Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

This morning we woke to an empty boat. Nobody joined us for breakfast. When we were in the guest hull for our chores (changing watermaker filters, etc.) no one was there. Life goes on. We get over the sadness by looking forward rather than looking back so that’s enough of the maudlin.

We decided to go ashore one more time this morning at Jolly Harbour. I’d left (or I least I think I may have left) my USB stick in the internet café where I printed an itinerary to get the kids checked off the boat. We also took the opportunity for one last decent shower and food shopping. I had my heart set on some hobnobs but they’d sold out so I splashed out on some chocolate digestives instead.

We had the boat prepped and ready to leave by 11am. Winds were well above forecast but made for some fun sailing. We changed our minds (it seems to happen a lot) and went straight to Falmouth Harbour where we are now anchored of Pigeon Bay. This required a bit of easting into the current too so it was a longish sail. Along the way we had a bit of excitement when Helen spotted a boat a little ahead of us had lost their dinghy. We didn’t have much time to react. I tried a maneuver to bring us along side without dousing the sails. Seeing Helen running around I quickly decided I didn’t want this turning into a (wo)man overboard situation so I abandoned the attempt. Had it been a person there would have been no question of a rescue but not for a dinghy at such short notice and only the two of us aboard. Plan B was to note the position and time radio the boat that had lost the dinghy. The first responder was the Antigua search and rescue to whom I gave the coords and time. Later I was able to hail the mothership who had discovered their loss and were heading back. I gave them the time and coords too so they could project the position from point/time and drift.

We’ll be here for the next few days. Principally we’re waiting for our mail. Tuesday has been declare a public holiday here to let folks watch Obama’s inauguration on TV (footnote: this was incorrect). We’ll find a public place (a bar probably) and join them and enjoy the spirit of the occasion.

So here we are in Falmouth Bay. It is full of gorgeous mega-yachts. Will have to take a few pics for you all.

We decided to go into the marina for our last day.  It meant everyone was able to come and go as they please which made for a pleasant day/evening.  The rain did go away.  We had a number of downpours throughout the day but the evening the skies were clear.  Beautiful.

It also meant I could hook up to shore power and give all the batteries a good recharge.  In particular I went back to equalizing the house bank, an excercise concluded way back when in St Maarten.  This time, in one day, I was able to achieve an acid concentration better than I obtained after many tedious days on the hook.

Our time together is now just a few hours.  Not too much more to do now.  We need to clear everyone off the boat here in Jolly Harbour, some last minute packing and no doubt some cleaning up.

Yesterday we met our marina neighbour Bob who is a 5 year cruiser.  He said this morning he’d let us know a cool place to visit around the island.  It’ll be interesting to see what he has to say and to see if it’s worth adjusting our plans for the next few days.

One of these days I’ll be reporting that everything went to plan. Not today. We went for our walk to St Johns via Greencastle Hill. To get to the hill we had to walk about 3-4 miles along the road, turn right and walk another mile, look for dirt track next to a brick factory and then walk up that. Well, the best we could figure out that since my guidebook was written (10 years ago) the brick factory had become a quarry and mined out the side of Greencastle Hill and it was no longer accessible.  Alternatively we simply messed up. Not that Antigua has any signs for these things. It didn’t for Devil’s Bridge which was there so no surprises here.

So we walked the final 3 miles to St Johns, had lunch in a local cafe where we had chicken and lamb curries for 15 EC$ which is about 6 US$ each. Then we split up so the kids (mainly Jess) could look at the shops while John, Helen and I went to the museum.

We took the bus back to Jolly Harbour. Back on the boat we first went back to the marina to use their showers as we were dusty from the quarry and needed to clean up. We left Ben and Jess ashore and headed again back to Dignity. I had a minor crisis with the watermaker. When going under the floor to remove the filters for cleaning I accidentally flipped a switch without realizing it. This put the watermaker into a tizz which I could only resolve by calling Spectra support. They knew the answer immediately. Another lesson learned.