Settling in - First Week in Antigua

We are settling into our life in Antigua. To a certain extent it is like being on Deep Blue but now our boat is a cottage and the deck is a veranda. We live our life in a very similar way. Swims every morning and evening and work during the day. A bit of socialising in the evenings.
As there is no sailing involved my work is getting to understand how things happen here, writing and reading while Andy is currently wrapping up a couple of projects he started in the Mediterranean. He has yet to start looking for work here.

Tony’s Cottage is a three bed roomed wooden built house, very similar to those seen in Aussie, New Zealand and any number of hot places. It is built into the hill overlooking Pigeon Beach, on two levels, of horizontal wooden slats with a hugely wide veranda on two sides of the top level (the lower floor is just one bedroom with en-suite), all covered by a corrugated iron roof. When it rains the water is collected from the roof and channelled into a cistern. The toilet drains into a septic tank and the grey water drains onto the garden. Cooking is by bottled gaz on a large cooker and we have the luxury of a huge fridge-freezer and a enormous top loader washing machine. All American big and slightly over the top for a little wooden hut!

We arrived Friday evening by Virgin and were met by Jed. Jed and Katie have lived on the island for many years and they have been very kind to us since we first met them in January. Jed already had the key for Tony’s Cottage so he drove us and our four huge suitcases straight here. Within an hour of him dropping us off we had unpacked, sorted out where everything lived, had the one beer in the fridge (it was literally a huge empty cold fridge with one beer in it!) and walked to one of Andy’s regular restaurants. Half the people in there seemed to know him and were very welcoming to us both, so it felt like we had come home!

Jed and Katie kindly came to pick us up first thing Saturday morning to take us to Baileys - the local shop that sells everything and we bought the basics. Little is priced so it is very hard to work out what to buy. Food is very expensive here as practically everything is imported. Even milk comes from Europe, fruit and veg comes mainly from Guadalupe and USA while goodness knows where the meat comes from.

I like to eat local food but all I could find labelled was “local lettuce”. However, I also bought potatoes, papaya, bananas, spinach and herbs which I think may have been locally grown. I am uncertain what the staple is here at the moment and it is hard to find out because the restaurants and shops cater mainly for us temporary residents. There is plenty of good imported food available but out of our price bracket for everyday food.

We always live modestly so over our first weekend I wanted to work out how everything worked in the house. I have to understand where things come from and where they go, so by Monday morning I had a long list of questions to ask the agent and anyone who had lived in Antigua for a while. These included such questions as “where does our waste water go”; “how do we use the cistern water as we seem to be using island water”; “the cooker doesn’t burn properly, how do I get it fixed”; “where does the refuse end up”; “is there recycling on the island”; “how do we get our dustbin emptied”; “how do I stop heating the water”; “where is the hot water tank” and most important “what is the code for the wireless internet???”

The result of all these questions was a series of tradesman through the house. Our first visitor was Andy, a tall goofy affable young black man. He came to sort the cooker. We started to chat and after I offered a beer he sat on the veranda and looked like he was settled for the evening. He explained what he was going to do for the cooker - look it up on the internet - and then we just chatted about the view and where he lived. As he left he asked me where I came from. “Falmouth Cornwall!”. He replied “so we are probably related - as the people who called this place Falmouth came from your Falmouth - check your family tree!”. I took this as a compliment, I was accepted as a sister!

Our next visitor was Dave the plumber to sort out the cistern water pump which had obviously not worked for many months. We both warmed to this small, rotund, neat bearded English man who came to Antigua 20 years ago for 4 days in his yacht. He had a dry sense of humour - something that we have noticed seems to be an essential quality for any ex-pat who lives here for any length of time. “What have you done to my carefully planned water system”. “Stop fiddling with it” and more in the same vein.

He had to drain the pump so kept the water tap open. I found a bucket and caught the water. “You’re not on a boat now - the island makes plenty. Stop worrying.” He advised us to put a gallon of laundry bleach into the cistern before drinking it. “What do you think you drink in England?” I wanted a second opinion.

In the shops some are friendly others not so. I am learning to go to the friendly assistants. Phil in the dockyard food shop is a lovely boy. Camp as anything but seriously friendly and he has told me that now I am his friend I cannot go to anyone else for help. I told him I was buying the laundry bleach for the cistern. He was disbelieving. “Boil the water if you must … but drink that … no way” shaking his immaculate head. I left it in the shop and we are still drinking island water.

Everywhere you go someone is always calling out to you. We are the new faces in town and all want to know who we are “are you on a boat” “how long are you here?” “six months - what are you doing” … black and white the same questions. Some of the locals are less easy to impress even when buying from them and I have tried really hard to be friendly to one or two without much success on the smile front. Never mind, I guess they will be friendly in their own time.

One of the first things I did was join the sailing club. We had met Elizabeth the commodore -a vivacious English lady - at a meal at Jed and Katies. She is amazing. She used to run her own charter yacht - a 36ft Swan - until she married Peter in June (they are both well in their 60’s) and has been commodore of Antigua Yacht Club for 4 years now. She has set up a sailing academy within the club for local school kids and has several instructors - all islanders - to teach them. One of the instructors’ Carl is a leading light - highly thought of here - and the two of them go to the schools to drum up their students. They take in kids aged between 8 and 12 and they must be able to swim in deep water. Islanders do not swim so this is a challenge and now all the kids are learning. She has 160 children who attend the academy and she has asked me to help her fund raise among the yachts. Something I am happy to help with. I raced four short back-to-back races on Tuesday in a laser. There were about 15 of us out, me the only female but otherwise a mix of yachties, ex-pats and islanders. Suffice to say I did not make a total fool of myself and had a lot of fun. Amazingly there was a guy racing I recognised from Restronguet Sailing Club - Jamie - his first race here too. How bazaar is that!!

Windrose arrived Tuesday night - I spotted her the wrong side of Nelsons Dock when I went to find Aubrey the veg seller and then I spotted a Windrose Tee shirt - Jason. I made myself known and was taken over by tender so met up with Errol for the first time, Pippa, Nat and Nicky. Good to see them all here safely. They were all nursing hangovers so left them to it.
Tonight we will be celebrating one week in Antigua - already! I could get used to this life though there are two major down side. The mosquitoes here are VICIOUS and we are both covered in bites. Hopefully we will build an immunity soon and they will stop itching us. Also it is very humid here - so much so that water spilt on the deck takes hours and hours to dry. But a small price to pay for living on a tropical island.