Jolly Harbour (again)

16^th to 28^th May 2019

After a reasonably enjoyable (though slow) passage we arrived to see maybe half as many boats in the anchorage as when we left six days ago. We were told it would be quieter after Antigua sailing week but didn’t expect such a rapid transition. We anchored a little closer in than last time, one of three boats in Mosquito Cove. All of two meters of water underneath us – we can see the turtles munching on their sea grass. Lovely.

Many games were played, baking was done (including some delightful fish-shaped biscuits at 9pm one evening). The beach in Mosquito cove was visited a couple of times to see some hermit crabs, but lived up to its name and Charlotte didn’t want to visit again as she was bitten several times. Charlotte and the boys visited some people we met when we were in the marina – one of whom didn’t recognise the boys as they had clothes on. We have heard that before. Lots of shopping to rebuild our stocks, and even more swimming. We set up a “swim zone” off the stern of the boat using several pool noodles with a rope threaded through tied to each stern. The boys enjoyed escaping the swim zone to invite one of the adults to chase them. Arthur on his bodyboard is now pretty fast.

I forgot to mention that Hector turned one, and we had our wedding anniversarry. Thankfully my lovely wife reminded me of both things. Well, outlook reminded me about them when they were happening, and Charlotte reminded me of them when she was reading through this post earlier. We had Hector’s birthday cake on the boat, rather than the beach as we had planned, as the outboard wasn’t fully functional that day. He’s one, didn’t even know it was his birthday, but the other two were excited on his behalf.

I scraped the growth off the bottom of the hull, at least as far as I can reach for now. Quite a bit had built up over a month or so without brushing-off, which was why we needed the scraper rather than the brush this time! Not a problem, though – good exercise and it’s not a hardship to spend half an hour in the water here. All came off easily enough in the end.

With the return of internet after Barbuda, we have been working on the website a bit and have managed to get it set up again, in what is hopefully a more sustainable fashion (the old one was difficult to add to and maintain). And, we have finally got it up to date! Looks prettier and loads faster, too…

Now that it is our main income for the foreseeable future, I have started taking freelancing more seriously, and updated my linkedin, upwork profile and personal web page. All is going well so far, although going to Barbuda reminded me just how difficult it will be to work around internet access problems! It will also be hard to motivate myself to work at times when I could be swimming with the kids, and busy weeks will be tough for Charlotte, but when we compare it to the alternative… these are minor problems.

Plans for the next year, or two, or however-many are being made. Some of them are patently mad. Others only seem mad at present 😉.