Settling into Antiguan Life

This is where I work.

This is where I play

(Written yesterday, posted today because 80 minutes of walking is enough for one day)

So I haven’t posted anything in quite a while because I actually haven’t been writing at all. I like to think that it’s because of an unhealthy dose of stress that I haven’t been remotely inspired. Either that or I’m just plain lazy. Although I did take a 20 minute walk four times today, which means I walked for 80 minutes today and calculating that probably proves I’m not lazy.

Either way I don’t want to rattle off about being stressed or my soon-to-be-amazing leg muscles. That would be boring. Actually I’m confessing to a personal weakness today… I hate asking people for anything, unless I’m paying for a service. I hate hitch-hiking, I rarely have a second plate of food at someone else’s house and I often carelessly stretch my arm across the table for the salt. The list of examples is embarrassingly long but you get the point.

Jason, however, is the complete opposite. He has no qualms with asking people for almost anything while I’m either blushing violently or hiding behind a tree. He’s always lecturing that “you don’t get if you don’t ask.” I know he’s right but I just mull around anyway hoping that someone will just make an offer so I don’t have to ask. I know that sounds ridiculous but it works sometimes. Just a month ago, hitch-hiking in Tortola, Jason had run across the road to ask someone for a lift and I was casually watching cars drive past. Despite my complete futility a car, with two tourists in the front, stopped and offered me a lift.

I’ve managed to get four days of work on three different boats in the last two weeks in pretty much the same way. It’s not that I’m not dedicated to being here, I just really hate walking up to boats, none of which have “hiring here” signs, and asking the crew, “Can I please clean your bilges today?”.

I’m sure you can guess just how good Jason is at dock-walking; starting today he has 3 weeks of day work. This means walking the docks alone for me which of course I will do, in fact I’ve already been today. I just had to swallow, take a deep breath and convince myself that I’m not going to have a panic attack and that no one is going to notice that I’ve worn these pants at least twice every week. I also went into ‘Jane’s crew agency’ today, for the first time on my own, and asked her to call me if she has any work. To be honest I probably did say it very fast and it made me a little dizzy even though technically I wasn’t asking for a favour because I did after all pay a sign up fee.

On the whole I feel like I was fairly brave today.