January 2017

In which we start to explore the cruising grounds of the Caribbean

We started 2017 in the centre of Bridgetown, Barbados. It had been our plan to leave for St Lucia on the 1^st but it dawned on me a couple of days before that, if we were now planning to visit the United States this year, we would need visas and the only convenient place to get them was right here. Accordingly, we went out to anchor at the southern end of Carlisle bay, opposite the Barbados Yacht Club. These friendly people gave us a week’s free membership and even assisted with printing out or appointment details etc. We were really enjoying the ambience of the island and the few days’ delay was no hardship. Every day we took a little tourist trip, be it to a beach along the south coast or a sea cave at the northern tip, all done using the local buses, mainly white minibuses, which seat 15 and do not leave until they are full, or yellow mid-sized vehicles, which have 22 seats and an infinite capacity for standees. Both types are privately operated and, the sooner they reach their destination, the sooner they can start earning again. For a population which is so laid back that they sometimes struggle to reach the horizontal, it is amazing the energy they put into their driving. Fares are fixed at $2:00 ($1:00 US) no matter the distance, so it became a game to see how far we could get on each one.

Sea cave, Barbados

We had our visa interview on the 4^th. Despite a few butterflies during a long wait, this was very straightforward, and we were informed then and there that our applications were granted but we still had to wait for final processing and delivery of our passports to the airport (for some unfathomable reason). The notification of their delivery came at 16:00 on Friday, with the office closing at 17:00 for the weekend. Cue dinghy ashore and the blowing of several weeks worth of bus money on a taxi. We celebrated by going to the ‘Jump-Up’ at Oistins – a weekly event with a huge area of barbecues, dance floors, rum shops and craft stalls. We bagged a couple of seats by the biggest dance floor and had truly excellent fish steaks with breadfruit chips, washed down with rum punches. A memorable evening. We even avoided, by the skin of our teeth, being locked out of the yacht club and forced to walk the couple of miles round to get in.

Elsie, Fort Rodney, St Lucia.

The next leg, to Rodney Bay, was too far to make in a day so we decided to leave on Saturday afternoon, giving us the morning to visit the local museum. Unfortunately, I just missed the harbourmaster, the first stage of booking out and, by the time he had returned, and I had completed the rest of the formalities, the sun was setting so, as a Sunday arrival would mean paying overtime for officials anyway, we decided to stay an extra day. We picked up at 14:30 on the 8^th, put 2 reefs in the main, and had a great beam reach to the northern end of St Lucia, arriving at first light. Rodney Bay is one of those places that every yachtsman has heard of and, as well as pontoon berthing, there is a perfectly sheltered lagoon with mooring buoys costing about £15 per night, so we went straight in and took one of these, with assistance from Neil McCubbin of Milvina, whom we had met in Mindelo and kept in touch with. Our intention was to just stay a couple of nights but the forecast was for the wind to back to northerly later in the week, which makes almost every anchorage on the island uncomfortable, so we procrastinated and ended up staying a week. The procrastination was worsened by my losing my mobile phone, by leaving it on a bus, which, as well as making communications difficult, distracted us from planning. One of the downsides to the Caribbean is that there are places where the locals get aggressive towards cruisers and advice on which areas to avoid fluctuates. Most of the main island of St Vincent is currently advised against and there are adverse reports from parts of St Lucia. Eventually, we came up with a plan and it transpired that everywhere that was on that plan would have also been OK with the northerly swell but possibly, as a consequence, rather crowded.

We didn’t see as much of the island as we should have done, having just one big day out by bus to the southern end, Vieux Fort. This is an old town, pretty much by-passed by tourism. We had a wonderful lunch, including our introduction to the local speciality of rotis and returned by 3 more buses up the opposite side of the island, passing the Pitons and stopping at Soufrier on the way. Buses and local restaurants being very affordable, it would have been a cheap day out, apart from the loss of phone. We had another trip up to the north end, to walk round Pigeon island, which was the shore base for the British navy when contesting the area with the French and went to the Friday night jump-up at the local village, Gros Islet. It was good, but having been spoiled the previous week at Oistins, not the best. We also returned, on Saturday morning, to the Capital, Castries, to look round the cathedral, which is constructed of cast iron, but arrived just as it closed for the day, so just had a walk round the local market instead.

Pigeon Island, St Lucia

We left Rodney Bay at 1330 on the 16th, motoring the 8 miles down to Marigot. This is a picture perfect bay, fringed with palm trees and was the setting for the water snail scene in the original Dr Doolittle film. We had intended to pick up a mooring, but anchored just outside the inner bay instead, just popping ashore in the morning for bread ($EC 7 for 2 rolls) and outward clearance. I think that we were supposed to pay a fee to immigration, but the lady was absent and the customs man, who provides the important paperwork didn’t think there was a problem. From here we motored down past Soufrier and the Pitons, then sailed to Laborie, on the south coast of St Lucia.

Another sunset.

