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20.01 12:52.87N
61:11.37W
So 18th January was my Birthday!!
I managed to make the celebrating go on for
several days: We started in Tobago Cays with Mike and Pam from Golden
Spirit of Islay; we had a wonderful dinner on their boat, with definitely the
most spectacular sunset I've ever seen - and none of us brought our cameras with
us!!! Then the following day we had Birthday Tea, with another legendary
Chris Fuller Chocolate Cake Spectacle. And more Snorkelling. Then on
my actual Birthday, we left the Cays and headed to Chatham Bay on Union
Island. Pam and Mike gave us a good send off from the bow of their boat,
in true Pam style, waving a big 'Happy Birthday' banner! thanks
guys!
I tell ya, everywhere we go, it just keeps
getting better. Chatham Bay is a big bay with some excellent snorkelling,
surrounded with tree covered hills, with a huge long beach, and about 6
buildings as far as you can see. And 3 of them are beach bars.
As we laid out the anchor, we were aware of one (mercifully just one) of the
ubiquitous boat boys hovering near by, eager to sell us his wares.
"Hello." he said once we had finished "I am the one they call
'Shackatack'." Either, for some inexplicable reason, he was freely
admitting to having belonged to a rather dreadful 1980's pop combo, or he didn't
realise that pronouncing 'Shark-Attack' with a thick Rasta accent
has rather humorous consequences. Fortunately for us it was the
latter. Mr "Shark-Attack" runs a bar-be-que on the beach every evening,
complete with rum punch, live person playing Bob Marley tunes on his guitar, and
a couple of stray kitties only too happy to hoover up the bar-be-que scraps you
can't finish. On a beach. In the Caribbean. In January.
Turning 37 wasn't so bad you know.
I feel I also have to mention Mr Bollhead's Beach
Bar and Restaurant. He also serves up a fine bar-be-que, and gives rum
punch away free to people from Beckenham (he used to live in Bromley it
transpires) on their Birthday, when they have swum ashore and therefore
obviously have no means of paying for their drink. What a nice
man!
We had been hoping to make it down to Grenada for
a few days, and get Robert and Caroline on a local plane back to St Lucia to
catch their flight home. But unfortunately there were no flights to be
had, so we upped anchor and headed back North, stopping at Mustique on the
way. Now Mustique, there's an interesting place. Here's what the
Lonely Planet guide to the Caribbean says: 'The Rolls-Royce of the Grenadines,
Mustique is a privately owned island that has been developed into an exclusive
haven for the rich and famous. Colin Tennant an eccentric Scotsman
purchased the island in 1958 to turn it into a destination for his
aristocratic friends.'
HOW THE HELL DO YOU BUY
AN ISLAND?????
Surely there were people living on it? And
whose was it to sell anyway? It's as bad as the bloody Italians!
Actually, there still are local people living here but not very many, and
they are mostly employed by the Mustique company who run the island, or
directly for some of the extremely smart privately owned villas on the
island. We did see a very nice looking school which I presume is for
local kids and the housing standard is considerably better than on St
Lucia. Determined to make the most of our one afternoon on the island, we
hired a kind of golf-buggy thing and headed off to explore. Lots of people
drive these things, they are kind of practical on an island where all the wild
life - any kind of wild life and especially the tortoises - have right of
way (guess that's why there are so many of them).
Not only the visiting rich and famous get to
drive these things, they So you didn't
get to see the Cays sunset, how's about this one
are available for the locals too you
know... instead
then?
Mustique is undoubtedly very pretty, but it's all
a bit too neat and tidy and manicured for my liking. And we didn't even
see anyone famous!
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