Hi All

Well my last 3 weeks of my trip ends here in the Caribbean, what better place to relax enjoy the rum and cokes and soak up the sun! :-)

 I planned it so that I would be here for the Antigua Classic and Regatta Sailing Week.  Jolly Harbour marina was full of beautiful classic yachts and so tempting to buy one too!  Anyway, last year I did my competent crew qualification back in the UK and I thought it would be good if I put all that I learnt into practice, so I made up some posters and put around the marina hoping that a skipper would call and want me to crew on his yacht.  That afternoon the villa phone rang and it was a skipper, who was offering me a placeon his boat - my thought was OH MY GOD, I'm going to be racing in a serious race here for 5 days!  Later that evening I received another call from another skipper offering me a place and a few days later, another skipper called, but not to offer me a place on the sailing week, but to offer me a place on their yacht to cross the Pacific to the Azores and back to the UK arriving around mid May - tempting, but I had to decline because of me returning back to work!

Day one of the race was amazing and the adrenaline was kicking in.  All 10 crew members were positioned on the 41 foot yacht and I was in my place of downhaul and spinnaker.  There were 200 entrants in total with 20 yachts iof which were in our category Performance Cruiser. 

Day 2 - a great start for Augustine 0928 (us that is!!), we took a clear start and this course around the island was going to be lots of tacking to get around the orange buoys.  We had rain, sun and wind and 4 hours later, we had a gun finish - yeahhhh!

Day 3 - not so much of a good start and we put our protest flag up, because another boat obstructed us from the start line.  Another good race for us, but a lot harder than the day before and we were beating upwind and much more spinnikar work - my muscles ache!

Day 4 - Another gun finish, god we're good! :-)

Day 5 - And another gun finish....bring it on.  That evening we went to the prizegiving and we actually had a moment of glory on the stage to collect our 3rd place team prize.  Thank you so much Tony for giving me this opportunity to race and it has inspired me to join a club when I get back to the UK.  I will also see you next year and race again with you (keep me a place!).

Stingray City

Devils Bridge

Betty's Hope

Love

Teresa xx