‘Goose barnacles,’ says Piet the Dutchman, materialising behind us. He had spotted Voyager arriving and has come round to say hello.
We wash Voyager’s topsides and are halfway through scraping her hulls when work virtually comes to a stop. We are devoting more time to hopping about, slapping our legs and scratching than we are to the boat. A passing American, recognising the signs, stops to tell us about the local mosquitoes. They are so small as to be barely visible but nonetheless drive you insane. They used to be seasonal, he says, but after the last hurricane they didn’t leave. He continues on his way but returns within minutes with a can of insect repellent for each of us. He will accept no payment. Before it became Jolly Harbour, he says, the place was called Mosquito Cove.
Early next morning we begin polishing Voyager’s topsides. By the time we have completed all four sides plus the underside of the bridge deck, and applied one can of antifouling paint to the hulls, the day is done. We are pleased with what we have achieved, although we do wonder if the second can of paint will be enough to finish the job. At US$177 a can we are rather hoping not to have to buy a third one.
After dinner I begin reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being to David. It is his first exposure to Milan Kundera’s critically-acclaimed novel, my second. I had failed to connect with it the first time around and hope a shared experience might bring enlightenment. Too late we realise that our mosquito repellent has worn off and our legs are being chewed unmercifully. But we are in bed and asleep before 8pm, too tired to even scratch.
Next day the paint lasts after all. Voyager is now finished. Almost too weary to move by the time we have showered and eaten, I resume reading. By page 46 we are both depressed. Not because of its themes of personal and political betrayal, which are a daily presence in our lives thanks to World Service News, but the bewildering metaphors by which Kundera weaves them into his plot. After falling in love with Tereza, Thomas finds that he has to resort to alcohol to enable him to continue his daily infidelities with other women. We are resorting to alcohol to find the strength to face another chapter. Perhaps it is easier if you are familiar with Czechoslovakia’s communist era, or could read in the original Czech, but why does their female dog have a male name? We keep plodding on. And on, for several days, because the hoist is being used to hold up a monohull while work is done on its keel and so not available to put Voyager back in the water. And then we discover we have a more pressing problem than mosquito bites and literature-induced melancholy.
When we had presented ourselves in a semi-conscious state at the Immigration counter on our arrival at Antigua, and been required to state the length of our intended stay, David had written down a couple of weeks which at the time had seemed more than adequate. We had not expected airmail from England to take this long, or that David’s final appointment with his overworked dentist would be scheduled for two days after our official date of departure. Nevertheless, when David fronts up at Immigration today to ask for an extension he is told that to remain at Antigua after Sunday will require a visit to the police station in St John’s and the payment of US$150 each.
He manages to get a cancelled appointment at the dentist’s for this afternoon. We shall return to Falmouth Harbour first thing in the morning, collect our mail from the marina office and leave on Sunday as required.
Voyager has been lifted back into the water by the time David returns from the dentist. On the way he has stopped off at the marina office to pay our bill which is twice what he was expecting because although all our transactions on the island have so far been in EC dollars, it seems that the price quoted for our lift-out and boatyard fees was in US dollars.
We set off for Falmouth Harbour into a brilliant blue, shining morning and a light wind. We watch a pelican dive for its breakfast – more a splat than a dive, really. The technique seems closer to a wrecking ball than precision fishing and they surface with a great kafuffle of feathers and water. They are not graceful birds, but very appealing. In flight they are almost sedate, while appearing to defy gravity with their top-heaviness and large bodies.
We sail past sandy beaches and palm trees with the misty outline of Montserrat and Nevis in the distance. All we have to do now is dinghy into Falmouth Harbour marina and collect our post, which must have arrived by now, clear out with Immigration and call in on Hank to ask him not to pursue the quote for a refrigerator plate. Then it’s off to St Kitts and Nevis tomorrow at dawn.
