Antigua

Sunday was the start of race week and we headed to the beach on our dinghies to watch the start of the race. As we got close to the beach with the dinghy we couldn’t find a spot to enter the beach as it was all covered in rocks. As we were trying to turn around to go join Robert (who attached his dinghy to a buoy) a wave took our dinghy straight onto the rocks. We ended up on the beach anyway with our dinghy still in one piece luckily. My sister and I were told to start walking back to the beach on the other side whilst my mom and dad took the dinghy back over the rocks to meet Robert. My sister walked back to the beach whilst I walked up a road to a cliff to get some photographs of the boats racing. After sitting and taking photo’s for a while, I headed back down the road to the beach. A couple on their moped offered to give me a ride and insisted that I get on. So I got on a tiny bit of seat at the back of the moped. Now imagine three people on a tiny moped going downhill on a dirt road. . .yes, I feared for my life. After the dirt road and dodging trees, we finally got onto the beach. My legs trembled as they hit solid ground again. I went back to the boat and sorted through my photos that I had taken during the day. That afternoon we went to Shirley Heights for their barbecue. They had soca music playing and it was packed with people. We enjoyed a dinner and fantastic view, which we followed with an early night in bed.

Race boats

                                        

View from Shirley Heights

On the Monday of race week, we decided to do some island exploring whilst Lee was sailing. So Robert, Kerry, Ashton, Rebecca, my mom, dad and I hired a moped and a yellow jeep. Robert drove the moped with me on the back and the rest of the gang were in the Jeep. Robert laughed at me as I clung tighter every time there was a bend in the road. After a nice scenic drive and a few U-turns (my mothers navigational skills. . .what can I say?), we arrived at Stingray City. We planned to swim with them but at 50 US a head, we decided it was a bit steep. So back on the moped I got and we headed to St. John’s to pick up our long awaited propellers. We had planned one destination for the day (besides the propellers of course) and that was C & C’s Wine Bar where they specialize in South African wine. What was one bottle of wine eventually turned into another. . .and then another. . .and needless to say we spent the entire afternoon at the wine bar. We met the owners, Cutie and Claudia (C & C) and had a great afternoon chatting to Cutie. She was such a sweet lady! We gallantly sat and drank wine, chatting about the beautiful wine farms in Cape Town, Franschoek, Stellenbosch. . . South African has some of the best wines. We made reservations for Thursday night (lasagna night) and then we took six bottles of wine to go. We arrived back in Falmouth harbour quicker on the way back as our navigation lady became Kerry instead of my mom, who was now on the moped with my dad. We watched as the moped swayed a little bit in the rearview mirror. . .must of been all that wine. We arrived back in one piece and met up with Lee for dinner at the Mad Mongoose. My dinner was very tasty. . .coconut shrimp with orange ginger sauce! After a long day of doing not much else than sitting on our butts and drinking some good ol’ South African wine, we headed for the sack.

C & C's Wine Bar

Tuesday morning, Robert and I, were on shore at 7 to go geocaching. We hopped onto the moped and headed for Devils Bridge. It is a natural phenomenon in Antigua where waves have crashed into the rocks for hundreds of years, creating an arch or bridge. Popular beliefs say that slaves leapt to their deaths off of the natural arch during the period of slavery in Antigua. Devils Bridge gets its name from these myths as the stories say that the devil claimed those who leapt off the bridge. Robert and I took a dirt road to get there, so we ended up bundu bashing on a moped! We searched around for ages to find the cache but we just couldn’t. Then Robert decided that nature was calling him so I went one direction while he was looking for a good spot to go to the bathroom (downwind he says is the best). The funny thing is, as he was searching for a good place to ‘go’, he found the cache! We only had the moped till 11am so we hopped back on it and went across to Half Moon Bay. After a walk on a beautiful beach and a little bit of rock climbing, we found the next cache. There were two caches at Half Moon Bay, so we went to go find the other one, which required us to find Harry. We went to Harry’s bar and got him to open up. I had to search for the cache behind the bar! It was good fun! Robert traded his shirt with the guy behind the bar because he apparently would look less like a tourist. With 40 minutes to spare, we decided to drive back to the harbour. A fantastic day was concluded with a fantastic evening! We found ourselves at Nelson’s Dockyard for K-yani Marley’s concert! The night was filled with chatting to friends, and dancing to the sweet sounds of ‘no women, no cry.’ It started raining at the end of the night and Robert, my mom, my sister and I all squeezed into a phone booth whilst we waited for my dad to finish in the bathroom.  After a quick nightcap at the Mad Mongoose bar, we all hit the sack.

Devil's Bridge

                                      

Phone Booth

Wednesday was lay day . . .which meant no racing. The propellers had been fitted so we took the boat out for a little test run. No more vibrations! The propellers worked perfectly! Once the boat was parked nicely in our spot once again, it was beach time. The lay day consists of a huge beach day, where people do rowing races, play cricket, drink rum. . .etc. Everyone eventually found themselves on the beach except for my parents who didn’t want to get sandy. Kerry and I were with Ashton in the playground when we were asked to be in a Malibu commercial! Unfortunately we weren’t going to be in Antigua until the end of the month so we had to decline. We all headed back to our boats just as the sun was going down. We could hear some fantastic music playing from the beach and my dancing feet started becoming itchy. So my sister and I got dressed again, picked up Robert and off we went dancing. There was hardly anyone on the beach and only about 5 people dancing. But regardless of that, we started dancing anyway! We befriended a security guard as well as a couple from New York. We even attempted to learn a dance move from some local girls (the one where you shake your butt without even moving). . .and we failed miserably. After an hour of dancing around the beach and through the waves, we headed back to the dinghy. This is where we met Stephan (an Italian guy also racing in the Regatta). We had a quick chat with him and then headed back to the boat for a good sleep.

Thursday morning came with a run. Robert fetched me in his dinghy and we went to his boat to take in to the dock as they had run out of water. Our ran began on the dock and we did our usual run but stopped at a different cliff for a breather. The run finished with a nice swim in the ocean and then a killer run up a hill. I went for a shower on Roberts boat and came out in a pair of his shorts and a t-shirt . . .needless to say Kerry quickly gave me some of her clothes as I had to roll up Robert’s shorts. I spent the day helping Robert clean his boat and watching Robots on TV with Ashton. When my parents came to get me, I was given 30 minutes to shower and change before we had to leave again. We met up with a South African guy for sundowners at the yacht club. Shortly after, the Talisman crew arrived and we headed for a taxi to go for dinner at C & C’s Wine Bar. After 10 minutes of driving, we pulled over and were told to switch cars. So we went from the taxi to a bus! We arrived at the Wine Bar and were greeted by a smiling Cutie. On the menu for dinner was lasagna . . .Robert broke into a huge grin when he found out they had vegetable lasagna too. The lasagna was superb and went really well with the wine we were drinking. Dessert was hot chocolate, Belgian waffles and ice cream from the Australian homemade ice cream bar. We were all put back into the bus to head back to the boats and after a while, we pulled over again. Instead of switching cars this time though, we switched drivers! We all laughed as we thought, “Only in the Caribbean!” We had a reasonably early night . . .I went to bed smiling as I am so grateful for this life I have been given. If there is something greater than that, it is the great company I have been given. 

Click the link below for a video of our visit to Antigua. . .
Antigua 2012