Thursday 6 December, Antigua: Docked in Jolly Harbor Marina for a de-salt boat wash!
What a peaceful night! We slept like babies. Not moving and no sounds other than the occasional plane (we seem to be under the flight path). So we wake up refreshed and eager to make plans… Plan A: relax and TRY to take it easy for a bit! Plan B: get on with stuff 🙂
Breakfast is in the cockpit under the warm sun and cooling breeze, surrounded by turquoise water, white beaches and green hills. We feel like we are anchored in the middle of a picture post card. This inspires us to bring the drone out and have a short flight around the bay. It’s a beautiful aerial view in this morning light. From 300m up and 1.3km inland we can capture the entire bay.
But enough of relaxing, we have things to do, so on with Plan B! A VHF call later, we are booked into Jolly Harbor Marina for two days. We need to wash the boat of its salt layer. Plus, it would be nice to just step off the boat instead of dinghy-in 2km every time we want to go ashore. And at $54 a night the marina seems very reasonable after USA prices, which have completely reset our clock on such things.
So anchor up, and few minutes later we see the marina guys pointing towards the slip. We want to moor bows-to, so that we can keep the dinghy on the davits. Very interesting mooring system here: one guy in a dinghy catches the stern lines and secures them to dolphin posts and another one on the jetty catches the bow lines. All very efficient. Brilliant service!
And what is even better, we are centered by our 4 lines and not touching anything! Cloudy Bay’s shine will be safe here! And, she is among friends. Next to us is an HR53 and across from us is an HR42. We think they are already chatting. Although we cannot speak Swedish, we sense her friends are complimenting her as we can feel her blushing :).
We are not even finished connecting to shore power and water when a local guy comes to offer varnishing services. Really? Is that a coincidence, or varnishing is the most required service here in Antigua? At first, Glen is tempted to wave him off. But then we listen to what his offer is, write down his contact details and we’ll have a think about it.
Glen says he loves varnishing, but I am not sure he would love to do all the 8-12 coats. Maybe the maintenance varnishing, 1-2 coats every 6 months 🙂 That would certainly be a lot less time consuming. And again, the rates here are significantly less than USA – where we were quoted $11,000 (!!) to re-varnish gunwales vs $1,000 here.
Then the jobs start. To get off the boat from the bow we have a very nice bow ladder made for us in Almerimar, Spain (by ArcGlow) two years ago, which is perfect. It hangs off the Ultra anchor. What we haven’t perfected since then is positively securing the anchor in the bow roller, so that it doesn’t move when we step on and off the ladder.
Glen sets about this unplanned project. After making a cardboard mock-up, he attacks an old wood chopping board to make 2 temporary blocks that would sit either side of the anchor in the bow roller slot. Temporary because the wood is slightly too thick. The final product will be manufactured once we get our hands on the right thickness plywood.
And to test the result of Glen’s work, we step off the boat and head to the dockside bar for a refreshing beer. All good…the beer particularly! 🙂
We lose track of time at the bar, and before we know it is mid-afternoon. As we leave, the lady attending at the bar makes sure we know about the Karaoke night they will host this evening. Great, on the boat we are in earshot so we will have live concert. Let’s hope some of them can actually sing, or it will be ear plugs!
A quick stop at the marina office to check in, then to Budget Marine chandlers for a browse (amazingly we don’t buy anything!). Then back to Cloudy Bay for lunch and some relaxing time to chill off the beer effects. Relaxing as in Glen answers emails and the comments on YouTube and I attack videos and FB:). After 6 days away from internet we have looots of comments and questions to answer. But we enjoy these things that connect us to the world.
When the heat of the day is gone and the decks have cooled off, Glen is starting the mission for which we came here: washing the salt off the boat. It has to be done after sundown otherwise the marina water dries too fast and leaves water marks before he has time to dry it with a leather. We can’t have marks on our new glossy finish now can we!
And just as he sprays the mast and boom with the water hose, it starts raining. How about that?! But the rain is just to tease us, and soon he is in full swing with the water hose again, trying to forget that they charge 3 cents a litre for water.
Once in a while I hear him humming with joy “it’s like cleaning a new car”. The effect of ceramic coating gloss. That, plus I know how much he enjoys cleaning the boat. Started at 8pm, finished at 11pm. But the topside is now spotlessly cleaned and leathered dry, and at the same time Glen has a good workout.
And if you remember our previous record of incidents while washing the decks, this time we did check if all windows and hatches are shut. Twice. So on this particular occasion, we didn’t get any bed wet 🙂
We end up having a late night, as we get a bit carried away on yachtworld.com looking at Hallberg-Rassys that are for sale. And boy are we happy with our boat! We are of course slightly biased, but we still feel Cloudy Bay has a nicer interior and features than all the other ones currently on the market, including a newer model of the HR55.
The teak interior, the super cabin in the bow, the comfy arm chairs in the saloon and the centered berth in the aft seem to be almost a unique combination. Not to mention all our electrical upgrades like EmpirBus, Li-Ion batteries, and charging system … and the best davits, especially the custom davit shoes. Ooph we maybe even make money on her! Haha says Oana, “make money including all you have spent on this high maintenance mistress? I think not!”
On that note we go to bed, happy, at 1am.