Unfortunately, when we make what we confidently expect to be our final visit to the marina office our mail has still not arrived. It is rather worrying because it contains some important items including renewals of David’s driving licence, our boat registration and VHF radio licence, bank statements and yacht insurance papers. We shall have to think what we do about this on our way to Immigration.
From the marina we walk to English Harbour, part of the way in company with a brown and white nanny goat and two tiny identical kids. In the most isolated stretch of road, where he is usually to be encountered, the one-legged man is lying spread-eagled across the pavement ahead of us, his crutches splayed out on either side of him.
We stop at a safe distance and observe him. He is very still and his eyes are closed. Under any other circumstances we should rush forward and offer assistance. Now we simply look at one another and then back at him. He is young and vigorous with a very strong upper body, and my RYA Competent Crew course didn’t prepare me for being brought down by the ankles. Frigate birds hover and occasionally swoop low. We look at one another again.
What we do next is positively biblical: we pass on the other side. As we reach that part of the road where we shall lose sight of him I turn and look back. He is upright and reaching for his second crutch.
At Immigration, the young man behind the counter smiles at us in welcome and is utterly charming. We flinch and glance at each other nervously.
David explains that we need to clear out as our time is up tomorrow, but the official’s demeanour is such that I am prompted to add that while we don’t want to pay US$300 at the police station in St John’s for an extension to our stay, we don’t understand why our mail has not arrived by now.
‘Oh, well,’ he says. ‘If you’re waiting for mail...’ and gives us a generous extension without charge. We are so light-headed on our way back to Falmouth Harbour that we decide to treat ourselves to coffee at the lovely waterside building known as the Engineer’s House.
On Monday Hank gives us a quotation for a refrigerator plate. As expected, it is expensive, but affordable even with the installation costs added. And it will solve a growing problem of keeping food fresh and drinks cold in a climate which, already hot, is set to become even hotter. We ask him to order one for us. And since David’s dental work is complete there is nothing to keep us here until the new plate arrives from Italy. So we set off to discover a little more about Antigua.
31
A Trip around the Island
We sail clockwise, the same route we took to Jolly Harbour, but as we head down Goat Head Channel this time, between the land and the two reefs, a rain shower passes over us. David is steering and in the short time that it takes him to slip into a jacket we stray very close to Middle Reef, seeing for ourselves just how quickly you can get into trouble.
Five Islands Harbour is a large uninhabited bay almost a mile wide and two miles long. Confusingly there is only one island in the bay, Maiden Island, but the harbour is named after a small cluster of them just outside its south head. With its beaches, mangroves and seabirds it is a place apart, and yet Antigua’s bustling capital is only a short distance away. We anchor in a little cove on its south side called Hermitage Bay.
We have no immediate neighbours during our stay. On one day the most distant beach is alive with children for a while, shrieking with excitement as they hurl themselves into the low surf. The next day the sands are deserted but for a young calf taking a break from its field somewhere beyond the mangroves. The only other person we
encounter is a man taking his horse swimming and then grooming it in the sunshine.
The weather is as erratic as ever, including a few squalls. So when these have passed through, and a decent bit of wind arrives, we decide to take advantage of it and move on to our next port of call.
Deep Bay has a long and very pretty beach with a lagoon behind it, and just off the north headland a small island joined by a reef. There is an old fort at that end of the bay and the huge Royal Antiguan Hotel at the other. About a mile and a half outside the heads is Sandy Island and Weymouth Reef, named after HMS Weymouth which was wrecked there in 1745. It currently has an Antiguan coaster high and dry on it, with its bows stuck up in the air. In the middle of the anchorage lies the wreck of the Andes, with its mast stumps sticking a couple of feet above the water. We paddle the dinghy over and peer down at it, but not much of the wreck is distinguishable as the water is not very clear.
