Somewhat dramatized

We are officially allowed to roam the Antiguan waters, but it didn't go all that easy. I must say our minds were already in a some what negative anticipation. The books and other cruisers had told us that the English were complicated with checking in and out of their country and Jacques had stirred up all kind of memories when he had to deal (work related) with English bureaucracy.

After we dropped the anchor outside of Jolly Harbor (the name of the place), we thought we did the right thing, only the captain can leave the boat to go on land and the rest (me) had to stay on board. After 15 minutes I saw the dinghy already returning and thought well that was easy. No such a thing. We had to show up with the real boat, not only a dinghy. Some not so nice thoughts were sent to our neighbors across the Channel. 

Anchor up and I started already going over my moves tying up to a dock which makes me always a little nervous.It is known that I have thrown the line several in the water in stead of the hands of a helper The wind was blowing 20+ knots but as we neared the customs dock it went down to only ten. It was in front of a restaurant with four people having a drink, that meant two things: I have to look cool and there will be somebody to catch the line. I think I managed the cool looking but none of the four made any attempt to come to the dock. That meant for me jumping!! 

But we managed to land nicely at the dock only to realize that we had chosen the wrong dock. So we untied and did the whole thing again (me still looking cool!!!!!) and tied to the customs dock. First thing was to see customs, then Immigration and at last Port Authority. Lots of papers to fill out, some of them in four copies. The lady at immigration didn't accept our boat name as one word because the Dutch registration paper shows it as two words. She went on to explain that there might be another boat with the same name written as one word. It looked extremely remote to Jacques because the other information, like length, beam, color, number of masts, type of vessel, year built, etc. etc. would certainly not match the imaginary other LADYHAWK. Anyway Jacques patiently changed the name into LADY HAWK which satisfied the immigration officer.
WE ARE OFFICIALLY HERE NOW!

Today we went on shore to explore, but most of the area is a gated community, so we did not really get a feel of the island, did only some shopping and went back for a lazy afternoon.

I hope when we get to English Harbor we will find some internet, until then goodbye from the very cool looking first mate, Ria