Travelogue

Antigua 2026, Part the First

Wednesday February 11

It is a little after 0600 hrs on the first full day of our stay. We flew uneventfully out of Reagan National Monday and spent a quick night with our friends in Miami, catching a midday Tuesday flight out that arrived around 5PM local time. A very efficient immigration procedure (no paper, gotta do it on your phone) led to a very efficient taxi queue and a delightful 40 minute drive from the airport to our hotel.

Steven, our driver, was about my age and wore a fine set of dredlocks, matched well with the marijuna medallion hanging from his rearview. He drove a minivan sort of rig, and Catherine burrowed into the backseat fearing carsickness. I sat in the middle and carried on grandly with my new rasta-friend, learning all about island sports (soccer/football vs. cricket, the older fellas prefer cricket), the music scene, his pride in his daughter, etc.

We are staying at a hotel in English Harbour that is right next to Nelson's Dockyards. I have been here--Antigua--before, a 2012 trip down to be with a friend as he raced his new yacht in a race made up exclusively of similar models. That friend is who we bunked with in Miami, so, circle of life and all. I remember very little about that trip, except for having been very happy to be here, a feeling I have as I type these words.

Home for a few days…

There is a delightful sitting area in the lobby which was completely darkened and unmolested by other humans when I arrived a few minutes ago. I turned on a table lamp and staked out space on a nice couch with my trusty tablet (Android, naturally, I am NOT a cultist) to begin this series. I was able to escape our room with a cup of coffee without causing enough commotion to wake The Kitten. You can imagine my delight upon entering the room last night when I espied the electric kettle and the Nescafe instant coffee on the table, as loyal and attentive (thanks Jack) readers will already be aware of my love of these emoluments.

I have a friend of long-standing, a fraternity brother to be specific, who spent a great deal of his childhood growing up on this island, as his father was part of a group that operated some manner of U.S. Air Force equipment, an antenna of some sort. He has alerted me to the presence of a sturdy group of Royal Navy veterans and advocates who gather each evening at 6PM for a reading of Royal Navy history and a “tot" of rum. We are attempting to see if there is some way I can observe (respectfully) this gathering without imbibing, and I'll let you know how that shakes out.

Let's tackle the controversy head on: the word is an-TEE-guh, not an-TEE-gwuh. I have been very gently reminded of this by The Kitten, whose louche and desultory life before I arrived included most of her twenties spent employed running an outfit that trained teens in the fundamentals of sailing. She performed these duties for most of the year from her home in the States, and then alighted for the Caribbean each summer for months on end. She's been here several times and is an “old hand" when it comes to the knowledge of the geography and attractions of much of the region.

Before bed last night, she said, “we don't have any plan tomorrow, do we?” And I answered somewhat smart-assedly, “isn’t that the point?” A friend of the Miami friends asked me the other day whether being in Antigua or the Bahamas was a different KIND of retirement than being on the Eastern Shore. The question made me think. Is it? Is there a difference? I think the answer is yes. When I am in Easton, I am the same guy I was before retiring, except that I am a man without a job. I still load and empty the dishwasher, take out the trash, cook our meals, and provide household entertainment and non-stop wit/comedy. Don't get me wrong, the “not having a job" part is pretty fabulous. But not having a job (or a plan for that matter) on the Island of Antigua is a horse of a different color. I recently had some calling cards printed up with my contact information on them, and where on a business card, one might put “Attorney", “Certified Public Accountant", or “Clown Trainer", I simply put, “At Leisure".

Well, lookie there. The sun is up and I can share a photo of my little slice of heaven.

Your intrepid diarist's setup

It is now a little after seven and the lobby is waking. Lights have been lighted, doors have been opened, and there are sounds of activity all around me. Would that there were a little “DIY Nescafe” stand down here, as my cup is empty and my caffeine stores are only partially onloaded.

As always on these travel series, there will be typos, as I have as yet not unlocked either the secrets of some hidden Substack editing/proofreading/spellcheck feature, and my tablet only seems to correctly spell out several versions of a word it thinks I am typing and then moves on to tht next one when it is finished, without having informed me of spelling it wrong. I will do some cursory editing of course, but the ones that slip by me are for posterity to judge.

