Whatever will happen next?
Oriole
Mon 20 Jan 2014 15:13
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Prince Rupert Bay, Dominica. Sunday 19th
January 2014
15:34.89N 61:27.90W
We stocked up with fruit and veg
from the flood stricken farmers of St Vincent who masquerade as the Rastafarian
Rascals of the market in Bequia. These guys are apt to hassle unsuspecting
yachties and tourists to buy from them, rather than the stall next door, but we
have become immune to the talk and they happily enter into a lively
banter. Doris in her unbelievably well stocked shop provided us with
a few luxury comestibles and then, as a first, offered us 10% discount which
we suspect is normally only offered to locals! Daffodil
did our laundry and sent the fuelling tender alongside to top up our
tanks and by Wednesday morning having paid off Phat Shag we dropped the mooring
at first light and sped off across the Bequia Channel on a beautiful morning
bound for St Lucia. The north end of St Vincent which often gives quite a
nasty acceleration of the wind and kicks up an ugly sea was in quiescent
mood. Nevertheless we were hard on the wind and worked to make good
the 25 miles of open ocean. We stopped off briefly at the Pitons
at the southern end of St Lucia to trans-ship a new VHF radio from a friend who
had purchased it on our behalf for our long established friend and boat boy
in Prince Rupert Bay. I was slightly worried that someone would see us and
think we were trans-shipping something much less PC.
Up in Rodney Bay by dusk, we anchored
close alongside SY Brisa with ex Yealm Yacht Club Commodore Simon
and his wife Hilda on board. They bought her last year to continue, like us,
their Caribbean winter activities. They entertained us for drinks on the next
evening with enough "small eats" from Martinique to preclude the
need for supper and introduced us to some American fellow yachties.
We checked in and out with
Customs and Immigration in St Lucia and having confirmed, that with our Customs
clearance papers, we did not need to have any additional clearance with
Immigration. We left next morning for Martinique where we anchored
overnight and then sped on to Dominica.
 Diamond Rock (SW Martinique) fortified
with canon by the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars as HMS Diamond Rock.
The white ensign was raised there to
upset President de Gaule when he visited some
years ago at a time
when the French presidency was still presentable.
  Now we are moving, beam reach in a
quiet sea.
 If anyone doubts the existence of the
green flash at sunset, take a close look.
Not so dramatic as to the naked eye,
but the camera cannot lie!
And now tragically a British
couple have fallen foul of the system in St Lucia and cleared out with
Customs in one place where the Immigration Officer was absent. They then
struggled miles upwind to Vieux Fort to find an Immigration Officer to clear
them. As the newspapers have now reported an armed robbery, which went
disastrously wrong, ended up with the husband floating dead in the water
and his wife injured. On several occasions we have anchored here
overnight while on passage from Martinique, have never been ashore, and
have never felt entirely comfortable. It is a commercial port and has no
yachting activity to speak of and there have been several recent thefts from
yachts. Sadly, according to the rules that John was given two
days before by a St Lucian immigration officer, we think there
was no need for them to go there at all. They could have just left as we
did. Their last very poignant blog is on Mailasail under the name Magnetic
Attraction.
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