christine’s bad luck Indeed, being deprived of Marx and Christine’s company for the rest of the cruise was bad luck for all of us!

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In Dominica, which was our next island, we had an excellent dive on a reef which had some beautiful coloured corals

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We were also expertly driven round the island by Paul, after hiring a minibus and visited the Macoucherie distillery. A very agricultural affair after the swish distillery in Marie Gallant. This distillery was again not in operation but, had it been so, we would have watched the undershot waterwheel whizzing around to produce the power for the massive wheels of the cane crusher.

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They were trying to mend the crusher when we were there as well as the boiler. They do however produce very good rum when they get their act together. We sampled quite a lot of it!

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On the way back we picked up freshly fallen mangos, had a paddle in the river and saw a snake, which we couldn’t identify although it looked dangerous!

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During Paul’s guided tour we swam up a gorge high in the mountains to a waterfall, and then showered under a hot natural spring when we had stopped playing with the rushing water. The whole place smelt slightly of sulphur which is perhaps why the people in Dominica live to the ripe old age of 120 or so.

If you come to the Caribbean you must go to Martinique and the distillery at Depaz. Although it was only started in 1920, after a catastrophic volcanic eruption that killed 30,000 people in 3 minutes in 1902, the distillery is a model of both managerial and energy efficiency.

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The steam engine that runs the place is magnificent. With a great whooshing sound the single cylinder drives an enormous flywheel, which in turn drives four cutters and crushers and then a generator at the end of the line which in turn can drive the conveyor belts and pumps for the cane syrup.

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One is directed to follow the red road which takes you past the overshot water wheel that used to power the plant,

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And gives you very good views of the chateau, elevated above the distillery, which used to house Monsieur Depaz and his 12 children.

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At the end of our tour we were fortunate to meet Christine, the marketing director, who came to lunch with us and then gave us a tour of the chateau. The chateau is used for weddings and the original period dresses on the various manikins around the chateau give the house a lived in feeling.

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St Lucia was our next distillery. This distillery has just been taken over by Angostura from Jamaica. Although we were taken from Marigot Bay Marina (an excellent base) by a very cheerful and economic taxi driver, we were slightly disappointed by the distillery despite their pot still for special batches.

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The molasses which is fermented and then distilled into rum, was imported. They also exported some of the refined but unmixed liquor, direct to Tesco in Britain, where they do their own mixing and matching. More a distillery of expediency than the honest start to finish product of Depaz in Martinique. What a variety, however, of some very fine rums and what a delightful set of people to travel with!

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We haven’t mentioned Brian and Pippa from the other beneteau who were also part of the ‘team’ .Brian has been the Commodore of the Jolly Harbour Yacht Club for the past two years and has set up a very successful youth training scheme for the local youngsters. This has been a great success and hopefully will introduce sailing to many more people than were able to sail previously. It was an honour to travel with him even if he did drink more vodka than Rum! His one saving grace was that Pippa, his partner and crew, spoke nearly fluent French, which was very useful for all of us!!

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Christine came with the cruise to St Lucia and then came back on Atlantia to Martinique.

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She kindly hosted us to an excellent dinner in her house next to the chateau and introduced us to her companion, a rotweiler called Brownie, who had a very nice character, when you got to know him!

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Our cruise finished back at the Iles Des Saintes with a dinner together with our old friends Jill and Mike from Altair, who were sailing down south to leave their boat in Trinidad for the summer. It was great to see them again.

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We hope you like the pics.

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Love from Atlantia.

LETTER FROM ATLANTIA. May 2008

Please remind us next time you see us, that Dragon racing is for the under forties! Having ceased racing in “2002”, after 40 years of international regattas, we were inveigled into taking it up again for Antigua Sailing Week.!! As our friend Paul Jackson, who gamely crewed for us said, “Don’t buy a gym, buy a Dragon!”. Harmony Hall Yacht Club and Carlo Falcone kindly lent us a Dragon (Pigeon, No. 5) to sail last week.

