Tuesday 12th January 2010, day 452, 7,772 miles. 17° 00’.85 N, 061° 46’.49 W. Falmouth Harbour, Antigua
Sailing is one of the few places where the lives of normal people come up against those of the hyper-rich. Falmouth Harbour in Antigua must have a higher average net worth than any other place on earth at this time of year, even allowing for us scruffy yachties lowering the tone. The squillionaires are always with us, of course, but I guess most of the time they swish past in dark-windowed four-wheel drives, and unless we have a job turning down their sheets or selling them derivatives, we and they pass in our different worlds.
In Antigua here they are, though, in their Gucci-loafered hordes. We counted 20 boats over 100 feet long at Christmas. Sleek super-fast racing machines; gentlemen’s motor yachts, all shining varnish and gleaming brass; J classes and their mother ships; vast motor boats with three decks, gyms, discos and a wood-panelled library. To think we used to find the little white Essex gin palaces on the River Deben pretentious.
We have seen yachts with sailing boats bigger than Tomia stored on one side of their aft deck – and a 40 foot motor launch on the other. As we putter into the dock, we gaze in amazement at the 3,000 cubic feet “garages” that open on hydraulic hinges at the side of the boats, with space for tenders and dinghies, jet skis, windsurfers, waterskis … one ship carries a perfect little 26 foot Herreshof as a toy for the guests.
A bit like computing the number of grains of sand in the universe, measuring the wealth of these yacht owners leaves our brains feeling soggy, and limp as a piece of over-stretched elastic. To put it in perspective, we count among our friends many who have dailies, quite a few with nannies or au pairs, a couple who get a cook to come for the summer holidays, and one or two with a live-in housekeeper, which seems to us the utterly giddy heights of luxury. These yachts have a permanent staff of anything from five to forty. For a boat that the owner may use for three or four weeks a year.
We were in DesHaies, Guadeloupe, the night after Lionel Richie had given a concert in front of several thousand people. A 150 foot boat was anchored there, and just before dusk its tender started ferrying people over to a bar on shore – “closed for a private party” we had read. After they had all been got ashore, and enough time had passed for champagne cocktails to be drunk, the crooner’s tones wafted out across the bay …just a little private concert for twenty or so of the owner’s closest friends. Cool or what?
But there’s one place where these pampered lives (jealous, moi? Not really, honest) and ours cross: the dock. No matter that, on board, they swan around in ankle-deep carpeting, with their personal masseur or tame ghazal singer constantly on hand. No matter that they can sit in a hot bath whenever they want (yes, I admit it, there the green-eyed monster has got me), or that the toughest decision they have to make is whether last season’s Chanel can be given just one more outing – they still have to get from the land to the boat. And (short of a helicopter, and actually only a tiny few of these ships have heli-pads, shame, huh?) we take a certain sneaking pleasure at the thought that every single gilded person at that private concert in DesHaies had to get to the yacht using the same crumbling, stinky fishermen’s dock as us; their Jimmy Choos got entangled in the same ropy pieces of fish-encrusted netting; they also had to take a gasp of fresh air to see them through the worst smell when their tender passes the fish gutting area.
Bet they don’t have as much fun as we do.
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