Position Report. 26th December Arrival Mayreau

Catou
Paul and Sylvie Tucker
Sat 8 Jan 2011 23:26
12:38.00N 61:24.00W
 
After a lovely Christmas Day in Mustique, and the opening of Christmas presents in the morning, we swam off the boat, and after lunch, we went ashore in the dinghy, and had a lovely walk around a large Mangrove swamp in the SW corner of Mustique.  It may not be what everyone thinks of doing in this island (we had earlier declined a taxi trip around the pop star's homes!).  I really don't know who has holiday homes here now, but a number of pop stars used to, as well as the late Princess Margaret.  It seems that the local trading company runs a 'tight ship' and the number of visitors to Mustique is strictly controlled to keep privacy for the residents (no vessels with more than 25 passengers aboard are allowed to stop - which sounds pretty sensible to me!)  We were charged EC$200 on arrival (about £50).  It was a minimum charge, and was valid for 3 nights, so seemed pretty reasonable.
 
Anyway, we slipped the Mustique mooring at about 10am and sailed southwestwards for about 18' towards the island of Mayreau.  This island has a lovely inlet in it's NW corner that goes by the wonderful name of 'Salt Whistle Bay'.  It is a beautiful bay that I have been fortunate enough to visit twice before.  It is horseshoe shaped, with a lovely palm-tree fringed sandy beach all the way around it's perimeter.  We dropped sails off the entrance and motored into the bay to discover that firstly, it was packed with anchored yachts and secondly, there was a heavy swell, and everyone was rolling heavily, so we decided to motor around into the next bay in the SW corner of Mayreau that had the slightly less sexy name of Saline Bay.  It was almost empty, so we found ourselves a suitable spot and dropped the hook.  There was quite a strong offshore wind, and after about 1/2 hour, we realised that the anchor was dragging, so we weighed anchor and re-anchored a little further in, and all was OK.  We did roll a bit, and we didn't go ashore, since it wasn't safe to leave the boat unattended.  Brian and Pam attempted to get ashore in the dinghy, but it was too rough to land on the jetty, so they returned quickly.