What a great timeline, it brings back many memories and has me scouring the loft for old photographs. Attached are a couple I took of the burnt out wreck of the "Antilles" back in 1971. A few months after this incident I took leave from QE2 in New York and headed for a vacation in the Caribbean hoping to look around the Grenadines that I had seen briefly when QE2 visited Grenada, St. Vincent etc. I got lucky and sailed on a yacht around the islands for a week taking these pictures close to Mustique as we sailed around the wreck. The lifeboats remained on Mustique and were used by the local fishermen, the wreck also remained for years on the reef before being dragged off and sank.
The night of the fire was a dramatic one for QE2 (as well as the "Antilles"). The emergency call came early evening and as we drew closer and it became dark the horizon was a ball of flames. With passengers and crew on the open decks of QE2 the Antilles could clearly be seen ablaze from stem to stern. And then we saw lifeboats full of people in the water. There had been an abandon ship and miraculously all passengers and crew had managed to get off without any major injury as the reef that the "Antilles" was stuck on was close to shore. The passengers and crew were dropped off on the beach by lifeboats and later were transferred to the QE2 from the beach in the same lifeboats. The following morning after a very long night they were disembarked (I think in St, Vincent?)
