Completed Antigua Sailing Week 2005 with a 4th place overall finish for Huey Too. We had a rough start on Day 1 with three major errors summarized by Bernie's statement, "I've never had to go swimming in the middle of a race before". After that, with light winds all week and only minor problems from then on, we finished as high as 2nd and as low as 6th for the remaining 4 races. It was quite a contrast from last year when we had terrific winds and huge seas. This year we spent too much time bobbing around searching for wind that never materialized - unfavorable conditions for our boat.

Two things I won't miss. I have had more cockroaches in my house in the past 2 weeks than I've had in the past 2 years. I don't know where they're coming from. My apartment is clean, with tile floors and cement walls and screens on the windows, and I'm up on the second floor, off of the ground. These things are nearly 2 inches long - I don't know how they're getting in, but some mornings I wake up and they're just scattered around the place, upside-down on the floor. One morning I found 7! And they're not dead - they just get turned upside-down somehow and can't right themselves, so I have to be careful when scooping them up in the dustpan not to flip them over or they run away and then I have to chase them down. Is this grossing you out? It's incredible the things that you live with here. I am very fortunate though, not to have much of a mosquito problem. I'm very diligent about keeping my doors closed at all times, despite the heat and the cool breeze that could potentially flow through if they were open, but I can go for weeks without a mosquito in my home. Occasionally one will find its way in and it will normally irritate me for several days before I can kill it.

April, I think, is the official start of summer here. That seems to be at least when the broiler in the sky gets turned up to full blast and bakes us to a crisp. I remember writing something about this same phenomenon last April. On the hottest days, you're apt to see just as many women carrying open umbrellas as you would if it were raining. Possibly more, since Antiguans avoid going out in the rain. You can't avoid going out in the heat and since it's likely to be just as hot inside as out, there's no point to trying to wait it out anyway.

I sent off my request for an early COS date today. Hopefully approval will be forthcoming soon.

Only a few more weeks of washing my laundry by hand. Have you ever tried to wash sheets and towels by hand? I wash them in the bathtub and even then it's not easy.

Last month we had the opportunity to see a partial solar eclipse here in Antigua. It was just before sunset, so the change from light to dark as the moon moved in front of the sun was not noticeable, but with the sun so near the horizon, it was quite large and very easily seen with just sunglasses. This photo was taken from my balcony.

Spent the latter part of last week at the all-inclusive Jolly Beach Resort here in Antigua. The hotel was quite nice, the food very good, and it was great to see all of the other volunteers that we started with nearly 2 years ago, but otherwise I'd have to summarize the COS conference as mostly a waste of time. Unfortunately true, but other than a few logistics about what we need to do to complete our service, there wasn't much that I got out of it.

It's funny how perceptions are formed - other volunteers (who for the most part didn't see any of the island outside of the resort) were declaring that they LOVE Antigua. The Jolly Beach/Jolly Harbor area is highly developed with modern hotels and facilities, clean beaches, a yacht harbor, and lots of white faces. It could be anywhere, and while we were there - we forgot where we were. I guess that's what keeps the tourists coming back. On a side note - the all-inclusive resorts have wristbands to identify their guests, the kind that you're not supposed to be able to remove without cutting them off. This also has the disadvantage of identifying you as a tourist to everyone else on the island, something that I was feeling a little bit self-conscious about. As it turned out, when the lady at check-in put my band on, she didn't squeeze it down hard enough for the prongs to engage; in other words, I could take mine off and put it back on at will. Friday afternoon I decided to run home to drop off dirty clothes and pick up my sailing gear for Saturday. Not wanting to hop on the bus and travel down to my village with the wristband on, I took it off as soon as I was out of sight of the resort, and didn't put it back on until I returned. There is such a stigma here against being identified as a tourist and we (PCVs) go to such efforts on a regular basis to avoid it, I just couldn't stand the idea of wearing the wristband anywhere outside of the resort! Funny how things like that change.

Our country director was present at the conference and I was able to confirm with him that my request for a COS date of July 15 has been approved. I'm going home! The frustrating part was that he said that he had sent me an email and didn't I get it? Aaargh! This makes SIX different people who have told me that they sent me emails that were either bounced back to them or I just never received. The response I received from Yahoo customer service was entirely irrelevant to my problem statement, so it looks like I am going to have to change email providers.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any hotter - I'm proven wrong.