The highlight of today was starting the Antigua to Bermuda Race. Or dinner at Colibri. It is hard to choose.
Morning
Work continued as before, with a mix of programming and meetings. I had a brief work morning as I needed to head ashore shortly before noon.
Late Morning and noon
I went to the AYC to meet Les Crane from the RBYC and our local RO, Richard Freeborn. Richard had borrowed a 4-wheel drive with ground clearance. The road up to the ruins of Fort Charlotte outside of English Harbour is brutal.
Once there, the flags and start ashore was quickly set up. Our pin boat, White Eagle, soon arrived with the orange marker and another yellow float. This buoy is used to denote the closest point that the competitors could get to shore.
All went well, although shortly before the starts we saw that the start pin was drifting away and our pin boat had to pick it up and re-set it. This happened in true sailing fashion – just in time with seconds to spare.
I had brought my camera with my long 70-200mm lens and a tripod. The racers were just far enough away to prevent sharp definition, but close enough so that some of the images remained acceptable.
The pictures from the races can be found at 2023 Antigua-Bermuda Race starts
Dinner
Some of the crew from Antigua Sailing Week and the Antigua-Bermuda Race met at Colibri for drinks and dinner. I didn’t realize until we paid the bill, or at least I tried to, that Les was inviting us for the meal! That was very generous indeed; the others had all worked hard and all I had done was to tag along fort the starting of the Antigua to Bermuda race!