Disney Magic visits Antigua

Disney Magic arriving in Antigua on 17-Sep-2014 the first stop on its repositioning cruise from Europe. This was the first Disney ship visit after a 10 year absence from Antigua.

Leon Livingstone Smith visits Antigua

The Patrol Vessel Leon Livingstone Smith P423 arrived in St.John's on 6th September from the Netherlands via the Cape Verde Islands en route to the Bahamas. The ship built by the Damen shipyard in the Netherlands is being delivered to the Royal Bahamas Defence Force.  During its stop here in Antigua, His Excellency Dr.Rodney Williams Governor General and Prime Minister The Honorable Gaston Browne, Antigua and Barbuda Defence Force personnel and other Government officials were guest of the crew. Boarding at the Heritage Quay pier. the guests were taken on a brief trip offshore to experience the ship's capabilities.

According to the Royal Bahamas Defence Force Facebook page, the ship is the third of nine vessels to be added to the force's fleet under the Bahamas Government's patrol craft acquisition project.
The following video outlines the scope of the $232m investment.

Leon Livingstone Smith docked at Heritage Quay, St.John's, Antigua

Leon Livingstone Smith docked at Heritage Quay, St.John's, Antigua

Leon Livingstone Smith leaving St.John's harbour, Antigua

Leon Livingstone Smith entering St.John's harbour, Antigua

England Cricket Team arrives in Antigua

England's Cricket Team arrived in Antigua this afternoon aboard Virgin Atlantic's aircraft (G-VGEM) to battle with West Indies in 3 One Day Internationals at the Sir Vivian Richards Cricket stadium starting 28-Feb-2014. After their recent dismal performance in Australia I'm sure they'll be eager to take revenge on the West Indies. Hopefully the West Indies team, a shade way below their former glory, will provide them with some stiff competition.

Norwegian's newest ship arrives in New York

This morning as Norwegian Breakaway docked in Barbados, the penultimate stop on its second 12 day cruise to the Eastern Caribbean , it's sister ship Norwegian Getaway entered New York harbor completing its inaugural 10 day transatlantic cruise from Southampton.

Breakaway's next stop will be St.Kitts before returning to New York, it's home port on Jan-31 where it will rendezvous with Getaway for the first time.

Meanwhile Getaway will remain docked at pier 88 next to the Intrepid aircraft carrier museum until Feb-2 where it will serve as Bud Light's floating hotel for the Super Bowl #48 festivities this week.

Getaway will home port in Miami.

Following up on news of these ships brings back memories of our cruise on Breakaway in October last year. This ship is and amazing ship and we had a great time on board as we took the inaugural Port Canaveral (Florida) - Great Stirrup Cay (Norwegian's Island in the Bahamas) - Nassau (Bahamas) 7 daycruise from New York and back. 

Following are some pictures from our cruise on Norwegian Breakaway:

Norwegian Breakaway

New York City at night

Pier 88 

Intrepid Museum

World Trade Center

View of New York Harbor

Statue of Liberty

Kennedy Space Centre

Space Shuttle Atlantis

Great Stirrup Cay - Norwegian Cruise Line's island in the Bahamas

Great Stirrup Cay

Passing under Verrazano-Narrows Bridge

Row 2 Recovery crosses the line in Atlantic Challenge

The third boat to cross the finish line in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge arrived in Nelson's Dockyard last evening, Jan 21 to much fanfare. Row 2 Recovery, manned by four British Army personnel, two of whom are amputees, slowly approached the coast of Antigua just off Shirley's Height as the sun rapidly disappeared below the horizon. From the picturesque vantage point at Shirley's Height, the fading light made the celebratory lighting of their flares all the more spectacular.

 Having left La Gomera in the Canary Islands on 4-Dec-2013 it took the rowers 48days 9hours 13minutes and 29seconds to cover the 2791 nautical miles to the finish line in Antigua.
The members of the Row 2 Recovery team are:
Cayle Royce  (amputee - both legs above the knee)
Scott Blaney  (amputee - right leg above the knee)
Mark Jenkins
James Kayll
 (source: http://www.taliskerwhiskyatlanticchallenge.com/race-tracker/).

Here is a video I recorded of Row 2 Recovery finishing.

For me this amazing feat was even more touching given the fact that the two amputees in the team were able to put behind them their disability and against all the odds helped their team to finish the race. This highlights the power of the indomitable spirit within us which pushes us to excel despite whatever challenges we may be faced with.

