The weather has improved here. You may well say that the general caribbean weather doesn’t change, but please be assured it can. The last few weeks we have suffered under tropical waves. Not tropical storms which have winds up to 60 m.p.h., but tropical waves. These create heavy downpours of rain, about once a week, and the odd shower on most days. Sometimes it is oppressively hot, and with no air conditioning on the boat that we can use without the generator, it can be a bit uncomfortable. Today, though, the skies are blue and the breeze is a steady easterly at fifteen knots. The light scatter of cumulus clouds (the puffy ones!), helps keep the temperatures below 30 degrees C. in the shade. The hatches and portholes are open to help to keep the boat aired and cool. Altogether the weather we would like to see all the time!

Despite the occasional rain and grey clouds, we go swimming every day, since the temperature does not vary much from 28 degrees C. About two minutes walk from our dock, the beach is white sand and the sea a beautiful light greenish blue. Since Margaret and Will see the amounts of blue and green differently, there is sometimes a discussion about this over the post swim cappuccino! Nevertheless, the view over the sea to Montserrat is always spectacular and sometimes graced with a rainbow.

We have not been idle. The boat was put back into the water after a week out and after our last letter. It looked great under the waterline and superb on the topsides. Margaret has carried out an excellent job, firstly rubbing down all the woodwork, and secondly putting three coats of cetol over the previous bright work. In Scotland, one application will last about three years, although here in Antigua, it is only a year, due to the harshness of the sun. If we were to use varnish, it would be a coat every four months. The cetol is not quite as shiny as varnish, but the extra life makes it well worthwhile using.

Will has been busy gardening! Although the lawyers here are on holiday (probably for another month), we have been assured that all the necessary papers have been signed for the transfer of the site, by the existing owner. We are now only waiting for local beaureaucracy to take its course. This is an unbelievably slow island, legally, the reason for which is hard to understand, although we have a few thoughts on the matter. Will has been making a fence out of palm leaves, cut from, (soon to be our), palm trees in the garden.

We also had the coconuts trimmed off the trees, to prevent them from falling onto the barbecue. Even so, one made a dent in the barbecue and another in the bike mudguard (fender!) There are more people killed by falling coconuts in a year, than are attacked by sharks, so the statistics say. We can believe that, since we haven’t seen a shark around here for ages! We have also bought a strimmer and a large cutlass, a la Pirates of the Caribbean, which makes short work of the roots of the self seeded trees. The strimmer looks a little incongruous on the boat though!

Cricket is associated with rain in the summer in Britain. We have discovered it is no less true here! We visited the beautiful Stanford cricket ground, adjacent to the airport, to watch the quarter finals of the Stanford 20/20 Caribbean Nations cricket series (although Bermuda were there as well!) Trinidad and Tobago were playing Barbados and were dressed in brightly coloured suits of red and green (T&T) and blue and yellow (B).

There was a crowd of about two thousand people, which isn’t bad for an island of sixty six thousand people on a Friday afternoon. The atmosphere was intense and we took our seats in the grandstand after an excellent pie and pint at the Sticky Wicket, the hotel and restaurant that abuts the ground.

We were handed placards that said 6 and 4. In case you don’t know, and we didn’t, you wave these in the air when the batsmen scores the requisite runs. We used them once each in the two overs that were played for twenty two runs and three wickets, during our three hours of sitting in our partly covered seats. The rest of the time it rained. Not just rain, but buckets and sheets, although cats and dogs are not used as a metaphore in this part of the world. This is mostly because the water is collected in cisterns and used for drinking water. Allusions to wild life in water are therefore not really appropriate. We had determined to go to the finals but we were caught up with other things. It was probably just as well; it might have rained. Guyana won by beating Trinidad and Tobago on the last ball.

The Cricket World Cup is in the West Indies next year and the Chinese are building stadiums all over the islands. We already have one booking from Scotland from the captain of the FBB team (Fat Bearded Bastards!) We might have half a house built by then, so we can probably promise you a hard bit of concrete to camp on if the boat is full. Please come though, it would be good to see you. It shouldn’t rain too much.

Carnival is an event that lasts for two weeks in Antigua. St Patrick’s Day lasts a week in Montserrat, but they don’t have the floats and the parties that seem to go on endlessly in Antigua. No wonder the lawyers need a month’s holiday to recover. The first part of the Carnival we attended, we were actually part of. We followed the Jolly Harbour float along the streets of St Johns, together with about twenty or thirty other floats. We were having a party in our bright yellow carnival T shirts and being fed drinks from the back of a pick up truck, which is a favourite form of transport on the pot holed roads here.