Deep Bay is in complete contrast to Five Islands. It is a busy resort and the usual variety of craft competes for space in its waters. Most noticeable are two very noisy jet skiers. Lacking the courage to go out into deeper water they roar about bravely just yards off the beach instead. One of them hurtles past a boy on a sailboard so fast that the latter spins in a circle and capsizes. The other does the same to a small girl in a sailing dinghy with equally disastrous results. We are anchored behind a boat called Global Surveyor, which seems a bit ambitious for a family yacht.
Paddle the dinghy ashore and this is a very pleasant place to wander. Fort Barrington offers wonderful views of Deep Bay and St John’s Harbour, which it guarded throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. It also served as a signal station to warn the rest of the island of impending attack and was the only fort to see military action in Antigua.
One morning we walk around the lagoon and finish with a stroll through the hotel’s grounds with its pink rhododendrons, open-sided dining room and late breakfasters. The road into it has a swing barrier for vehicles. David and I duck under it, the man behind limbos under it, and as the three of us emerge upright on the other side, a smiling woman in uniform rises to her feet and lays her hand on it saying, ‘I been watchin’ yuh comin’ for the last ten minutes,’ and apologises for not having raised it in time.
From Deep Bay we set sail for Long Island, past the capital, St John’s, then Dickenson Bay with its hotels and holiday makers and into Boon Channel which lies between the mainland and the long coral reef that arcs around Antigua’s northern coast.
During our passage up the Boon Channel the wind freshens and gusts for a while, turning over day sailors left, right and centre. A couple on a Hobie Cat spend ages getting their craft upright, standing on the hull which is underwater, and heaving with all their might on the upper one. They look like two actors on a small stage with a low proscenium arch, showing their bottoms contemptuously to their audience. A long way out at sea a motorboat has a parascender aloft, and I find myself wondering what would happen if a squall came up suddenly, and whether he would end up in Puerto Rico.
The wind abates but is followed by torrential rain. Sea and sky become an eerie colour. Not at all the tranquil turquoise of the brochures. We continue down the channel, pass to the south of tiny Prickly Pear Island, with its encircling coral reef, and anchor in Jumby Bay off the west side of Long Island.
Long Island is an expensive resort on a private island. But there are no private beaches in Antigua. It is very pretty here and a pleasant place to swim. There is not a lot of peace though, with planes flying low overhead on the approach to the airfield a mile and a half away on the mainland, and the Brumby ferry which runs every 30 minutes at high speed and produces a large wake. Both offer good reasons for not tarrying too long.
If you sail south between Long Island and Maiden Island you come to Parham, which is on the mainland. Even allowing for anchoring and a brief squall, it takes us barely an hour until we are dinghying ashore and at Parham we feel we have found the Old Carib. Or a bit of it, anyway. There are chickens roaming free and goats tethered at the side of the pot-holed road. There are huge, glorious old trees, sadly with convolvulus devouring them – its multi-coloured flowers pretty but all-pervading as they swallow up the gravestones and vaults in the churchyard and consume abandoned cars whole.
Baby goats graze contentedly, 10 tiny chickens follow their mother while a cockerel and a goose engage in a cackling competition. The rooster struts, eyes blazing, issuing his empty challenge. The slightly grubby white goose, rootling casually in a storm drain the while, matches him utterance for utterance but in an ironic sort of way that drives the cockerel to apoplectic heights.
We meet an elderly, charming man who mourns the decline of his town.
‘The church was beautiful,’ he says and looks at us hopefully. ‘Did you go inside?’
‘No,’ we say. ‘It was locked.’
He nods, sadly. ‘The pipe organ was pumped by hand.’
Parham was once the seat of the island’s governor and the second most important town after St John’s.
‘The plantations shipped their crops of muscavado sugar in sacks from Parham’s docks,’ he says, ‘with a hand-cranked crane.’