The other teams to finish so far are:
1st place (41days 2hours 38minutes 54seconds)
Locura Rows the Atlantic (Mike Burton and Tom Salt)

2nd place (48days 0hours 6minutes 59seconds)
Atlantic Polo Team (Bobby Melville, James Glasson, Henry Brett, Fergus Scholes)

Godspeed to the remaining teams as they approach our shores.

Mein Schiff 2 refuses to Dock in Antigua

Tourisim officials, tour operators and vendors were left disappointed yesterday as the captain of the cruise ship, Mein Schiff 2, operated by TUI Cruises refused to dock the vessel in St.John's. Apparently concerned about the depth of the water in the berth assigned, the captain brought the ship into the Harbour but as shown in the Marinetraffic.com screenshot and picture below made a loop and returned to deeper water offshore.

Track of Mein Schiff 2 from Marinetraffic.com

Mein Schiff 2 moored outside St.John's Harbour

The ship remained offshore (just west of West Indies Oil jetty), while behind the scenes attempts were made to convince the ship to return. When these negotiations failed, the ship departed for Phillipsburg, St.Maarten its next scheduled port of call at 11:30am arriving there at 4:50pm.

According to the agent, Brysons Shipping cruise ship schedule, the berth assigned for Mein Schiff 2 was the Nevis Street pier (South) alongside Celebrity Eclipse on the North. The Heritage Quay berths were allocated to Oceana of P&O Cruises (South) and MSC Musica (North) which arrived around 1:30pm later in the day.

When Mein Schiff 2 last visited 2 weeks ago, it was scheduled to berth at Nevis Street Pier (North) but actually berth at Heritage Quay (South) alongside MSC Musica on the North. Celebrity Eclipse docked at Nevis Street Pier (North) alongside the Royal Fleet Auxillary ship Wave Knight on the South. Given this previous arrangement, I guess the captain expected the same. Let's hope everything gets sorted out in time for its next visit so that the cruisers can get to enjoy our beautiful island.

MSC Musica, Mein Schiff 2 and RFA Wave Knight in St.Johns 6-Jan-2014.

Following are the ships statistics from marinetraffic.com and cruisetimetables.com

Ship	Length (m)	Breadth (m)	Draught (m)	Passengers	Crew
Mein Schiff 2	264	36	8.5	2114	909
Celebrity Eclipse	317	48	8.9	3000	1500
Oceana	261.2	32.3	8.4	2272	900
MSC Musica	292	34	7.6	3013	987

Moravian Health Walks #1 of 2014

We had a great walk this morning; the first for 2014. The route chosen was from Grace Hill Moravian Church in Liberta to the entrance of Nelson's Dockyard and back. The first half of the route was pretty straight forward as it was mostly downhill from Liberta to Falmouth and English Harbour. The return leg though was more strenuous since it involved negotiating the gentle but deceiving gradient of Horsford Hill. 

I couldn't resist the urge of going into Nelson's Dockard and so ended up being one of the stragglers. My real motive though for doing so was to have a look at the row boat which came in first in the Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge on Jan-14. Seeing how small the boat is, I can only imagine the tremendous effort it took the two British sailors, Mike Burton and Tom Salt to overcome the Atlantic Ocean in this feat of endurance;well ahead of the other competitors. This reinforces for me Paul's exhortation in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ.

Following is a map of the walk produced from the GPS coordinates captured on my Blackberry.
For best viewing click the link below for a larger version of the map.To view pictures taken along the route click on the blue map icons. Clicking on the direction arrows give an indication of direction, speed and distance travelled from the start.
The distance walked was approximately 11.9 km (7.4 miles). 

View Larger Map

Pic of the Day - 07Jan2013

Desert Rose (Adenium obesum)

Picture of one of my "desert rose" plants. This plant is now one of the most featured plants in many gardens in Antigua. According to wikipedia.com, Adenium obesum is a species of flowering plant in the dogbane family, Apocynaceae, that is native to the Sahel regions, south of the Sahara (from Mauritania and Senegal to Sudan), and tropical and subtropical eastern and southern Africa and Arabia. Common names include Sabi star, kudu, mock azalea, impala lily and desert rose.

Snow storm causes Air traffic woes on North East USA

As we bask in the sunshine of another glorious Friday morning in the Caribbean, spare a thought for the residents of and travellers to the North East coast of the USA as they brace for a giant snow storm. As the Flightaware.com website shows, the usually busy skies in this area are void of traffic as thousands of flights have been cancelled or diverted to alternate airports. John F. Kennedy International (JFK) is closed until later this morning.

For example South Africa Airways flight 203 from Dakar Senegal (GOOY) diverted to Washington Dulles International (KIAD) after circling numerous times.