On Watch in Antigua Apr 16,09
We were on watch today so spent the day doing ship work.
In my case I spent the morning spot painting the breeze way overheads “tropical blue”. This was interesting actually cause the last time I did this was April last year and it was rainy and cold!
I spent this afternoon sanding the starboard quarter deck rail in preparation for it being varnished. The day was sunny and hot so the breeze through the bay was very welcome. While we were working a whole bunch of boats from small dragon class sloops to the giant “J” class racing yachts and several schooners and ketches of various sizes sailed past heading out to sail in the strong alongshore breeze. Our dory with it’s gaily colored gaff sail joined them and made a brave tiny splash of colour far out amongst the giants.
Once we were finished working we went for a sail in the dory, my first, and just as we passed the headland out to sea and had gibed back into the harbour the tiller broke! A mad scramble ensued as we doused the sail and shipped the oars to row back to the ship. An exciting end to the work day that 
Dinner tonight was really good. Gunner and Susie were on galley today and they cooked up a great meal of Spaghetti Carbonara, green salad and mango cobbler. To make it special Lynsey ordered the watch to “dress for dinner” so we all put on clean and fancy clothes and ate in the salon accompanied by wine and ice water. The ipod was playing big bang music, Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong. Lovely.
Currently the watch is hanging on the welldeck listening to reggae and I’m chilling below typing with both hands for the first time
Thanks for reading.
KJ