CARIBBEAN: APRIL TO JUNE 2006

SKI 4, the Spirit 45 we raced out of Jolly Harbour. Her hull form is of classic design but her underwater appendages and rig are state of the art, she really flies. Note the lack of guard rails.

Looking towards the beach on the west side of Barbuda.

Looking out to sea from the west coast of Barbuda, the shallow pale water extends for miles.

Looking south, the beach curves to the right and runs for about five miles, there is another six miles of beach to the north. The footprints in the sand are inches deep.

There is even a handy back rest along most of the beach. You can see the slight pink tinge in the sand.

The frigate bird colony with a male coming in to land to feed his chick. The white heads sticking up are this year's chicks, who kept popping up to see what was going on.

A mix of chicks and young males less than eighteen months old. Frigate birds have the largest wing area to body weight of any bird, it's a joy to watch them fly.

A four or five month old chick. When the parents fly off to get food they open and close their beaks, making a loud snapping sound. Mike was doing snapping noises for days afterwards interpersed with turtle hatchling flipper noises (that don't make a noise). I can't work it out either, I suspect he's forgetting to take the tablets.

Mike, Judith and Ken from Badger's Sett, after the visit to the Frigate bird colony.

A few of the dinghies in the 'dinghy drift' across Falmouth Harbour, Antigua.

Antigua Classics week is a display of unrestrained extravagence that takes your breath away. This is the J Class Endeavour, about 130 feet long, built in the thirties, weighing nearly two hundred tons, with a mast height around 180 feet. She is in perfect condition.

This is Eleanora a 136 foot gaff rigged schooner, built in 2000 to a design by Nat Herrshoff (an American designer who designed some of the most beautiful boats you will ever see). She sets seven sails (including topsails) and under sail looks like a cloud on the horizon.

Witnesses to the wedding, held near the 'pot luck' on the beach, were Jim (far left) and Michelle (far right) from Wind Machine. Guess which one was the minister?

The LateSail crew in Antigua Sailing Week.

Kelly's Eye in Tobago Cays, taken by the yacht Free Spirit of Itchenor from the top of their mast. The water is about ten feet deep. In the far background you can see the fringing reef. The Cays are as beautiful as the picture indicates.

Me and Pieter from the Dutch yacht Orion, on the beach at Isla Iguana Grande, Testigos Islands, Venezuela, after visiting the customs officer.

The cock fighting on Testigo Grande. The birds are blurred because of the slow camera shutter speed but they look much the same when you watch them.

Kelly's Eye on passage from Islas Testigos to Margarita, Venezuela. The wind is around fifteen to twenty degrees off the stern and the genoa has a few rolls in it to stop it collapsing (it's being blanketed by the mainsail). Both the main and mizzen sails have preventers set (to stop the booms swinging around). The picture was taken by Orion.

They take pictures of us, we take pictures of them...Orion.