A trip to Marigot Bay
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Mon 20 Dec 2010 23:55
We decided to head down to Marigot Bay, a small bay on the east coast of St Lucia, about 10 miles or so from Rodney Bay. This was where the 1967 original film version of Dr Doolittle, starring Rex Harrison, was made. It is a small bay area with a beach club on one side and a small resort area on the other. This was our first real taste of Caribbean sailing in that we encountered our first 'boat boys', these guys try and sell you their mooring buoys for a small fee. They will also help you tie up your boat securely. They can be quite helpful as you never know which buoys will hold your boat, especially when she is as heavy as ours, but they can also be quite pushy. Our guy was quite happy to rent us a mooring buoy for the afternoon for 20 EC$ which is about £5.00, but got panicky later in the afternoon asking when we were leaving - we later found out he had rented us someone else's buoy and they were on their way back imminently - no wonder he was concerned!! The boat boys also have items to sell, such as bread and bananas, and sometimes fish. One guy had a surfboard which he was standing on, piled with bananas at the back and using a long paddle - incredible balance.
Most of the crew took a swim of the back of the boat, but said the water was cold, and it was also quite murky. John went for a snorkel to see if he could clear the barnacles that have grown on the bottom of the boat while we were crossing the Atlantic. Unfortunately, they were well stuck on so may need divers to clear them - neither of us want to go in the water to clean the boat in the marina for obvious reasons!
The amount of rain which had fallen over the previous day meant that a lot of debris from the land had been washed into the sea making it less clear. Also, the recent hurricane would have meant that that there was more debris than usual lying around waiting to be washed into the sea. When we were sailing home we passed a lot of debris in the water including 2 huge tree trunks which we narrowly missed due to the fact that it was getting dark!
Sailing home, we were treated to the most spectacular sunset, with beautiful red skies. We were all hoping to see the green flash as the sun dipped below the horizon, but not to be this time.