The float we followed with its three partly naked girls, and a half naked man, with glitter, drew attention to the fact, that at Jolly Harbour, you can golf, sail, have a villa, go to the beach and have a party, all at the same time, which is nearly true! It’s not our usual style though, since we are too busy working on the boat or in the garden.

Almost every third ‘float’ was a lorry (truck), packed full on its open flatbed, with band or console and mega speakers that vibrated as if they would shake the houses to bits, let alone the ear drums of the people following.

Fortunately there were some additional bands bringing up the rear, playing spare parts of cars or old oil drums. The latter were quite tuneful.

Unfortunately there only seemed to be one tune available to all the disc jockeys and bands. We believe it was a break dance (brake dance?) The main words seemed to come over as “Yubba Yubba Yubba, I’m a Scrubba Scrubba Scrubba”. The mind numbing intensity and lyrics sent us into quite a spin and we were glad of a lift home to the boat. (The beer might have helped the spin.)

It was just over a week later, that we went back to St Johns as spectators, to see the final parade, after all the judging had taken place, during the week, of the costumes, troupes and calypso’s. The latter was a hot and politically sensitive contest .The Carnival Queen had been crowned.

We found before us, not just three or four scantily clad people, but over a thousand, all dancing to the same song of Yubba Yubba Yubba, I’m a Scrubba Scrubba Scrubba! We supposed they were scantily clad because it was hot, but maybe not.

The British political parties seemed to be well represented. The Green party led the way, although it appeared that most of them had been eating a bit more than just vegetables. Barbecued pigs tail is a favourite here and was available as the parade went by.

The Greens were closely followed by the Lib. Dems., in full Westminster regalia.

The House of Lords had to make their showing, clad all in togas!

The leader of the SNP with his troop of gladiators marched solidly by, some in reverse to ward off stabs in the back.

Tony Blair was there in drag with his demonic dancing.

He was followed by his ‘babes’, although whether they pursued him with political or spiritual guidance, we were not quite sure.

The new leader of the Conservative party was there celebrating his victory at the next election, perhaps a little prematurely, but nevertheless with sincerity.

The next Lib. Dem. Government was lined up and ready to go, for when they are old enough to vote, a very sweet and endearing group.

Then of course there were the usual followers with their fantasies and gaily coloured clothes.

Some took their fantasies a little far, but perhaps they were carried away with the Yubba Yubba Yubba, I’m a Scrubba Scrubba Scrubba!

The parade lasted, for some, for ten hours, finishing at midnight last Tuesday. Some bands, on their lorries, went round and round St Johns all evening, obviously lost, since there is only one sign in the city. They must know their Yubba Yubba quite well by now.

We have purchased a car. A reasonably cheap Toyota four door Rav 4 J, slightly bigger than the excellent tonka toys we used to have at Will Rudd Davidson. We are going to use it for transporting materials and other purchases for the house, if and when we can ever get to that stage. We had to enlist the help of the Minister of Transport, to cut through the catch 22 beauraucracy that surrounds the island, like the reefs. We were most grateful for his, and Mr Hall’s (the insurance agent’s) help, in obtaining Will’s permanent, beautifully coloured, plastic driving licence. This was needed to be able to buy the car. I’m sure there is a touch of the innocents abroad here, buying the car was the simple part, with the help of our friend Marcie, who also doubles as the man who antifouls the bottom of our boat. We were slightly surprised to find, after a severe electrical storm the other night, that the battery was flat in the car. It may have been a short due to all the rain, but since the batteries in the door bell also gave up, we are putting it down to electrical interference from above. We will wait and see.

The boat is now moored slightly out from the dock in case of hurricanes. We have a stern anchor, a stern mooring and a side stern warp to a pile. Chain and stainless steel springs on the other side and four bow warps secured to cleats thoroughly embedded in concrete. We feel pretty secure, whatever the weather throws at us, but again we shall see, since we don’t have any experience of hurricanes yet. There seems to be an excellent service on the internet which can predict tropical storms about five days in advance, so we take advantage of that to check what is to happen, when we can access the net (about every three days!)

Please feel free to e-mail us with your news. We would be pleased to hear from you. Hope all is well.

Love Atlantia