On the 18^th, we picked up at 07:40 and set sail for our next island, St Vincent. We had been told to head straight to the south, as there were security issues in the anchorages down the west coast, including an incident where multiple boarders had attacked a boat owner with machetes. Although badly injured himself, he managed to kill one of the intruders and scare off the others. Accordingly, we sailed down the windward, eastern coast. Just round the bottom corner is Blue Lagoon, a nicely sheltered marina with moorings but with an entrance only just deep enough for us to enter. We headed a mile further west, round the back of Young Island where we found, as expected, Dana De Mer, first encountered in La Linea and in touch since. We spend a couple of sociable days with Jage, Hope and family, just making little trips into Blue lagoon, to book in, and to Kingstown for a little shopping. On Friday 20^th, we made a longer visit to Kingstown, looking round the markets, the two cathedrals and the botanic gardens before lunching in VeeJays, a local restaurant – very good. The 21^st we spent taking a bus ride up to Chateaubelair, on the north-west coast, pausing at Wallilabou bay on the way back. This was the set for Port Royal in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and still trades on the memory. Again a good, affordable, lunch. At Jage’s suggestion, we had taken a mooring ball. The first couple of days we were charge $EC 50 for this but the 3^rd and 4^th nights we were not charged. No apparent reason for this as the ‘keeper’ passed us on a daily basis and on our way out. It was time to move islands and, on the 22^nd, we sailed the 7 miles down to Admiralty bay on Bequia, anchoring on the northern side. This was really a ‘scouting’ visit as we wanted to head to Mustique, so we just had a look round the following morning, bumping into the ‘Venture Ladies’ while ashore. I guess that we are going to be doing this more and more as we meet more cruisers.

Basil's bar

I was really excited about going to Mustique. It has the reputation of being the haunt of the rich and famous, from Princess Margaret to Mick Jagger, and being the epitome of luxurious tropical living. The ‘entry fee’ is $EC 200 but, as this entitles you to a 3 day stay on a well maintained mooring (working out at £10 per person per day), this didn’t seem overly expensive when hotel rooms are about £500 per night and villas start at £12,000 per week. There was the added bonus of the annual blues festival being on at Basils, the famous bar ‘where you might bump into Mick J’. We had a pleasant sail across on the 23^rd and were allocated the mooring buoy closest to Basil’s, literally 100 metres away. The water was crystal clear, turtles were grazing on the sea grass beneath us and the coral reef started 100 metres in the other direction. Heaven. We had 2 days of hedonism, spending hours each day snorkelling before dressing in our finest and going ashore to listen to good music and drinking ridiculously overpriced beer. Just like the book says, the clientele is eclectic. About 50% from visiting yachts, albeit mostly charterers rather than cruisers like us; a few well dressed villa or mega-yacht guests and, on the Tuesday night, Jagger himself. We understand that he occasionally gets on stage to sing but didn’t this time, just getting up for a little dance but mostly sitting and studiously avoiding eye contact with the hoi poloi. We were a little disappointed that the ‘festival’ consisted of a house band (though rather good) and the same six artists, performing the same sets each evening. We were also surprised that, apart from the couple of hours when M.J. was present (the jungle drums must have emptied most of the holiday villas), the place was far from packed. The top-of-the-bill artist, Greg Jackson, finished his set on the dance floor with a ring of swaying guests singing Sam Cooke’s seminal civil rights song ‘A change is gonna come’. This was a black man, whose ancestors were probably transported in chains to America, enslaved for generations then grudgingly made second class citizens, aided by 50 white people who had the resources to get themselves by plane or yacht to this rich man’s paradise. And this in the week that the first non-white president of the United States was replaced by a self-proclaimed racist. Am I overly sensitive in finding this just a little bit uncomfortable?

Blues at Basil's

Wednesday nights are usually a jump-up at Basil’s but guessing, rightly, that during the festival it would be the same artists and sets as before, we elected to save ourselves the cover charge and drink prices and enjoy the music from our own cockpit with generously sized rum punches.

On Thursday, our allotted 3 days were up and, after filling with water at the jetty (saving over $EC 200 on Admiralty bay prices, so wiping out our mooring fee!) and a cruise up the north coast to gawp at the Cotton house and the coastal residences, we sailed the 12 miles back to Admiralty bay. Laundry hadn’t been done for several weeks so, as the price was right, we sent a couple of loads ashore with Daffodil. The price was right but the service wasn’t, wasting us a morning waiting for it’s return and involving a little fishing trip to recover a sheet which had blown off our line. We salvaged Friday with a walk round the bay to Princess Margaret beach. On Saturday, we walked across the island and up as far as the road went, Park bay. There is a turtle sanctuary here but our timing was off again and it was closed. We stopped on the way back at the Firefly for a cooling drink and a tour of the gardens, which included sampling many fruits. On Sunday, we decided to cross the bay to see if we could get some internet and have a swim along the reef. Both disappointed: the water was a little cloudy and, although we were opposite Jacks bar our investment in a beer to get the WiFi code didn’t enable us to receive it on board. Fortunately, we lingered long enough over the beer to complete the essentials.

Two hands of banannas

Time for another island swap and on Monday, after a little provisioning, we headed south again. The trades were working well and we had a good sail down, past Canouan, to Mayreau. We missed out Canouan as we had been given negative reports on it – the withdrawal of the Sunsail base has caused a lot of unemployment and a new development at the north end is excluding locals from half of their own island. Our first stop on Mayreau was Salt Whistle Bay. This is picture perfect but small and crowded. Confusion over the legitimacy of laid moorings led to some conflict and we left and headed the mile or down to Saline bay. 90% as pretty and plenty of room. A local ‘boat boy’ who had been recommended to us, took us ashore for a beach barbeque with a huge lobster between us – excellent. On Tuesday, we dinghied ashore and walked up to the top of the island and back. There is supposedly a trail to bring us back down the other side but, coming from the north, we failed to find it which meant that we had to climb the 400 ft to village both ways.

Where's my lunch?