Pigeon Island and a view on Marigot Bay

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Wed 4 Jan 2012 00:18

14:05.389N 60:57.81W

 

Mon 2nd and Tuesday 3rd Jan

 

Well it turned out that we had got our anchor properly dug in at last and we remained safe and sound for the two nights we were in Marigot Bay.

 

Monday dawned grey and breezy and for the next 12 hours we got repeated blasts of what the locals cheerfully refer to as ‘Liquid Sunshine’ , in fact an excess of it. It really seems to be a speciality of this extraordinary ‘hurricane hole’ that has its own real micro climate.

 

We went ashore in the morning and toured the few shops and restaurants etc. and admired a couple of outstandingly beautiful wooden yachts and then had a light lunch in Doolittle’s Restaurant. (The original Dr Doolittle film was shot on location here centuries ago) before returning to Serafina to watch all the comings and goings. Somehow, despite Sarah’s vigilance, we managed to miss Ko-Ko sailing in and this was despite them blasting their horn repeatedly when they saw Serafina anchored there! They got in touch though and we joined them and a number of their Norwegian friends in Mygos restaurant for another fun evening. However apart from this, somehow Marigot did not manage to endear itself to us and whilst we are glad that we made the visit to satisfy our curiosity, we would not rush back there again.

 

Ko-Ko had spent New Year’s eve in Bequia and had tales of howling gales and the disturbing tale about the boat which was moored on a buoy behind them  and was wrecked and sunk on the rocks on the far side of the bay, when the buoy broke free. A sort of object lesson in not trusting the local mooring buoys….

 

Furthermore whilst we were bemoaning the endless horizontal squalls of rain sweeping through Marigot, poor Ko-Ko was making her way from Bequia to Marigot (60 miles) sailing into 40 knots of head winds and 3 – 4 metre seas between the islands.

 

The boat boys offering fruit and veg in Marigot also have a lot to learn from their counterparts elsewhere. We had one lad’s boat tied to our stern for an hour as he tried to fix his very ancient outboard and another chap who sailed around offering fruit using a decrepit small catamaran seemed very enterprising but was actually extremely surly and rude which did him no favours at all, particularly when he slipped on his ‘deck’ (piece of crate) and crashed into our anchor chain narrowly missing our bow! (We have since heard that Ellen on Ko-Ko had lent him a knife to cut open some fruit at which point he sailed off keeping her knife!) In contrast the services around Rodney Bay are very slick and enthusiastic and we were very impressed by the efforts made by Sparkle Laundry and the main fruit and veg man (see the photo pages).

 

On Tuesday we got ready for the sail back up to Pigeon Island and then went ashore in the dinghy to clear out through Customs and Immigration. We stopped by on Ko-Ko for a coffee and made loose arrangements to rendezvous with them in a few days in Martinique when we also both plan to meet up with Song of the Ocean.

 

The sail back was outstanding and although we were seriously over canvassed, Sarah managed to beat us back upwind into 25 knots of wind (30 across the deck) making a respectable 6, 7 and even occasionally 8 knots, close hauled all the way.

 

We dropped the sails and found ourselves a good spot to anchor and it was not until we had done this and settled down to some lunch that we spotted Halsway Grace barely 200 metres away. Seems that they too are headed for Martinique in the morning.

 

Great news by email as we got a reply from Antigua Rigging to say that they would be happy to do the mast repairs for us and will endeavour to obtain the new part from Selden themselves. We even have a date fixed for 20th Feb, all being well.