At Falmouth, Antigua

Falmouth was another good anchorage--dark, quiet, calm, with enough of a breeze so we weren't suffocating. After breakfast, we all hopped (relatively speaking) into the dinghy so we could clear in and out of customs and explore the island a bit. The bit of Falmouth we saw was small, not a lot of shops (Yay! Sorry, Nancy!) and some interesting-looking restaurants, most of which were closed for low season (which it is). It's a very short walk to English Harbour where Nelson's Dockyard is (and customs). Nelson's Dockyard is a working Georgian dockyard and is incredible. Unfortunately, it fell into disrepair but was restored (and the restoration continues) starting in the 70s (I think). English Harbour is a deep water harbor and the English would bring their ships in for careening and protection from hurricanes. Careening is how they repaired and cleaned the bottoms of the ships. They would attach lines to the masts and to capstans on shore, then turn the capstans to roll the ship on its side--then they'd clean the bottom on the side that was up. Rinse and repeat on the other side and voila! A clean ship bottom!

I met a British woman who was coming to feed the cats at Sunsail (who were on vacation for five months). She mentioned that the odd-looking boat over yonder was the one that was rowed across the Atlantic and that was going to be rowed around Antigua to raise money for charity. We went over to look at it and it's quite bizarre-looking. It's designed to be rowed downwind, so apparently it didn't need to be rowed much. We talked to the two guys who are going to row around Antigua (Roger Gardiner and Kevin Dakim) and got some good tips for lunch and dinner and things to see on the island. They are both members of the Tot Club, which meets at 1800h on Sundays at Life Restaurant, where they said the Sunday roasts are excellent.

After a group discussion, Tom and I decided to stay with the boat instead of going to lunch with the others. We were both tired of sitting and needed some down time and quiet time. So we wandered over to the Lost Lemming and had lunch. The service was incredibly slow, but not in a bad way; I think they got inundated with several large parties as soon as they opened. They were very apologetic about it. Anyway, while waiting for our lunch to arrive, another couple with a young child came in. The child was clearly not having a good day; perhaps he was hot, tired, and hungry. At one point, he ran over to our table and stood there looking at me. Me, being the sucker that I am for cute children, smiled and said "Hi there!" where upon he hauled off and slapped me! His mother was horrified and kept apologizing. I tried to reassure her that it was okay; he was clearly not happy and I understood. Needless to say, she kept him far away from our table after that.

After lunch, we dinghied back to boat, ignoring the fact that we were supposed to pick up some provisions while the others were touring the island. Tom was looking forward to having a swim and laying in the sun. But alas, it started to rain, again. It rained on and off the rest of the afternoon and evening.

After the others returned, we headed over to Life to get a tot of rum (couldn't because we aren't members of the club) and had quite a tasty dinner. Tom had chicken curry, which was nicely spiced and I had shrimp with Thai red curry, which was quite hot. James had lamb with mint sauce and the mint sauce was outstanding. It tasted like mint, sugar, and vinegar. After dinner (during which it poured on and off), we dinghied back to the boat in a thunderstorm (is it ever going to stop raining?). I wasn't feeling well, so went to bed. Impossible to get to sleep because the dinghy was rubbing against the stern. Tom went to investigate eventually, but didn't fix it. Sometime in the middle of the night, Carolyn did something with a winch and stopped the noise. Ah...quiet!