Jack and Drew

Parental Advisory - In order to tell the following story it is necessary to use large amounts of strong language and frequently mention drinking smoking and generally doing all the things that make people bad and evil. Consequently if you are:
a) younger than say sixteen
b) a relative who thinks i'm a wholesome person
c) easily upset by wickedness and bad spelling
d) all of the above
It would probably be best of you didnt read this post and wait till the next one, which will be good and nice... Probably. Thanks for your attention.

Drew coughes and passes me the joint, i take it gratefully and lean back. The American laughes and continues his story in his loud and brash style.
"So it's like my first week here and i've got to get to St Johns for something, i'm walking down the road and i see the drive off ahead of me. I want that bus man i dont wanna fucking wait around so i start running"
Jack laughes at this, he is stoned and seems to have been laughing constantly for at least half an hour, so it would be more acurate to say he laughes more at this.
"You ran for a bus? You? Run? No way!"
"Hey fuck you bitch i'm in prime shape" Drew shouts back, he is though a firefighter in the US he is working a season in Antigua as a deckhand/day worker/self confessed whore of the industry. At 6'2", broud shouldered and bronzed for working outside he looks strong. His air of american fratboy type confidence that makes him look invincible.
"Anyway i'm running and it's like fucking midday so it's deadly hot... Shit pass the rum already whats wrong with you?"
"finish the story then you can have rum" Jack shouts back. He is a drifter he got a degree in Literature four years ago and has done little since then. Mid height but stocky he looks as strong as Drew but being English lacks the chamed energy of his flatmate. He relents and pours a rum whilst Drew continues.
"Thank you man, anyway yeah so i'm running and this guy is sat outside his hut. You know how they do here, they just sit. As i run past him he yells out
'Woah, woah, woah there is no running in Antigua'"

We all collapse into giggles and knock back more rum. We are drunk and stoned, four of us sat inside being raucous. Infront of us sits a table covered with the paraphernalia of revelry, empty beer bottles, discarded bits of citrus fruit an ask tray overflowing with cigarette butts and assorted litter. Looses tabacco and ask lightly dust everything.

Antigua is all about three things: Sailing, Intoxication and Inactivity. Everyone wants a job on a boat so they can buy more rum so they can do nothing but get drunk.

I'm off to Saba in a few days to learn to dive. Then i'm coming home. I'll be back in scotland by the 21st, which I cant decide if i'm happy about or not. Its a fact, i'm pretty ambivilent towards coming home. Yeah i'm tired of travel and bored, but i know Scotland is hardly the promised land in January. So we'll just have to wait and see. Patience.

Antigua

Is fun.

No really, you got to believe me it is. Which is part of why i have been so totally rubbish at writing any blog updates. I assume i have no readers left, but if anyone is still reading mail me (i_wish_iwasjeff@hotmail.com) and tell me otherwise i might give up blogging. It was easy on the boat when i could use a laptop but i dont want to find internet cafes to write stuff no-one will read. So yes let me know if you want me to continue writing.

We got here four days ago, flew in from guadeloupe. A taxi took us to our booked hotel, no change that, overbooked hotel. So after a few debates a different taxi took us to another place. Which was really expensive but I smiled sweetly at the woman behind thedesk who sneaked us into a room for half price as long as we left before 7.30 the next morning.

We got a bus to English harbour and proceeded to find a place to stay by the time honoured method of walking around looking lost and asking anyone we could see. After speaking to a series of ancient old women we got directed to The Marsh Village a collection of Huttages (cottages built like huts) and apartments populated by foreigners trying to get work on yachts. It really is all anyone talks about boats, boats and well boats. Which is fine i guess.

For new year we went down into Nelsons Dockyard and danced drunkenly to reggae till the fireworks burst into the sky to the sound of cheering and Auld Lang Syne - reggae style.

And yesterday we were hungover, so we sat on the beach and nursed our sore heads by swimming in the perfect clear blue sea.

Now i'm going to go hide from the heat with a book and a beer.

Happy New Year everyone. Ben

Guadeloup - Old post that went missing

I did try to post this shortly after we arrived in guadeloup, but it went wrong somewhere so now i'm putting it up from Antigua. Alrighty?

The Caribbean has a very large amount of mythology surrounding it. Simply mentioning the place brings to mind the long over used image of white sands beaches, crystal clear water and over hanging palm trees. Arrival here, especially when the journey is so very long and stressful, is so very likely to fail to meet the expectations of any traveller. I thought of this as we sighted land for the first time in nearly three weeks, this huge fund of accumulated cultural history is hard to see through. Indeed our first Caribbean landfall was La Desirade a large, mostly barren rock which as late as 1970 was a leper colony, no white sand beaches or turquoise waters in sight.

Guadeloupe proper, indeed Bas de Fort where we are moored, similarly falls short of the Caribbean dream. But it lives up to so much more, it is so much more alive and so much more wonderful. Since our arrival we have worked on the boat lots, and done quite a bit of sight seeing. A day trip to the markets in the main town of Pointe A Pitre convinced me of the vibrancy of this place. The markets are big and different, bananas and plantains were enthusiastically sold by large black women in ludicrously colourful almost garish tartan dresses and turbaned head wear of similar brightness. They chatted and smiled constantly, as I took a photo of one woman she turned and smiled for me, such a bright wide and confident smile I was dazzled.

Since arrival we have been occupied, but mostly we have relaxed and recovered from getting here. Crossing the Atlantic in a small yacht is perhaps one of the more difficult modes of transportation, wonderful but definitely deserving in a few days of recuperation upon arrival. At the end of these days we invariably eat dinner in the cockpit, under the glow of our home made and wonderfully tacky chandelier. I think the spirit of our time here so far can be summed up by one moment.

Dinner was finished and tidied up, the bottle of local rum had been found and we had been working through it steadily. The traditional local way to drink this, know as Ti-Punch is really very good: sixty percent white rum mixed with sugar syrup, five parts rum to one part syrup, the sweetness takes the kick out the alcohol more than the dilution. Lime is of course an essential ingredient too. It is delicious, sweet dangerous and yet somehow gentle and well suited to the heat. I fetched my guitar and sat down in the companionway. We chatted quietly and I played old favourite tunes from the crossing and new ones made up on the spot. The sound of crickets vied with the noise of our happy laughter and the water against the hull. Michael said I had to play a song about rum, so I did, pulling mournful A minor chords and G sevenths from Lucy I played slowly and sang made up words quietly:
Don’t give me no more of that Ti-Punch
Cos I just cant go on
Don’t give me no more of that Ti-Punch
My head it aches and my body is numb
Slowly I played, then slowly went to bed, content and happy and slightly drunk. Slowly and gently, that is how we have lived here, and it might well be how I’ll live for a little while yet.

Later addition: We are not Terre de Haut one of Le Saintes just south of Guadeloupe. Barnie and I rowed ashore and walked into the main town. It has one street. It's lovely and feels like the proper caribbean. The bay is small, and idyllic, palm trees and white sands are here. We are just getting ready to have a barbeque on the beach, superb.