An osprey flew by the boat this morning as we were eating our Sunday pancakes. We haven’t seen it catch a fish yet although no doubt it does.

Ten pelicans followed it, as if they were part of a bomber squadron sending bouncing bombs to blow up a dam, but they wheeled away and up into the sky before they hit the beach.

Our morning swim is back in the routine, although the weather has been a little unpredictable lately with rain quite often. It appears that Antigua in the mid seventeen hundreds was prone to drought and with no natural springs, the sugar crop of the time was slightly variable on occasions. No drought at the beginning of the twenty first century though. All the cisterns which are required either beside or under the houses are full to overflowing.

We apologise for not writing sooner, but, as you can see, we are still here in Antigua. We have been having such a full life since we last wrote, that time has flown by, like the pelicans! Our main concern has been the house construction, which has been beset by minor stoppages due to lack of blocks or stone. We were unable to obtain stone on the island due to a crusher being down, at the quarry. It seemed to take them a month to obtain a part and fit it, ready for trading again.

Since this is the only private quarry on the island, they must have missed out on a huge amount of business. The other quarry is Government run, with all that implies, and they are busy producing stone for road bottoming to show the world, at the world cup cricket at the end of this month, that Antigua does not have potholes in its roads .At least, that will be the story on 24th March we hope, although the potholes are bound to reappear a month after that! All this, despite bringing in road gangs from Cuba. The cricket stadium, donated and built by the Chinese, is almost ready for play .Apparently, the grounds men hadn’t been paid on one occasion, since the Government hadn’t paid the Contractor, who didn’t have the money to pay his men. That seems to have been sorted though, and we will be in for a great treat when the cricketers get here.

We are looking forward to the visit of Chris Sayer from Scotland (Captain of the Fat Bearded Bastards Cricket Team from Fife), and we will sail over To St Kitts to watch Scotland (yes Scotland) play in the world cup against Australia, South Africa and the Netherlands. It should be most amusing. Will did watch Lara play at the Grange in Scotland once, about fifteen years ago, and remembers his red hat, the beer tent, and Jim Gray’s hospitality! Not much memory of the Scottish team, although they will all, no doubt, be much remembered by the end of the month.

We were delighted to have Susan, Stephen and Emma (Stephen’s girlfriend) out at Christmas and New Year. As well as enormous good cheer, they brought with them two types of flu! Only one of which brought Will down on New Year’s Eve, whilst everybody else walked on the pristine sands of Barbuda

and searched for the wild donkeys on the island.

At midnight they watched five different fireworks displays on Antigua, thirty miles away, to bring in the New Year.

The visit to Barbuda was very special, since this time we went to the Magnificent Frigate Bird Colony in the mangrove swamps. We went there by boat, with a guide who gave us much information on the way the male builds a part nest and then sits on it, whilst he blows up his red pouch at his breast and beats on it with his beak.

The females hover above the colony, and if they fancy one of the red pouches, and they are indeed magnificent, then they will fly down and flirt with the male by rubbing wings and shuffling around him.

Assuming they hit it off, a short mate takes place, and the male flies off to search for a twig to bring back. When this is achieved she allows him another pounce on her back and off he flies for more twigs, with the same result each time.

No one told us how long it took to complete the nest, but after the female lays the, now well fertilised egg, the male sits on the nest until the egg is hatched, and then looks after the youngster for another two months. All this time the mother supplies the food for the male and the one offspring. At the end of this time the male leaves his wife and offspring and flies off to the Galapagos Islands to the other colony of Magnificent Frigate Birds, where more females are waiting to see his magnificent puffed up red chest: and they used to say a sailor had a wife in every port!

Our holiday with Susan, Stephen and Emma ended all too quickly, but we are pleased to report that they had some good sailing in our walker bay dinghy, Dipper.

We were grateful for the loan of Tony and Tonia’s speedboat to go water skiing, and all returned to Scotland devoid of flu and colds, and generally looked quite healthy!

We are pleased to say the same was true when we said goodbye to Murray and Barrie (Barbara). We had also taken them to Barbuda. In addition to taking them to the Magnificent Frigate Bird Colony, we visited the caves and cliffs

and watched male long tailed tropic birds chasing female ones around with much squawking, although perhaps the females were chasing the males!