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There were 5 races of about 25 miles each, in some of the shiftiest winds we have seen for years. We had good racing with some of the Caribbean’s top sailors, but were no match for Olga in Murka or Alexei in Half Moon., both from Russia, or for Poul Hoj-Jensen ( a double Olympic gold medallist ) and there was no doubt about the top three. We did come fourth however, which was indeed a small miracle, considering the total age of the three of us in the boat was over 175!! They are beautiful boats and we would encourage all Dragon sailors to come over next year for Antigua Sailing Week. There is no need to bring your own boat, you can charter one from Carlo Falcone at Antigua Yacht Club Marina. All the boats are equal and beautifully maintained.

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There was a slight problem in that Will was also on the International Jury. There were some hard decisions to be made which were not altogether to the liking of some of the competitors, but with reputations, sponsorship and livelihoods at stake, today’s yachting seems to sometimes step outside the gentlemanly sport it once was. However this last statement may be doubtful if you look back to some of the disputes in the Americas Cup in the early 20th Century!!! However rules are rules, and the International Jury applied them as they had been intended, encouraging boats to keep away from forthcoming incidents, if they are on the wrong side of a rule. The Arbiter was Tuna from the USA, still very active and able at a very respectable age, and the chairman was Pat Bailey from the US Virgin Islands, a very capable man.

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Will was also on the Protest Committee for The Classic Regatta, two weeks earlier, and fortunately there were very few protests during that week. Although there were only 60 boats for that very graceful parade of sail, compared with the hectic 194 in Race Week, the feeling was of bygone elegance and beauty as you will see from some of the pictures.

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The Irish were sailing Dragons at the Classic, and Mick Cotter from Dublin came a respectable third. We have sailed Dragons against Mick for perhaps 25 years and have had some great times in his company. ( Guinness usually figured!!)

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Needless to say, with all this sailing going on now, we completed the houses sometime in March. We have lived in both of them to test them out, and are fortunate thanks to John and Sue, to have found some excellent tenants for one of them, and who thoroughly enjoy staying there. Vic and Lizzie are Architects working on a project for a boutique hotel at the north end of the island. They have two wonderful Basset Hounds called Lettuce and Lester, just like Fred!! We are very pleased that they are going to enjoy the house. From Architects the compliments about the houses are more than welcome! The other house has yet to find either a buyer or a tenant, and seems to be affected by the credit crunch presently. Anybody want a three bedroom dream house of three bedrooms, all ensuite, with its own palm tree, ideally situated on a Caribbean island in the sun?? we are told that patience is a virtue but practically it will probably mean that we will return to Antigua after the Rum Distillery Cruise at the end of May, rather than immediately going on to South America.

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The Rum Distillery Cruise has its inaugural voyage next week and is modelled on the Classic Malts Cruise of the West Coast of Scotland run by the CCC. It is beginning in a very small way with only 4 yachts, including Atlantia, and will be visiting Guadeloupe, Pigeon Island ( with the Cousteau National Underwater Park), The Iles des Saints, where Admiral Rodney thrashed the French during one of the wars of the eighteenth century.Then Dominica, where a friend of ours has a whale watching business, and then Martinique where Josephine ( of “not tonight Josephine“ fame ) was born. It is still a French island and thus we will make quick time back to the EEC!! St. Lucia is the final distillery visit, where we hope to sample some 50 year old rum. We are told that it tastes very similar to a fine old cognac. We will tell you the results of our tastings on our return, if we can still remember the samples. Perhaps a pen and paper would be handy. There are T shirts to commemorate the event. They say “ Rum is the Answer” on the front. On the back they say “What was the Question?”

We were in Scotland very briefly in April to help Margaret’s Mother recover from an illness, mostly caused by the hospital she was in. We are glad to say that Margaret’s Mother and Father are both well now, even to the extent that Margaret’s Father is again off to conferences.

