ANTIGUA TO USVI

Rosie at the egg painting.

One of the problems of taking a picture at sea is that the boat rolls and that happens.

Eleanora, the beautiful one hundred and forty five foot gaff rigged schooner in Classics week.

Ranger, a 2002 replica of an Americas Cup J-Class with the crew on the rail going hard upwind. The J's are monsters both in size and to sail - one hundred and thirty feet long, one hundred and fifty foot plus masts, massive sails and thus massive sheet loadings. Mike has sailed the J -Class Velsheda, ask him if you want some good stories.

To give a flavour of what Mike might say this is a picture of the J Class Velsheda, in the middle of the English Channel in storm force winds. Mike is on the left, note the lack of guard rails.

Approaching the leeward turning mark, Eleanora in the lead, going 'uphill'.

David and Sue on Barnstormer who took us out to watch the Classics racing.

Aloe Vera in flower in English Harbour. The plants flower once and die. Bottom left you can just make out some Turkshead cacti.

The parade of Classics. A beautiful old motor yacht that turned up unexpectedly for Classics week. Obviously she didn't race but she was awarded a special prize just for turning up.

The oldest yacht at Classics week was Thalia, built in 1889 to what was then an old design. The extraordinary thing about her was she was abandoned but somebody had the presence of mind to remove all her interior and deck fittings plus the interior panels. When she was restored all the original fittings etc were replaced. As far as we know she is the only restored boat in genuinely original form, quite amazing. The judges said they had never seen anything like it before and it came as a total shock. Needless to say she won lots of prizes.

We had to double take on this boat - a real life figurehead!

The battlements at English Harbour with wonderful old stone steps leading to the storehouse.

Previously we showed a picture of a Great Blue Heron, this is the rarer Great White heron in Antigua.

In Antigua we met up with a lot of old friends, many of whom were also planning to go back over the Atlantic. We used to meet up to look at the weather and later go to Happy Hour. From the left: Geoff from Sutton Hoo, Ken from Badgers Set, Gavin from Seahawk.

The oldest church in St Thomas is Lutherian, built by the Danes in the late 1880's.