English Harbour 2 Antigua

The Pillars Restaurant (originally part of the dockyard sail loft) in the inner part of English Harbour

Whilst we were in St John’s we had hoped to visit the large Epicurian supermarket in the town but had not actually found it.  So, when we returned to English Harbour we took the dinghy on a shopping trip to the Covent Garden supermarket at the top end of the harbour.  It’s a small supermarket but reasonably well provisioned and there’s a convenient dinghy dock just outside it.  But the best thing about it are the views of the upper reaches of Nelson’s Dockyard, particularly of the Pillars Restaurant, that you have from the dinghy as you make your way to the supermarket dock.

The charter yacht base (Sunsail and The Moorings) to the right of the picture, rubbing shoulders with some very swish yachts, some of which are also available for charter – at a somewhat higher price!

Back on BV and food stowed away, we used our new Digicel card in our unlocked AT&T mobile phone to try to connect to the internet (successful) and then have the phone produce a wifi hotspot so that we could have both our computers online at the same time.  This latter task was singularly unsuccessful – and hugely frustrating – and by the time we realised the problem it was too late to visit the Copper and Lumber to use their wifi.  Consequently, it was not until the following morning, that we discovered that our unlocked AT&T phone whilst fully unlocked did not have full functionality unlocked to us, specifically the use of the hotspot. Apparently, this is not unusual with US carriers – be warned!  So, with this little bombshell dropped, Nicky took another bus ride into St John’s to see if she could somewhere buy a phone that had never been locked to any carrier. I posted some blogs and then returned to BV to carry out more post passage chores, primarily fixing the batten car on the mainsail.

Nicky arrived back very late in the afternoon. After visiting 3 shops and carrying out quite a lot of online research, she had eventually purchased a new phone. This one had never been locked to a carrier and, with our Digicel card, provided all the services we required. However, half way back to English Harbour on the bus, the phone started to malfunction, with the screen flashing on and off about once a second.  So, she had returned to the shop only to find that they had no more of the same phone in stock.  ‘Come back tomorrow’ she was told.  ‘We will replace it with a newer, better model’……

Nicky eventually got back to English Harbour at 1725.  Twenty minutes later, showered and changed, we were both on time on parade for the evening’s meeting of the Royal Navel Tot Club, on Wednesdays held at the Hot Hot Hot Spot bar in teh dockyard.  We were guests of Mike Briggs, whom we had last met at the Tot Club in March when we had visited English Harbour with Charlotte.  He had recognised BV at anchor and during the afternoon had rowed over to invite us over to the Tot Club’s evening gathering.  We had a lovely evening chatting to him, renewing old acquaintances from our previous visit and making new friends.  As ever, time vanished remarkably quickly but we were pleased to accept an invitation to Friday’s gathering.

The anchorage off Pigeon Beach in Falmouth Harbour

The next day Nicky returned to St John’s, frustratingly her third trip there in as many days, and collected a new mobile phone which, much to the relief of both of us, continued to work perfectly even beyond the outskirts of the town.  We celebrated with a walk into Falmouth to see what excitements the small town and yacht club had to offer and to take a look at the yacht anchorage off Pigeon Beach.  We thought that the anchorage looked nice enough, and certainly there was plenty of space and, probably, a fairly constant wind direction, unlike in Freeman Bay where BV seemed to sit at all angles, but the scenery is definitely a step up in English Harbour.

Freeman Bay from the north showing BV in her original position close to Freeman Point (Freeman Point is on the left of the picture, abutting Galleon Beach)

Having recced the anchorage off Pigeon Beach we returned to English Harbour to discuss BV’s position.  Whilst Nicky had been on one of her many trips to St John’s, I had dived on the anchor and seen (through the surprisingly sandy water) that the anchor was dug in well, though the chain snaked across an area of rocks and stones.  This explained the night-time graunching noises from the anchor chain that had been disturbing our sleep.  My dive might explain where the noise was coming from but it didn’t make it any easier to sleep through.  Nicky, in particular, was becoming irritated by it and we both realised that we needed to move.