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Due to the briefness of our visit, and the necessity to be in one place, with only a short business foray to Edinburgh, we were unable to see many people. SORRY.! We hope to see you next time we are back, if we can, probably when it is not snowing!

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Many thanks though to John and Barbara, Tony and Vicky, Margaret,Wallace and Alison and of course Stephen and Susan, for their hospitality. We enjoyed the ride in Stephen’s car!

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Happy Birthday again to all those at WRD Glasgow office, who seem to have birthdays en masse!! Many thanks also to our business advisors who we were pleased to make contact with and who help so much.

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Our children ( mid twenties!!) Stephen and Susan came out to see us at Christmas and had a great time. The water has been a bit cold this year but they seemed to enjoy the water skiing and the swimming.

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We also went gliding through the rainforest suspended on wire ropes. It seems to be all the rage in Antigua and all the young people from the cruise ships find their way there. It is a well organised business and is very efficiently run with much safety consciousness. Even Will felt safe in his harness as the wire sagged rather more for him than for others! Margaret didn’t like the rope bridges much, since it was a little too far to stretch for the hemp hand ropes to stop you slipping off the wire foot ropes, and thus plunging to the stones in the gorge below. She managed it though! We all enjoyed ourselves and Will particularly enjoyed sitting down with a beer afterwards and watching the “would be” apes flying through the trees after us.

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The time has flown incredibly fast since we first arrived in Antigua over three years ago, before our trip north to the USA. We are certainly pleased to have made it here under our own steam ( or should that be sail!!) and are delighted to have created two houses (with a lot of help from everybody!!). We are at the stage of a developers dream, or nightmare, where the financial world is collapsing, in parts, and yet somewhere in the world someone would give their eye teeth to live in our last house. Antigua has changed for the better since we arrived. Not because of us (!) but because there is less obvious corruption and drug trafficking, and despite a rising crime rate, the country is more prosperous with a more sophisticated feel to it than previously. It seems that the present ruling politicians are more interested in helping the general populace than themselves , which is a good thing. This seems to be at huge variance with the late British prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, who now thinks he is a peace envoy and is running to be President of Europe!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are very pleased we don’t live in the cloud cuckoo land Tony has created at the moment. The fag end of a Labour government seems even worse than the fag end of a Conservative one! We are very well up to date with the news here, listening to the BBC (English Broadcasting Company!) World Service as well as reading the news on the net. It always seems to be depressing though! Do journalists and news casters go around permanently with long faces? Or is there something to smile at ? perhaps Boris becoming mayor of London is something to smile for, if not at!!!

We are sitting on the boat again outside the houses and watching the humming birds seek nectar from the bougainvillea. The pelicans and laughing gulls are diving into the water to feed on the fish and the magnificent frigate birds and ospreys are wheeling above our heads in the blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds.

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Why then are we leaving to continue on our travels?? In June, or before, we will once again be sailing west. Our first stop will be the ABC islands (Aruba Curacao and Bonaire). There we will appraise how much of South America we will see ( with our book, Spanish for Dummies), and by which mode of transport. The trains are exciting and no doubt a boat trip on lake Titicaca would be interesting. We have a sailing pilot for the coast of Chile and are told that Easter and Pitcairn Islands are not to be missed. Yet again we thought of going to Alaska!! There is a six week waiting time for a yacht to transit the Panama canal at the moment due to restrictions by the new authorities there. it will give us plenty of time to make up our minds and make the boat shipshape for her next long voyage, wherever that will prove to be!

Hope you like the pics

Love from Atlantia

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“We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year”. (In our best singing voices!)

