It’s the day before the second Test in Antigua, and there are three cruise ships in port. So local services and sights will be under siege from the usual horde of old wealthy people but this time supplemented by inevitably inebriated cricket fans.

As the P&O cruise ship entered the harbour I was again bemused at the number of people holidaying in the Caribbean.

Rather than go through the financial fight needed to get a taxi anywhere of interest I decided to let the early rush pass, then head to find the Recreation Ground, just past the Government House, cathedral and museum.

I didn’t find the museum. After poking my nose into the Recreation Ground I wandered back down the hill past what is either the Government House or the Cathedral. I assumed it was the former, someone else on the ship identified it as the latter. It’s semi-derelict either way, some building work taking place, most of the windows boarded up.

That led me past the girls’ high school into residential St John, single story houses made from wood and corrugated iron. Nobody seemed well off but everybody had clean clothes and the streets were filled with parked cars in good condition.

A lot of people were on the streets, walking to work, working or sometimes just stood watching everybody else. Occasionally I’d get an odd look, my skin colour, clothing, hat and bag all clashing horribly with the locals, but a smile and a ‘good morning’ would get me the same in return, from the men and women.

I was back in the port before finding somewhere open for food or drink. The locals didn’t bother, or grabbed a take-out from a counter, no seating. Spotting a cafe offering wifi I walked up, was offered a table before I even reached the door. I asked the lady if she had a menu but she shook her head, asked if I wanted coffee, tea, beer. “Do you do food?” was met with confusion, the word ‘food’ clearly new to her.

She beckoned me inside, pointed at the fridge full of soft drinks. I didn’t even look at it, just pointed at the (obviously empty) food counter, looked her in the eyes. “Oh, fooood,” she said, and shook her head.

Instead she led me next door, one of the street counters, street food at tourist prices. I decided to go for their meat patties anyway, $5 (local – East Caribbean Dollars?) each. I asked the lady I was with for two of those, as she seemed intent on mediating for me, and showed her a US dollar as I had no local currency. She asked the vendor something too fast to follow, maybe even a different language, got a reply and turned back to me. “Two dollars each.” The exchange rate is around 2.7 to one USD so they’d just retained the tourist pricing, hadn’t gouged a currency exchange fee on top, so I ordered two of them, asked her for a coffee, handed her a ten US dollar note.

The meat pies arrived a few seconds later, the coffee taking another couple of minutes. I got the wifi password, checked email, checked the news, ate pies. The pasty was a flavourless thick crust, lovely texture but surprisingly bland. The minced beef inside was packed tight, held its shape when bitten into, had a nice gravy flavour to it. The coffee was terrible.

A few minutes later the lady reappeared, put three dollar notes on the table. She’d charged me $3 for coffee, so I didn’t leave her a tip.

In an unlikely mobile phone autocorrect, instead of hoping the cold and snow weren’t causing a friend problems I very nearly hoped they weren’t causing genitals. Probably good that I caught that one before hitting ‘send’.

Early afternoon I ventured off the ship again, this time seeking lunch and a nice drink. The town was open for business, the interesting parts lacking tourists but also cafes and restaurants.

The schools had released their inmates but the noise came from businesses playing bad music on large speakers, one religious organisation playing even worse music on theirs. Some of the men carried their own speakers with them, and nobody in a car could hear traffic noise. It was all too loud, too smelly (especially by the fish market) and too hot to be dealing with it all so I boarded the ship again, drank much water, retrieved coffee.

Before we left port the rain that had greeted us resumed. It had been hot and muggy all day, but there had been some sunshine. It wasn’t though looking good for a five day test.

There’s only room for one ship to leave the harbour at a time. The captain on the tannoy’s suggested it is genuinely down to ‘who has all their passengers on board first’. Given it’s raining and we’re not a full speed dash to the next port I suspect an hour or two delay is entirely inconsequential. But we might be first, who knows.

We weren’t first. P&O reversed into view on the rear camera while we were still tied to the dock. They’d been the last in but a ship full of Brits knew how to get things done quickly. Curiously their ship was the same model as the Princess one, excessively large and bloody ugly from behind. I have an ex like that.

It’s quite comical watching a cruise ship do a 20 minute J turn. As they finally faced the harbour exit and started to leave clouds of brown gunk floated to the surface behind our ship, suggesting that our azipods were doing some work too. This was intriguing as we were still tied up.

Pointless too, as the Princess ship moved next, starting its reverse with P&O still visible. The Caribbean would be nicer without all the cruise ships. Nicer without all the tourists too, but that’s kind of universal. The driver on the Princess ship wasn’t as good as the P&O one, messed up the initial reverse out of the dock, had to wriggle to get into the right position for the turn.

Meanwhile I heard a rumour that IBM are buying Red Hat. Hopefully it’s their way of fixing SystemD; if they own it they can legally kill it. We can hope.

Back to the Princess ship and they’d really messed up their turn too. This wasn’t a J turn, this was a 17 year old learning how to reverse park on ice. Even the tug fled the scene, anxious to avoid a stupidly large ship stupidly turning. Comically it then went charging back in, started to push against the side of the ship. Perhaps it was collecting the pilot, although closer in to shore than I’d expect – the ship still wasn’t past the mouth of the natural harbour. I think it was more likely sent it at the behest of the harbour master, keen to get the lumbering vessel out of the way. Princess took literally twice as long as P&O to get the bow pointed at the sea, despite starting less than 20 yards away on the other side of a pier.

And so, a full hour after scheduled departure, we slipped our lines. I went on deck to watch, stayed on there for the sunset. We weren’t quite at P&O standards but close, smooth and steady.

I was in bed by 7pm, light off by 9pm, asleep not much later. Strangely tired.