Doyle’s cruising guide recommends a couple of useful places to shop here. Of particular interest to us is Jamy’s supermarket offering ‘a good stock of basic provisions’ and Joyce’s snack bar and cake bakery. Unable to find either I go into the small police station and ask for directions. Apart from a desk and a chair there is no other furniture in the room and the shiny white floor tiles are as treacherous as an ice rink after the recent squall. A police woman and a male civilian are at the desk with an instruction book trying to programme a new telephone system. They both stare at me and then, dragging her brain from the complexities of the telephone, the policewoman says, ‘Would you repeat what you just said?’ I read out the claims in our new local pilot about Jamy’s supermarket and the bakery. They both look at me mystified and then give me directions to Parham’s only shop.
The woman behind its counter is lovely. Warm and welcoming. Afraid her stock is very limited. We don’t mind at all. We’re just pathetically grateful these days if somebody behind a counter is nice to us. She laughs when we point to a packet of Garibaldi and say we’ll have some squashed fly biscuits and when I buy a selection of sweet potatoes, squash and carrots she adds another item free of charge. To see if we like it. It is a previously unknown root vegetable, like a small hairy potato and it will grace the next batch of ratatouille I make.
Another short journey to the north-east of Parham takes us to Great Bird Island, in reality the exposed part of a reef which rises to 100 feet and has become an island. It is part of a National Park and uninhabited. It is also the last known home of the endangered Antiguan racer snake. For some reason David finds the notion of a racing snake that can’t outrun its predators hilarious. There are small white butterflies. A shearwater skims the sea. The bay is an incredible blue, the reefs pea-green and brown.
In the Caribbean, the saying goes, you sail by colour. If the water is dark blue, it’s deep; if it’s turquoise, it’s 15–25 feet; but if it’s bright green with a brown bit in the middle you’re approaching a reef. That’s why, in the days of sailing ships, they kept a lad up in the crow’s nest, because they needed height to see the colour changes early enough to give them time to shift all those acres of sail they carried and change course.
I refuse to go higher than the coach house roof. For a start, it’s less straightforward than the local sages would have you believe. It only works properly under clear skies with the sun at the right angle. Cloud can turn any depth of sea dark blue and it is unnerving to watch your safe, deep water drift away along with the cloud. A decent pilot book, a chart and an echo sounder is safer.
We go for a swim late afternoon and a man rows over from a 33ft cat, registered in Sydney, Australia – and the only other boat around – to invite us over for drinks later with him and his wife. We have a very pleasant evening a
nd set sail again the following morning.
There are two entrances to Nonsuch Bay and we go in via the southern one, between Green Island and the mainland. We anchor not far from the reef, in glorious aquamarine water surrounded by wooded hills and pale sandy beaches. It is a glorious place to swim, paddle the dinghy and generally wander. Green Island is uninhabited and home to tropicbirds, pelicans, ospreys and white crowned pigeons.
Most extraordinary is the contrast between the tranquil water in which Voyager is anchored, and the ocean beyond the reef. The reef lies just below the surface and is almost invisible, but it protects the bay from the turbulence of the sea. And you sit in your cockpit and watch the waves tumbling towards you, but never arriving, Atlantic rollers stretching back for 2,000 miles, all the way to Africa from where we have so recently come.
To complete our circumnavigation of Antigua, we leave Nonsuch the same way as we entered and follow the coast past the large, coral-protected Willoughby Bay, past English Harbour and back into Falmouth.
Back in our old spot, pelicans plunge and feed. They are a source of great frustration for the frigate birds who can only take fish away from another bird by attacking it as it rises into the air with its fish in its beak. By contrast, after diving for its meal, a pelican sits on the water and consumes its catch within its pouch, leaving the frigate birds to rage and fume impotently overhead.
A large catamaran anchors beside Voyager and sets about getting some work done. It has two local men on deck, quietly sanding its teak toe rails, and the crew pottering about rubbing at the bright work when suddenly there is a huge bang from the engine bay and great clouds of black smoke and oil belch from the starboard exhaust. Everybody stops what they are doing and stares. There is a second, even louder, explosion and more, even blacker smoke followed by another oil slick. People begin running about like headless chickens.
A Thousand Miles from Anywhere Page 20