Oh my god I have to get up! Yesterdays long day and late night is taking it’s toll and I ponder for a minute what it must be like to be out here on holiday or to sail as a charter guest. No, I have to keep going, there are jobs to be done and people to see. I Make my way down to Nelson’s Dockyard on yet another beautifully sunny morning and Liz tells me I should have had a lay in this morning and taken a couple of hours off this morning (yeah thanks for that an hour ago would have been good to know this! ;-) ). Dave, the photographer needs a RIB (chase boat) driver, so I decide to use my couple of hours off to get out and see the racing. We don our lifejackets and take off in the Rigid Inflatable Powerboat that our RYA Sea School uses for power boat courses in Antigua for the racing taking place in the south side of the Island outside English Harbour.
We follow Spirit of Minerva out of the harbour and hang around her for a while prior to the starts. I intended to relay some commentary about the start but basically have my work cut out getting the RIB into the right positions for Dave to get the best shots whilst avoiding powered up yachts of up to 70 feet carving us in half.. no mean feet in these large seas that often occur off the south side of the island. We manage to shoot the three Farr 65s racing along with our Beneteau 40.7 racing in Division B. We hang around for them to come back on the downwind leg and we have a job keeping up with the fleet as the pound along in 25 – 30 knots of breeze with following seas. We witness several broaches and my jaw goes slack when I see 40.7s trucking along in full surf mode down 3 metre waves. I kid you not when I say that some of these lighter yachts were seeing numbers in excess of 15 knots! Hold on tight….
I head back in to get some real work done, but feel satisfied that I have seen some of the racing though I did not manage to get my own camera out having to control the rodeo horse of a RIB in these demanding conditions. My throttle arm is going to ache in the morning having to carefully pick my way through the confused wave patterns to keep Dave’s massively expensive photo gear dry.
I get a Skype call from my daughter Ella (14) in the afternoon telling me that she got an A in her French Speaking GCSE exam today and this really makes my day (a little tear in the corner of my eye from a very proud father). Two weeks away from them is hard and I am really starting to miss not seeing them. My youngest, Darcy(10) sends me messages all the time telling me she is missing me and that I should some home (not long pumpkin… see you Saturday XXXXXXXX).
Dave ‘Waddo’ Watson, skipper of Spirit of Juno meets me on the dockside having had a great couple of races. He tells me how satisfying it was to finally cream Louis on Spirit of Isis in both races, though Louis did have to retire from the second race having snapped a headsail halyard, consequently damaging his number 3. He tells me of some exciting close quarter action between Juno and Isis in the first race in these challenging conditions (at this point I issued a verbal warning!) resulting in a 1st over the line in the first race and 2nd in the 2nd race. Boat speeds of 16 knots were seen downwind with following seas which produced big grins all round…if at the cost of sore mussels (they did look pretty shattered when they came in).
A quieter evening in the dockyard as they Party tonight is up at Shirley Heights. My new friends, Roger, Chuck, Steven, Rod and they guys from ‘Soggy Dollar Bar’ (A Canadian crew on a Sunfast 53, some of whom are staying in my hotel) spark up the BBQ on the dockside behind the yacht and their own party starts. They kindly invite me over, but alas, I have to work a while longer yet I am afraid. Damn those burgers smell good…
We close up the tents and Ryan, Pete and I head off to the Gallery Bar for a relaxing drink and a quick ‘wash up meeting’ about the week so far. We eat great tappas washed down with Rum and Ginger and then all agree it’s time to get off for some rest as Ryan tells us that his wife Liz has had his dinner on the table for the past 3 hours (you’re in trouble fella!).
I have received an email from my mother tonight telling me off for my bad grammar in the blog (big kisses and see you soon!)… so I will apologise for this now for this but did point out that trying to fit the blog in with everything else we have going on if not the easiest task ;-) My wife Cheryl is the clever one with the English Literature degree and we always say that “she does the letters and I does the numbers!”