We are conscious that this is only our fourth letter to you this year, but we hope you have enjoyed the contents of our previous letters detailing some of our life in Antigua. We are now watching the seasons go round, although we can hardly tell summer from winter, since the temperature is always between 28 and 32 degrees. There are more tourists in the winter escaping the European and American winds and cold. The winter tourist season is from the beginning of November until the middle of May, when all of a sudden the population of Antigua halves and most shops and restaurants seem to close, at least for the month of August, and sometimes for five months, before reopening again for “the season”. These five months coincide with the hurricane season and although Hurricane Dean passed close by, there have been no other high winds here this year, the hurricane season being now officially closed. The last time there was a hurricane here was in the last century! (1995).

There has however been an earthquake here very recently, in fact last week. 7.2 on the Richter scale. When we returned to the house construction, having been exchanging surplus tiles for tile cement, we were asked where we had been during the earthquake. ‘What earthquake?’ we said! The exact time of two minutes past three in the afternoon crept back into recall. We had been in the car at the traffic lights at Golden Grove. The car, which has performed superbly for the year we have owned it, had been playing up at the time. The automatic transmission seemed to be kicking in and the car was rocking backwards and forwards. We thought it might be dirt in the fuel or just plain mechanical trouble. However, since at the same time other peoples plates were jumping off the tables and their chairs were rattling around the floors, we eventually deduced that the car was probably alright, and it was only the earthquake causing the problem! Pleasingly, there was not a crack to be seen in our new building. An in situ test! Will now thinks he can add Earthquake Engineer to his civil and structural abilities.

We have recently seen a baby osprey flying overhead, and on one occasion saw another osprey with a fish in its talons. It looked very pleased with itself. The baby osprey is obvious to all within a half mile radius, because of its plaintiff mew whilst flying. Whether this is to make sure its parent knows where it is, or whether it is the pure exhilaration of knowing it can fly, it is unclear to us. However it did attract a magnificent frigate bird floating gracefully in the air currents close by, hoping to rob the poor osprey of its fish, should it be lucky enough to catch one.

We have been inundated with millions (literally) of butterflies for the last month. Not being lepidopterists we haven’t yet identified them. They are about the size of cabbage white butterflies in Britain and seem to have purple tips over a largely yellow wing. They look very pretty in their hundreds of thousands as they flutter across the sea. They too seem to make good use of air currents as they tack upwind.

Do you have a pet eagle ray? We seem to!!! possibly a family of them, although we only see one at a time. We call them Eddie (the eagle ray!), Edwina and Ermintrude. Edwina has a white splodge on her head as if she had been dabbed with paint. Hopefully our painters are not to blame. The rays are most graceful flying under the water, around the dock and the boat.

We were absolutely delighted to host Tony and Vicky Thain and Zandra Macpherson for two weeks in November. The girls were magnificent scrubbers and cleaned windows in the new house, as well as scrubbing the boat decks, which now have a honey glow to them, having had their cleanliness sealed in with a special teak varnish. Not bad for a couple of nurses, a clan dowager chieftainess, a bagpipe player, an authoress, a masseuse, two clarsach players and a member of the R.T.O. (Really Terrible Orchestra). We are sure they will be proud to add ‘scrubber’ to their list of considerable achievements! Tony sanded and cetolled like a demon and Margaret was seen late in the evening with her varnish brush sealing the decks. We are not aware that Will helped with any of this, but he did skipper everyone on a trip round the island, lasting a few days.

On the way round we were pleased to transport James and Vee McAlister to lunch in the Royal Antiguan Hotel on a really beautiful day. They were piped aboard by Vicky and we ended up at James and Vee’s house at Jumby Bay, Long Island for dinner and dancing. We were most hospitably treated.

We didn’t see the fireflies this time in Emerald bay but we did have time to call in, by water, at Sophia and Poul Hoj-Jensen’s house in Non Such Bay. They have just sold eight dragons (built in Burnham on Crouch) to the Harmony Hall Yacht Club. We are invited to the launching party this Sunday, and looking forward to tripping over such yachting greats as Russell Coutts and Dennis Connor as well as Poul Rickard. It will be interesting to see how they enjoy sailing dragons after their America Cup boats.

