Stanford Cricket ground never looked so good.

24

05/04/2009

Pigorilla Power!

Antigua’s lights are slowly disappearing behind us after a fun day in the sun with the water glowing a wonderful turquoise colour and crystal white sand with palm trees offering the perfect shade to hide from the relentless sun. Another day in paradise was the slogan on the T-shirts of the helpers on the beach and it couldn’t have been any more idyllic or representative of paradise....if you’re into that kind of thing. I was the tour escort and while I volunteered for the position, I was looking forward to getting back onto the ship and heading out for a quick cycle which I managed to accomplish by 3pm. The next five sea days will take their toll on my resilience, but will hopefully give me a chance to make some money as at the moment I am both travelling and working for free. Our next port is Ponta Delgada, our one stop in the Azores, before the end of this world cruise and we head back to Southampton, only to pick up a fresh batch of sun seekers and head back to the Caribbean. I’m not complaining. It’s a great part of the world to hang out and I’m looking forward to visiting St Maarten again after making it my home for a year.....twenty years ago!

The cycle was fairly uneventful and I only managed to squeeze in 30 kilometres and one album of Trance Republic banging through my headphones driving my pins on to new levels of endorphin heaven. The US Air force is alive and well in the West Indies and I cycled past a couple of their bases. One was a training base and the other was an area that had massive white dishes pointing up into the sky looking for things that I probably wouldn’t recognise.

Antigua, like the rest of the Caribbean, has a couple of areas that are well kept and beautiful. Particularly Stanford Cricket ground near the airport which has some absolutely beautifully manicured, shocking pink, bougainvilleas lining the entrance at the moment, framed with an assortment of palms and imaginatively terraced surrounding gardens. I opted against stopping for a photo opportunity due to time constraints and cycled by. Once away from that memorable area, the road side is littered with old wrecks of cars and busses rusting away and there is never a shortage of litter blowing in the wind while trying to free itself from the grass, tree, shrub or whatever was unlucky enough to catch it. It amazes me that even with a small population and beauty all around and such a reliance on tourism for income and yet they are still unable to put their rubbish in a bin...how sad. Despite the lovely areas that are idyllic, the oppressive poverty of the have nots is constantly crowding ones thoughts and I think one has to feel like one has really earned ones holiday to be able to blot those thoughts out in their entirety.

I don’t think that there were too many swimmers today that didn’t spare a thought for Mr Doe, and particularly his family. There were many that probably had had a long hard look at themselves since he popped off the planet and realised that they had a much better chance than he did of a heart attack creeping up on them out of the relative transparency of a beautiful blue sea. Despite all the thoughts that today might have been their day, it was relatively uneventful and we had a full complement of passengers when we sailed.

There is a “Pour Out” this evening at 12pm for the crew and officers. In a nut-shell, a pour-out is a party with free drink and tonight it kicks off with a show put on by the dance company. I have a 9am meeting with Mrs Edge, my blind pupil, so am probably not going to make the pour out, which is a shame as it is one of the few times to mix with the rest of the staff. It always takes a bit of an effort because I’m not particularly close to anyone so even going to it is an effort. It’s now nine o’ clock...If I get a couple of hours sleep...maybe....just maybe....I can pop my head in.