Well the wind hasn't returned as yet and so we're still stuck in Falmouth Harbour waiting for conditions to change .... I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be hoping for more wind after all we've sailed through in the last few months! But wind is what we need if we're to be able to hoist the sails again. Meantime we're filling our time with walks ashore and trips to the capital, cocktails and lunches, all very enjoyable but enough is enough!
We met a former Antiguan and West Indies cricketer earlier in the week who has kindly offered to take us on a tour of the island on Wednesday next week to see "the real Antigua". Should be good. And lo and behold on the same day we met him, we also met the wife of another retired cricketer (Andy Roberts, a West Indies fast bowler) who also used to be the girlfriend of David Gower in years gone by ... definitely a day for cricketing contacts!
One thing we have noticed in the last few days is that the volcano on Montserrat looks to be more active that we've seen before and we're wondering if it is building up for another magma dome collapse - there definitely looks to be more ash/smoke in the air which has resulted in some glorious sunsets. We've heard stories about one yacht visiting the island when the prevailing ash-laden wind was blowing over the anchorage and the following morning when they hoisted their sails they noticed that they were peppered with myriad small holes where the settling hot ash had melted them! Thank heavens when we visisted the island we had a north-easterly wind which blew any ash away from us!
And to close on a wind-related theme, a little sailing ditty from years gone by that Paul has told me about :-
When the wind don't blow and the ship don't go,
You get carter the f**ter to start her!
Well we've no carter on board so we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed that nature helps us out ......