12 Mar 2017

Getting better ... Jolly Harbour, Antigua 12 March 2017

This has been a somewhat frustrating week in the main, not able to sail south to Les Saintes as we had hoped before my back injury, but things are improving albeit slowly. The crippling pain has gone to be replaced by a real ache, which I am suppressing with copious amounts of ibuprofen and alcohol (our friends Nigel and Karen arrived and anchored right next to us on Friday and we have been imbibing ever since).

I managed to rig up a back brace out of a sturdy leather belt and a boat cleaning pad which has enabled me to walk a reasonable distance again and yesterday I joined some friends to watch the rugby (come on England!) Live on TV.


We had a bit of a disaster on Friday evening as we were going for drinks (note the pattern emerging) with the Ocean Cruising Club community when Debra caught her wrist getting out of the dinghy and plop! The boat keys went over the side and disappeared into the murky waters. We managed to find some bolt cutters and cut the padlock on the dinghy that would allow us to get back to the boat, and fortunately we had left Tumi unlocked so we could get back inside.

The OCC members are a very supportive bunch and we had two offers to dive for the keys in the morning as I am out of commission, so we returned to the scene yesterday to try. No good, the water was too murky and they couldn't be found. Another of the OCC members lent us a magnet and eventually I managed to pick up a combination lock, then our set of keys, phew! The lock we found has been used to replace ours, which should mean that we will never need to employ bolt cutters again to release the dinghy.

We are hoping that we will be able to head down towards Grenada this week, probably leaving on Wednesday which will give us enough time to be there in time for our next visitors with a leisurely passage of day sails and nighttime anchorages flying the quarantine flag to avoid clearing into the islands.