Everything is a bit doom and gloom at the moment. If you’ve realised the dog has eaten the last piece of the jig-saw, are trying to work out what meal you can make with baked beans, plain flour and mayonnaise, or are losing the will to live after being greeted by people doing burpees in their living rooms every time you open social media – then this is for you. Let me whisk you away to a land of white sandy beaches, palm trees, and hunky men. A bit of holiday romance might do us all some good.
On the 12th December 2019, four of my friends made up the Dorabros, one of the thirty-five teams setting off as part of this year’s Talisker Atlantic Challenge – a 3,000 mile rowing race across the Atlantic Ocean. As we geared up for the marathon of work parties leading up to Christmas, they rowed. When we all spent an entire week recumbent on the sofa, existing entirely on cheese, chocolate and turkey, they rowed. As we brought in a new decade with one too many glasses of Prosecco and a spontaneous yet regrettable midnight snog (obvs I didn’t actually have a New Year’s snog, I’m taking artistic licence), they rowed. As the month of festivities came to an end and a wet and dreary January dragged by, they rowed.
It’s ironic to think what we would now give to go back to that wet and dreary January if it meant we could run around in the rain within two metres of our nearest and dearest before seeking shelter in the closest pub but that is by the by. One particularly drizzly day a group of us got a message from Hattie, one of the rowers’ girlfriends. “Rufus has just rung, they’re about to hit good weather and are picking up speed. They should be arriving this time next week”. Suddenly a wee last minute trip to the Caribbean sounded rather appealing. Some very quick conversations with bosses for last minute leave requests ensued and flights were booked. The rowers’ parents and girlfriends had always planned on going out to Antigua but now they were going to be joined by four more of us.
Naturally, our primary reason for going out there was to watch our friends complete an amazing feat of physical and mental endurance. But, three out of the four of us who had booked last minute flights to Antigua were single girls and it didn’t take long for us to realise that the majority of the thirty-five crews taking part in the race were male. Males who, by the time they got to Antigua would be incredibly toned, incredibly tanned and not have seen either dry land of a female form in over a month. Some might argue there was a slight ulterior motive at play!
Five days later and we landed in Antigua where we soon realised there was a formula to the rowers’ arrival. Each team tended to arrive at English Harbour running purely on adrenalin. There would be a big celebration at the docks and they would then keep a low profile for the next two days; reacclimatising to being on land, going through the final boat inspection, catching up with their families and on much needed sleep and nursing their broken bodies, calloused hands and chafed bottoms. After a couple of days of this though, the magnitude of their accomplishment would set in and they would decide to host a party at whatever villa they were staying at to celebrate. The winning team had arrived the day before we arrived and by the time we got there, Hattie and Rufus’ parents had already managed to bag us an invite to their party. We sensed there was going to be a theme to the week!
Sadly for us, fate stuck its oar in and it quickly became clear that all four of the winning oarsmen had been greeted in Antigua by beautiful and adoring girlfriends/wives. It was a good warm up party nonetheless – our herd (with the addition of Rufus’ family there were now seven of us) met their herd, we shook off the jet lag on the D floor, and began the arduous task of raising our alcohol tolerance levels. Unfortunately, as more boats arrived and more parties ensued, the stream of girlfriends, wives and even small children also continued.
In between our various soirees we made time to head down to English Harbour and welcome in the boats. The first boat that we saw arrive was a team called Broar, which should have more aptly been named PHWOAR – it was made up of three Scottish brothers who not only beat the record for the fastest three-man row across the Atlantic but were also the youngest trio to make the crossing and the first three brothers to do it. Their arrival was amazing and weirdly emotional considering none of us had ever met any of them before. Somehow, Rufus’ parents had managed to blag all of us onto the super yacht that was moored directly opposite where the boats landed. It was totally surreal to stand, glass of wine in hand, on the deck of a yacht as the sun went down and the brothers rowed in. What made it even more spectacular was one of the three brothers had taken his bagpipes with him all the way across the Atlantic. When they crossed the finish line he attached a flare to each of the three drones and stood in the middle of the boat, playing the pipes as his two brothers rowed the home straight. I looked at my fellow members of the herd and was relieved to see the glisten of a tear in their eyes. This wasn’t the only thing making their eyes light up though, we were clearly all agreed - these brothers were HONIES.
Our boys arrived the following day and true to form, had purposefully planned it so that they arrived, in their budgey smugglers, at golden hour for the best possible photos. To be fair to them, the planning was worth it; the photos were spectacular and the whole thing was incredibly moving – standing at the old lookout point for the first glimpse of them, cheering them across the finish line, racing down to greet them, setting off flares as they pulled in and so many hugs and tears. We’re getting off topic though. This is a dating blog and we weren’t in Antigua to snog the Dorabros.
As lovely as it was to see them, the boys were also valuable assets – they knew all the other crews. We did not wait long before getting the full low down on Broar - the middle one in age, Jamie, (the piper) had a girlfriend, but as far as they knew the others were single. Right on schedule, two days following their arrival the Broar brothers started to pop up at parties and we made our introductions. Eventually we received the golden ticket: an invitation to the Broar party. Imagine the Bennett sisters’ excitement when they get invited to the ball at Netherfield – the levels of shrieking in our Airbnb were a bit like that but with less petticoat ironing and more pina coladas.