Thusday, February 12

It is a little after 0630 hrs, and I am set up at a fine little table on the apron of land between our hotel and the harbor (or harbour, as the case may be). It was an uneven night of sleep, as my snoring is APPARENTLY a problem for OTHERS in the ROOM. The trusty CPAP was left behind intentionally, as part 2 of this little trip takes place in a sailboat, where space and outlets are at a premium. Here are the morning working conditions:

Brutal, I agree.

We got the lay of the place yesterday, beginning our day with a walk about the dockyard here, poking our snoots into all the public buildings and a few of the not as public. There is a fine little museum here dedicated mainly to the Royal Navy and to Lord Nelson who apparently refitted here in the past. There are all sorts of little purveyors of comestibles to the sailing gentry, for whom this is one of the key stops on the Caribbean regatta program. I need to make a note to buy some Nescafe for the sail later in the week.

Breakfast was by the water (standard, eggs over easy, sausage, potatoes), lunch was by the water on the other side of the harbor (the property also of our proprietors), and the afternoon nap was where one normally does so. Afterward, we went for a walk toward Falmouth Harbour and poked around a few shops there.

There is a lot of marine architecture here, and by that I mean tricked out expensive boats. Our friend Rob (more on him later), with whom we ate dinner, pointed out an arrangement that he describes as fairly common in the big dollar world of racing. An owner will have their racing boat, which is pretty much as slicked down to the studs for one purpose (speed) as a boat can be. Then he'll have a large, commodius sailboat or motor yacht upon which he and his friends sleep and party. The final element of the fleet is a kind of “chase" boat, really a large motor yacht--which is for the plutocrat’s “toys", which often include a helicopter, a submersible, jet skis, RHIBS, and often an embarked tender.

The logistics attending to all of this is astounding, and I would dearly love to meet the person in charge of making it all happen. I am informed that it is NOT the plutocrat, whose job seems to be to fall in on all the preparation, participate in the social scene, some practice and some racing, some post race partying, and then leave. The actual race boat likely got here carried in the hold of a specially configured transport vessel, upon which also travelled several forty foot containers that serve as the logistics hub. What they are in fact, are air conditioned, electrified (generators), be-interneted, workshops and parts lockers.

This does not even speak to the workforce necessary. There is a small group of people, a captain and three or four crew, who have little to do with the racing of the boat and everything to do with making sure the boat gets where it is supposed to get with the things it needs. There are special technicians (like our friend Rob) who fly in to the race location in advance and prepare the boat (he owns a rigging business in New England). There is the racing crew, which is likely to be made up of people that have nothing at all to do with the logistics and simply race, there is administrative staff that attend to all the details, there is personal staff of the plutocrat, and there are chefs and assistants to feed this platoon of people (I estimate 25). My planning and executing interests make me very curious to meet the person the plutocrat turns to in order to make it all happen.

And then there is Rob. Rob is a legend in our house. Best of friends with Catherine's late husband, Godfather to Dash-2, and story-teller without parallel, Rob's place in the Murphy Hall of Fame would be secure even if he had not hopped in his car on September 11, 2001 in San Diego where he was participating in an America's Cup campaign and driven across country to console Catherine and help with his four month old Godchild and her two year old sister. Rob was at Hannah’s eighth grade graduation, her high school graduation, and her college graduation. He and his daughter drove down to Easton for my fiftieth birthday drunken backyard mudfest. He is one of this utterly remarkable group of people who entered Catherine's life through her employment in a summer sail training program called “Sail Caribbean" just after college. Her late husband (Chris)? Sail Caribbean. The folks we're sailing with in a couple of days (David and Alison)? Sail Caribbean. The people we stayed with in Miami the other night (Greg and Christine)? Sail Caribbean. The folks who joined in at Dash 1’s college and grad school graduations (Greg, Christine, Chris, and Carey)? Sail Caribbean. Dash-2 has been an instructor at Sail Caribbean for a few years and is taking on management duties this coming summer, just like her momma did. Rob's been to Antigua more times than he can count, and as we walked the streets with him last night after dinner, he pointed to a number of different places he has bunked here while serving as part of various race teams.

I think that's enough for now.