Log #40C Back to Antigua Written at: Marigot Bay, St Lucia April 10, 2006 Hi Folks, This is the last log about Antigua. We are presently in Marigot Bay on St. Lucia, and will spend a few lazy days here for our 26th wedding anniversary. All the best, Aubrey Log #40C Back to Antigua After removing the encrusted ship's anchor from ours, we had a good sail from Barbuda back to Antigua. Barbuda is a lovely natural island of coral, a large lagoon, miles of sandy beaches, mangroves, and palm trees; it has not been overrun by tourist or commercial developments, as the 1600 people who live here have opposed such. Off Low Beach where we anchored there is an attempted development partially built, but not yet completed. It was started in the 1960's. There is a third major island that is part of Antigua/Barbuda, that of Redonda, which is uninhabited, but also privately owned. At one time the owners were referred to as Kings of Redonda. One of the recent owners was Bill Gates. As we crossed the 30 mile wide channel between Barbuda and Antigua, we had brisk force 5 east winds, giving us an enjoyable sail. Anchoring in Deep Bay just below Fort Barrington (17 07.66N, 061 51.39W) we dinghied ashore to send E-mail from the large luxurious Royal Antiguan hotel development. Of course I had to climb the hill to inspect the ruins of Fort Barrington. It offered a spectacular view over Deep Bay, the narrow sandy isthmus separating it from the lagoon on which the Royal Antiguan is situated (see attached picture), and the main strategic vista where the guns of the fort could control access into St. John's Harbour on the other side. Next day, March 4, we motored the 15 miles around the southwest corner of Antigua to anchor for a few hours in Falmouth Harbour in order to have closer access to the large grocery store there. Falmouth Harbour is a mecca for megayachts, power and sail, as well as the occasional cruise liner. Tenacious a sister ship of the Lord Nelson was alongside the Marbella V a mega yacht (sloop rig) with the tallest mast in the world, over 300 feet high. The masts of Tenacious were dwarfed by that of Marbella. (See attached picture). The boom of that yacht was as big as Veleda! While there we met Frank Baron, a fellow Canadian, and in the small world department, he had heard of us from another Canadian friend, Phil Clappison, with whom I had crewed in Newfoundland in 1997 for the John Cabot 500th Anniversary rally and again in 2003 going from Halifax to Norfolk Virginia in preparation for th Caribbean 1500. I think Frank sold Phil his Jeanneau 44 that we sailed down to Norfolk. (Incidentally, Phil is selling the Jeanneau as he has recently bought himself a lovely Cabo Rico. If any of you are in the market for one, let me know.) Falmouth Harbour is a large bay, adjacent to, but separated from, the much smaller English Harbour by a peninsula referred to as the Middle Ground. The whole area has the remains of forts that protected these two major naval bases in the 18th and 19th centuries. After having done our shopping in Falmouth Harbour, we weighed anchor and motored the 2.3 miles around to anchor in our earlier location just off Freeman Point in English Harbour (see attached picture of Freeman Bay from Fort Berkley). Maintenance and Repair Problems Judy had a frustrating time trying to repair our wind generator. Earlier we had taken Veleda over to the fuel dock after hours to enable her to climb up to remove the unit and wrap more carefully any potential electrical shorts. When next we put it on in a heavier wind, it still did not generate anything. We now removed it again and took it into the Signal Locker, an electronic repair service. After a $70.00 US service charge it was confirmed the unit was indeed burnt out and to replace the parts necessary would be almost as expensive as buying a new unit. We could not afford such at present because of all the other repair and maintenance expenses we had incurred while in English Harbour. While working our through-hull connections (we do so on a monthly basis to avoid them seizing up), we discovered one had corroded through and started a major leak! We were not able to just put a wooden plug in as there was a metal strainer on the outside of the hull. Judy finally went in the water with mask and snorkel and after prying off part of the strainer grating, stuffed plastic bags up the opening to stop the flow. (Judy often volunteers for these projects and so I let her.) However we now had a major hole in the boat. This was a Saturday afternoon, and we could not haul out until Monday. We spent a couple of nervous days until we hauled out Monday morning at the Slipway boat yard. Then the expenses started. Two other through hulls were found to be corroded, and thus we had to replace three of them. As these were crucial fittings for our watertight integrity, we had a trained person do so. The fittings had to be thoroughly bedded in. We were advised to disconnect the grounding from the fittings, as any stray electrical currents in the boat or from outside would be spread to all of them. By isolating them, the corrosive effects of stray currents could be minimized. Since we had the boat on the hard we wanted to put on a coat of bottom paint. The one we put on last August in France seemed to be in poor shape and accumulating growth. However, we were not allowed to do our own. OK, we then had the yard do it for us. They did a good job, sanding down the bottom, faring in a few gouges, putting on a base coat and two coats of bottom paint. Actually, this was the first time we ever had bottom paint put on professionally, as we had always done so ourselves. But it cost! We were three days on the hard, and paid over $2500.00 (US) for the work done. The next major expense came when our refrigerator stopped working. We hoped it was just that it needed a recharge of freon, as such had not been done since we were in Turkey five years ago. No such luck. The compressor was shot and had to be replaced. We had to go alongside Slipway boat yard for a day to have the replacement installed and charged up for 24 hours. Another $1200 US bill! We noticed some of the pop rivets we used to secure the spreader base to the mast were broken. We needed to have stainless steel rivets, not the aluminum ones that were breaking off. We were able to borrow an industrial heavy duty rivet gun from the yard and at least were able to do our own work riveting the spreader base plates to the mast. I got Judy a heavy duty rivet gun as a post-birthday present, romantic fool that I am. She delighted in riveting a few other fittings on the boom including the pad eye for the reefing line that broke on passage. There were several other things we could have had done, such as replace some of the vinyl windows in our dodger and bimini, as well as a thorough assessment of our 28 year old mainsail, but costs here are very high, and we could afford no more repairs at this time. We found a WiFi restaurant that allowed us to link up without any encryption, even when the restaurant was closed. Happiness is using our own laptop to send E-mail and access the internet, as we usually have to use a memory wand which involves a considerable amount of difficulty as each internet café has a slightly different system. We also enjoyed the companionship of the Tot Club. On one occasion, the tall ship Tenacious, sister ship to the Lord Nelson on which we had Christmas dinner in La Palma, hosted the Tot Club on board. We saw several crewmembers whom we had met at Christmas, now on the Tenacious. Clare Cupples, the captain of the Lord Nelson, was visiting Antigua at the time and we had her and her partner John on board Veleda for an enjoyable evening. Mike Rose, the chairman of the Tot Club, did a couple of Rum Runs into St John's to pick up rum for the club and club members. I got two gallons of delicious dark rum for only $40.00EC (about $18.00 Canadian) a gallon, the same quality as Pusser's Rum. Mmmm! Judy flew to Panama City, Florida for a week to visit her father who was down there visiting another daughter, Barbara, and her family. I stayed with Veleda at anchor, and used the time to refinish our main salon table with five coats of Cetol. It was during this week that I had to take Veleda over to the Slipway boat yard for the refrigeration repair. For that repair, I had to have all the contents of the port cockpit locker out. That, with the mess of varnishing the table once or twice a day, left the boat a horrible mess for much of the time while Judy was away. I had it all [Beautifully!!! (Judy)] cleaned up by the time she returned. We initially planned to spend only a couple of weeks in Antigua, but it was a month before we were ready to leave. The association with the Tot Club gave us a feeling that Antigua will be an island that we will visit several times while in the Caribbean, as we have a circle of acquaintances that we can enjoy whenever we are back there. From Antigua we went to Montserrat, the topic of my next log. next log