We saw the reefs on the North end of Barbuda, where there was a look out post, used in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to spot for wrecks.

Since Barbuda is very flat, and the determination of longitude in those days was very inexact, Barbuda was certainly a landfall for many ships coming over the Atlantic at that time. Unfortunately, once they were amongst the reefs there was no way out for the ship, and Barbuda society, mostly of slaves, pounced on the cargo to eek out their meagre living, and sometimes the owners of the island made a small fortune.

We visited the site of the old house that used to house the Codrington Family, when they were on the island, over some two hundred years. They leased the island from the Crown of England (and Britain), for the payment of one fat sheep annually. Although there were about four wrecks a year during the early days, the island was also used as a hunting preserve and cotton plantation, as well as providing sheep, cattle and horses for the Codrington sugar estates on Antigua.

We had a really good, if expensive, lobster meal at a beach café just below the Martello tower built in the late 1700’s.

Unfortunately the mosquitoes, sand flies and noseeums (the local midge) also had a feast on Will’s ankles and having been free of bites for months, he seems to have suffered that evening. Murray and Barrie seem to have discovered the answer through Zirtek, a magical antihistamine pill that takes away the itch, even if the ankle still looks like a pin cushion! You will remember that Murray helped us sail Atlantia down the coast of Morocco when the gear box gave up, and we had to rebuild it in Casablanca. It was great to see him again and to get to know Barrie as well.

Having said the houses are progressing slowly, there is no doubt that some progress has been made. The downstairs has been plastered inside, and we are beginning to see the start of the roof skeleton. Philson has quite a way to go before he achieves his next bonus target, but he still thinks it is possible. It may be! We shall see in mid April.

We have changed our minds about the roof covering. Instead of metal tiles, similar to our kind neighbours, we have decided to go for Walaba greenheart shingles, screwed onto the roof over a torched on felt. This is more traditional in Antigua than the metal tiles and doesn’t seem to suffer in hurricanes. It is cheaper and more available for replacement, which seems sensible. It also looks good!!

Talking of natural phenomena, Montserrat had a little hiccup the other day, sending pyroclastic flows down the volcano again. We also had an earthquake here in Antigua, 4.8 on the Richter scale. We didn’t notice it at all!! Everybody else was talking about it and we slept through it! Perhaps it is because we rock on the boat all the time in any event, that an earthquake has no effect on us. The building was inspected and there were no cracks or any indication that the earth had moved.

The boat is an ongoing source of pleasure, with some lovely sails around Antigua, over to Montserrat and up to Barbuda in the last couple of months. Unfortunately it is an ongoing source of maintenance as well. We have had the fuel system upgraded, Will has rebuilt the bow thruster (again) and the freezer has given up altogether. It needs a complete overhaul with new insulation and a new compressor. The good news is the ice maker (brought out to Maine by Tony and Vicky last year) still works, and the sails by Andy Cassels of Ratsey and Lapthorne of Cowes are still in pristine condition, despite a lot of use. We are taking a small number of charter parties, through Horizon Yacht Charters, to defray some of these costs. It is a delight to meet new people and to introduce them to the boat, and sometimes to sailing. We try not to charter more than once a fortnight, which is more than enough, given the amount of work on the houses that is also required, and the amount of swimming and sleep required in the hot weather!

We have bought an Indian chest for the boat. It sits in the middle of the floor and completes the seating for the fourth side of the table. Not only does it look antique and very much in keeping with the wood in the saloon, but it now houses the cool box, which has taken the place of the freezer! It is altogether more convenient and is held down by double sided Velcro, so it will certainly take a knock down. The top corners are rounded, so we don’t expect too many people to gash their legs! It is certainly an elegant addition to the boat and is perhaps the only non essential item ever bought for Atlantia!

The weather is still variable as we write, with rain again forcing the hatches to close. It is a good thing we have our Chinese fan to cool us down, when we are below. Everything seems to be made in China nowadays (except our new chest of course).

We hope you are well and that you like the pics that Margaret has taken.

Love from Atlantia.