Sophia and Poul’s house is what is known in Antigua as ‘coming soon’, (a bit like our own), although, there is no doubt it will be very elegant when it is finished. Their house has an infinity pool at the front and coming soon landscaped stretch down to the sea in front, which is calmed by substantial reefs about a mile and a half across Nonsuch Bay to the East. Their project too is in the finishing stages.

Will has allowed another month to be completely finished here. We shall see, although the North House only has a very small way to go, with such mundane finishing touches as connecting up the rainwater pipes and a bit more varnishing. Despite us being on site, we are a little unsure as to the productivity of some of our workers. Just to be sure of his facts Will answers ‘About half of them’ to the question ‘How many people are working for you at the moment?’ We were kindly handed a large bag full of tangerines, grapefruits and limes this morning by our youngest worker who had suffered a speck of plaster board in his eye some weeks ago. Margaret ministered to him and gave him some advice. He seems to be completely cured now. We are going to have freshly squeezed tropical juice tonight, perhaps with just a hint of gin and ice in Will’s glass.

The Classic Rum Cruise starts on 9th May 2008 and heads South via Guadeloupe, Dominica and Martinique, finishing in St Lucia on 23rd May. It is the ideal time to come cruising in the Caribbean and we would be pleased to help you to find a Charter Boat. If there are only two of you however, you could come with us! Just e-mail us if you feel like a rum run!

We had a very good charter the other day by Chris and Kim Cole of Getti Images for the Sunday Times. He wanted to take some shots of Antigua, including a boat and thought ours looked interesting. It is the second time in our lives we have put a professional photographer in the rubber dinghy and sailed round him! The first was in the 1980’s for the Scottish Tourist Board, when we sailed Susie (our IOD) around Douglas Corrance under the Forth Rail Bridge! This time we also had the Jolly Harbour Regatta sailing around us as well. Margaret took this photo of the regatta. Will was chairman of the protest committee and gave some helpful advice.

Chris is a major award winning photographer, so we hope he uses a picture of us in the Sunday Times travel section feature on Antigua. (We are not sure when it is to be published.) They were lovely guests with lots of interesting stories to tell. The wind is blowing quite hard at the moment, but the sun is shining and we just saw a humming bird at the window. Perhaps it can smell the dinner cooking!

We are looking forward to entertaining Stephen and Susan out here at Christmas and New Year. Stephen is on his way to becoming a Chartered Engineer, having passed the first part of the exam. We hope the next part will be as successful. Susan has just travelled down to Australia and New Zealand and back to Scotland, for two weddings (as you do!!) We hope all the travelling doesn’t tire her out too much for her visit here.

It is our intention to sell one of our Antigua houses and to rent out the other when we continue our voyage. We have had one or two interested parties but at todays date no firm offers. Hopefully the New Year will bring some finalisations. The workers here finish on Friday for their Christmas break. It will be a relief to us not to have the place crowded out, and we are sure they will enjoy their holiday.

We have just come back from buying wood for the outside of the sheds. We go to Atlantic Foods for it. They sell wood (lumbar) and cement, so why they are called Atlantic Foods is a mystery. The tiles all come from VEG International (tiling and cement) and our electrical and plumbing supplies come from the almost sensible ‘Bargain Centre’. It nearly advertises what it means! There is also a food supermarket called Bargain Centre as well, so the two are easily confused.

Margaret has finished and Will is now reading an excellent book by Adam Nicolson, called ‘Sea Room’. It is all about the Shiant Islands, stuck in the middle of the Minch off Lewis. They are about 750 acres and home to 600 sheep and 10,000 puffins. They are now unoccupied but at one time in the late eighteenth century they were the home to at least four families. It all seems very romantic from here, but then we don’t have the cold and wet that they do! The book is very well written and it can certainly be recommended for a view of life in the Western Isles of Scotland, both now and in previous years. We sincerely hope that you all have an enjoyable festive season and an extremely prosperous 2008.

Love from ATLANTIA