The bar for parties in Antigua had already been set pretty hard but the Broar party topped them all. The house was incredible – it was the most beautiful villa with a sitting room that completely opened out onto an enormous covered veranda. Beyond that was a palm surrounded swimming pool, beyond that the croquet lawn (yes, a villa in the Caribbean had a croquet lawn), and beyond that the beach. As the youngest trio to cross the Atlantic, the three brothers were actually the team closest in age to the Dorabros, which meant their supporters were as well. We arrived to an entire Scottish cohort whose party had conveniently fallen on Burns Night – they were all dressed entirely in tartan and had just finished their dinner of haggis when we arrived. It was as if the extras for Braveheart had accidentally ended up on a James Bond set.
It wasn’t long before Lisa, Rufus’ mother came rushing over to where Millie and I were standing. “Mother Broar has just introduced me to Euan, the oldest brother”, she said, “she also introduced me to his partner and the two of them have just bought a house that they’re doing up together. Euan’s gay!” Right, so that was Euan and Jamie out of the running, leaving only Lachlan, baby Broar (we later found out that Euan is very much not gay, we aren’t entirely sure whether there was a miscommunication or an excessive amount of gin consumed on the part of Lisa but either way he had been ruled out of the running for the evening – our loss). We looked over to see Katie, a member of our herd, deep in conversation with Lachlan by the pool. Yes girl!!
It was then that we heard a loud droning noise behind us. It turned out that it wasn’t only Jamie who had brought his bagpipes across the Atlantic. Three of his friends had also flown over with theirs in their hand luggage and the four of them were now warming up to play some reels. The veranda and sitting room were cleared of furniture and anything that looked remotely breakable. Katie appeared beside me, it seemed that things were going swimmingly with Lachlan and he had just asked her to strip the willow with him. Was that intended as a euphemism?! We all duly found respectable Scottish partners (the Dorabros were suddenly rather miffed not to be our main focus) and lined up with girls down one side of the room and boys down the other. There was quite a lot of standing around whilst the pipe band tuned up and had a quick practice. As they were playing Katie turned to me again, “Do you think this would be a good time to do a little Riverdance?” Before I had had a chance to answer she had pranced into the void that the gender divide had created. I had never seen anything like it! I can only imagine it’s what a duck would look like if they had knees and paddled on dry land instead of in water – the top half of her body remained entirely motionless whilst the bottom half was a blur of flicking heels and high kicks. Up and down the line I could hear whispers of “That girl is amazing, who is she?” I glanced over in Lachlan’s direction. He was ignoring the hubbub of questions around him, as he stood totally still, utterly transfixed by Katie.
It was a Strip the Willow unlike any I had ever done before, largely because as you spun the length of the line it was decided you then had to finish your turn by running and jumping fully clothed into the swimming pool. It was absolute carnage. It turns out that that it wasn’t just rowing and reeling the Broar brothers took to extremes though. The proposal for the next activity was a game of Spoons. The rules of the game are largely irrelevant but the overall aim is to get three of the same card and grab a spoon from the table. In this instance though, remove the word “table” and replace it with “bottom of the swimming pool”. Every round culminated in an underwater rugby scrum in various states of undress. Car crash doesn’t come close to describing what it looked like – I can only imagine it was something akin to the sinking of the Titanic if the Titanic had sunk in a tropical swimming pool and the string quartet on the deck was replaced by bagpipers.
In this, the most unlikely of setting though, the romance was definitely on. Each round Lachlan would battle his way to find his own spoon before continuing the hunt and giving the second to Katie. It was adorable. When they were both out they didn’t return to the party but slunk off to a sun-lounger at the far end of the pool where they gazed into each other’s eyes and whispered what I can only assume were sweet nothings. Both the Broar and Dorabro camps were quietly keeping an eye on the proceedings and egging them on. Keep up with the cultural references here, we had left Leo di Caprio and Kate Winslet behind, now finding ourselves transfixed by our very own episode of Love Island. Lachlan had “pulled Katie for a chat”. Their voyage was a bumpy one though. They narrowly missed a tropical storm in the form of Lachlan’s mother who was making her way round the pool tidying up discarded plates and sodden items of clothing. A member of the Broar camp saw the danger and managed to divert her course by sending her an SOS that he was in desperate need of a burger. She hurried off to oblige.
Eventually the young lovebirds cottoned on to their viewers and opted for some more privacy, the night swallowed them up as they disappeared in the direction of the croquet lawn. At this point it was getting rather late and Rufus’ parents were ready for home. We had team huddle on the best way to proceed and somewhere between the arguments of “she wouldn’t want to be disturbed” and “those that fall behind stay behind”, we headed home sans Katie.
We woke the next morning with slightly sore heads and aching muscles but desperate to know how the night ended. We didn’t have to wait long before a Jeep pulled into our drive and Katie jumped out. The Herd assembled for a full debrief. What we hadn’t realised when we left Katie the night before was that Lachlan was sharing a room with his mother. They had managed to fashion a makeshift bed on the veranda by pushing two sofas together and this was how they were discovered by Mother Broar the following morning, under a thin sheet that I don’t imagine left much to the imagination. Even this wake up call couldn’t raise the pair from love’s young dream though. They were both absolutely besotted. In a cruel twist of fate, however, Katie was due to fly back to the UK the following day. It looked like this romance was about to become a tragedy when Lachlan employed his powers of persuasion. Katie threw caution to the wind and pushed her flights home back a week - the stuff of films. We waved her goodbye from the airport and returned to soggy London and desk jobs, leaving Katie for a week of Caribbean holiday romancing; late night walks along the beach and sunrise snorkelling with sea turtles. You literally couldn’t make this shit up! Now back to watching those burpees…