2002
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Ocean Planet Antigua Update #2
April 12, 2002
Here on the tropical front: Events coming up soon here in Antigua: The Classic Regatta, which runs from April 18-23 (no, OP won’t be racing that), and Antigua Sailing Week, April 28-May 4. My old boat, Rumbleseat, will be here for the classic regatta!! She is now named Diva and is owned by a famous surgeon from Tortola, Dr. Robin Tattersall. I can’t wait to see her, and Robin has invited me to come aboard and race the classic regatta! I will just do one or two races, as my sweetheart Jeanie will be in town for a short visit and we hope to spend at least SOME time together. Besides, you know how women are about old girlfriends, even if they are a boat…;-)
Yesterday I applied some underwater epoxy to some nasty scratches on the boat bottom that must have happened in Panama. I checked today and my patch jobs look pretty good, although we’ll have to do a real fix in Charleston when we get there. I also did some scrubbing on the hull and bottom:
Another project we did was to take EVERTHING off the boat, as required, in order to measure her for her Caribbean rating.
The local measurer, Tony Maidmet, was very careful and thorough. It will be interesting to see what rating we get! But I don’t really care that much, as Ocean Planet is not a bouy racer, and we will be racing Sailing Week mainly to have fun and show off some down wind speed if the wind pipes up. Cross your fingers for breeze!
It’s great how people show up to help out. For the past few days, a sailor from Sweden, Bo, has been helping me on the boat working on winches, cleaning, whatever. The extra hands sure came in handy when we had to move all of the gear and sails off and on the boat. After today’s work, Bo, another sailor from South Africa (named George), and I went up to the famous hilltop bar/restaurant, “Shirley’s.” This spectacular place is located on a precipitous hilltop overlooking English Harbour, and on Thursday afternoons a great steel drum band plays there. The view and sunsets are stunning, and you can see the island of Montseratt and more. What a great way to wind down after a day of lugging boat gear!
Tomorrow I start on a keel project, winches, work on the watermaker, go shopping for supplies,etc, etc….time to hit the quarterberth, read a little, and pass out.
From Antigua,
Bruce