Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou. 12:27.4N 61:29.3W
MALARKEY
Jo & Trevor Bush
Sun 3 Jun 2007 02:38
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It is that time of the year to consider getting out
of the 'Hurricane Box' before you get caught out. Despite what you might
think, things aren't always rosy here you know. The Hurricane area in the
Caribbean has a well earned reputation. "If you don't want to get mullered,
then head south of Grenada sharpish", so the pundits say. As we don't have insurance cover for named wind storms, we
figured we would take some of that advice and head south Billy big-steps
style.
First stop from Dominica was Rodney Bay, St Lucia.
The sail there was lively to say the least. We had up to 35 kts of wind and 3m
seas.
We left just after Adonde, largely because we have
more trouble getting out of bed in the morning than Neil & Tracy. But
we did have a plan. If the conditions are a bit crap, then as we are not in too
much of a hurry, we will turn back and wait for better day....A good plan me
thinks, leave the heroic stuff to the time pressed yacht charterers who
don't care about breaking their boat.
As Adonde was ahead of us, we figured it was their
call...... They are obviously made of tougher stuff than us because there was no
call and we thought the conditions were double crap. We consider our
boat to be relatively sea worthy and particularly dry. But within minutes of
leaving the southern tip of Dominica a huge wave hit us mid ships and as I was
on the helm at the time, I got totally drenched.....soaking wet head to foot.
Very refreshing first thing in the morning....just what you need to blow the
sleepy cobwebs away. So if we were getting a pounding then Adonde was probably
getting a worse one. But still no radio call from them, not a peep. We
figured they must be ok and it is just us being whimps so we carried
on. I don't know which it was, bravado or apathy that made both
boats carry on when turning back would have been the sensible thing to do.
Because after speaking to Neil & Tracy when we finally got to Rodney Bay,
they had an awful trip bordering on scary. The question 'why no call?' was
met with a shrug of the shoulders, which was the only really honest answer
because I didn't know either. We promised to try harder to get it right next
time.
St Lucia was just as I remembered it. A beautiful
Island but with a negative atmosphere which we just cant figure. The
situation is not improved one jot by the miserable customs &
immigration officials.
One day in Rodney Bay was enough for us and we
sailed late in the day to Marigot Bay further down the coast. It was
supposed to be a really nice anchorage but we found much to our annoyance,
that there is no anchoring in the lagoon, only expensive moorings were
available. Anchoring outside was hopeless. It was busy & the holding was
poor. So off we go again further down the coast to Soufriere but
this time in near darkness....not a particularly good state of affairs. For
the first time we were pleased to be greeted by a boat boy who led us to
buoy. He said the charge was only 20 EC dollars (approx £4). This sounded good,
a secure mooring for only a couple of quid at that late hour, we'll have some of
that.
Thought it was too good to be true. The mooring was
ok but it wasn't his to sell and it all went pear shaped when the real owner
(the Park Ranger) turned up on the scene. It only got worse from there. The
mooring was only 100 yards from the shore right next to a shanty town where
there seemed to be a right ruckus going on. Then we get a knock on the hull....
but there was no boat to be seen. It was a local nutter from the town who
had swam out in the darkness to warn us that there had just been a murder in the
town and did we want to buy any mango's!!!. This totally freaked us out and we
locked all the hatches and doors, went to bed and hid under the duvet. Morning
didn't come soon enough and we moved straight off to the Ans de Pitons, a couple
of miles further down the coast.
The Pitons, in stark contrast, were gorgeous
and very peaceful. They are essentially two huge igneous rocks that forced there
way skyward through the Earths crust to a considerable height right
alongside each other with a small beach in between. The surroundings were
idyllic with great snorkelling and walks. They more than made up for our
crap time in St Lucia so far.
The next trip was to the old favourite, Bequia. We
completely by-passed the Island of St Vincent as it has a similar rep as St
Lucia and we could do with some hassle free time. Bequia provided the goodies in
that regard but a short stay was in order, we needed to get south. We did
the 'charter thing'.......a short overnight stop in Canouan, early morning sail
to the Tobago Cays for a swim to see if 'Porky' the porcupine fish was still in
his house (during an earlier trip to the Cays we found a huge porcupine fish in
a cave), a hop down to Union Island to check out of the St Vincent
Grenadines, a skip down to Hillsborough, Carriacou to check into the Grenada
Grenadines and a jump over to Sandy Island for a snorkel over the reef and
to meet up with Scorpio, our old pals Richard & Jan.
Well that was enough hop, skip and jumping for one
day and needless to say a fair bit of drinking and catching up was done on
Scorpio that night. Both boats moved off to Tyrrel Bay the
following morning for some down time before our last leg to
Grenada.
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