View into the southern end of Freeman Bay from BV’s new (quiet) anchorage

We were considering a move to Pigeon Bay (though the scenery was nothing like as good as that in English Harbour!), when a space opened up at the south end of Freeman Bay.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, we rapidly up-anchored and took up residence in the new space.  The scenery remained good and the anchor chain was a lot quieter as it rested on sand rather than rock but the wind shadow/swirl at this end of the bay means that yachts spin around in all directions, seemingly randomly, which can cause problems.  In fact, a couple of days later we found ourselves uncomfortably close to a newly arrived catamaran, which we had thought had anchored a good distance away from us.  Happily, the owner agreed that our 2 boats were getting too close together and, since they had arrived after us, moved to a new location a bit further away.

Tot Club meeting in the Copper and Lumber – a great venue

Photos post event – where has everyone gone?  To the bar, of course!

Friday evening found us enjoying another tot with the Tot Club, this time in the Copper and Lumber.  The bar/restaurant/hotel was originally built as the dockyard store for (guess what?) copper (for sheathing ships’ bottoms) and lumber and the buildings were beautifully restored in the mid-twentieth century.  The open air courtyard in the centre of the building is a hugely atmospheric ‘room’ and a fabulous setting for the Friday tot.

Meal out at ‘Life on the Corner’ in Falmouth.  It was Friday so it had to be fish and the mahi-mahi and chips was excellent value and even better eating!

And then we were invited to join a group for dinner at ‘Life on the Corner’ one of several bar/restaurants in the centre of Falmouth.  We thought it surprisingly busy but later agreed that this was deservedly so.  The food was delicious and very reasonably priced. Certainly a place to return to.

Maintaining the Charlotte Battery Trail as part of the Tot Club ‘Keep Fit’ – ‘destroying nature to preserve history’!

We had originally planned to leave English Harbour at the weekend but John Duffy’s announcement at Wednesday’s Tot Club meeting had piqued our interest.  ‘Keep fit on Sunday’ he’d said.  It turned out that ‘Keep Fit’ meant hack and slash to keep the walking trails clear and since we had very much enjoyed some of the trails the last time we had visited we had decided to take part to put in some pay-back.  So, bright and early on Sunday 16 December, John, Mark and his son Al, and Nicky and I met to take on the trail to Charlotte Battery.  The path was surprisingly clear but, given the rate at which stuff grows in Antigua, it wouldn’t be long before ‘surprisingly clear’ became ‘virtually impassable’, so we set to with loppers and a strimmer.

Hot work – happily there were plenty of clouds about to keep the sun from beating down too strongly

We cut down a lot of vegetation and made a good impact on preserving access to the right of way – a right of way that has been in use at least since the British first came to the island. Disappointingly, many of the people we have met during our stay in Antigua have talked about corruption at the top of the island’s Government.  This comes in many forms but the most popular seems to be acquiring land illegally and/or at too low a price.  The land, even if it is in the National Park no development area, is then developed and then either sold on or otherwise used to line the pockets of the politician in question.  By maintaining the many rights of way across the National Park, the Tot Club is trying to ensure that the paths are used and that they remain rights of way, which also has the benefit of making it more difficult for unscrupulous people to claim that the land does not belong to or is not used by anyone.

We had a lovely view across Freeman Bay anchorage (with a pretty blue yacht 3 or 4 from the left!) from the Charlotte Battery trail

And, of course, one of the benefits of maintaining and using the paths is that you get some great walking and lovely views as well.

(Top left) driving down the Charlotte Battery Trail after the morning’s work.  We couldn’t have done this before starting the job!  (Top right) The Galley Bar at Nelson’s Dockyard.  (Bottom)  Working party recovery beers

After just a few hours’ work we had the Charlotte Battery trail sufficiently cleared for John’s exacting standards and retired back to the Galley Bar for a well-earned beer.  Maybe not quite the post-workout drink that your average naval PTI (physical training instructor) would recommend but very much in the spirit of the Royal Navy of Nelson’s era!

Nelson’s Dockyard in the sun

So, with it being our last day in English Harbour for this visit, I took some more pictures with the sun out…..

Hammock tester – it’s a hard job but someone’s got to do it!

…….and then spent a hard-working afternoon testing out the ship’s hammock.  After all, I needed to rebuild my strength – we were planning a 45nm sail to Barbuda in the morning!

English Harbour, Antigua