Fat Hogs, goats, cattle and chickens

Stream
Darrell Jackson and Sarah Barnes
Fri 14 Feb 2014 15:07
18:26.26N 64:33.78W

We motored the short distance from Road Town to Fat Hogs Bay to save a beat to windward in lumpy seas, so we took less than an hour for the short passage. There are three small marinas in the bay and a number of moorings available for visiting yachts and we decided to pick up one of the empty moorings.
When approaching a mooring, for the benefit of the crew on the foredeck, the helm must attempt to approach directly into the wind and control the speed so that the boat is coming to a halt just as the bow reaches the mooring tail which is usually a line about 2 metres long with a float on the end. Of course as the boat gets nearer the buoy it disappears in front of the bow, so the last few metres he is guessing where the buoy is. The helm has a lot to concentrate on during this manoeuvre and, as all the mornings we have been on so far have had a good depth of water beneath them, the depth of the water was not something the helm was looking at on this occasion. The cry from the bow "You've stopped!", coincided with the realisation that we had touched the sandy bottom and had indeed come to a halt some 2 metres short of the mooring. The panic (or confusion as her arms don't stretch that far!) on the bow was not repeated in the cockpit and the helm merely reversed back into deeper water, where the unanimous decision was taken to abandon picking up a mooring in favour of choosing our own position and depth, to anchor. This was accomplished without further surprises. ( To be fair the foredeck crew did keep asking:"How much depth have you got?", but the helm couldn't hear her.)
The short dinghy ride into one of the many small marinas very soon revealed that we were in supermarket heaven. Not only was there one in the marina, but just outside there was another even larger one. Interestingly this was a supermarket on the ground floor and a church on the first floor, so no problem if the communion wine runs out here! A short walk took us to East End (strangely at the western end of the bay) which is called Long Swamp on the marine chart, and past a couple more churches and, another large supermarket! Wandering along the main road of East End we saw minor traffic chaos as a couple of cows decided to cross the road, followed by their calves some time later. Goats were grazing/eating anything they found at the edge of the road and of course there were the ever present chickens running around with their chicks, which can't have been more than a few days old. Most of this was happening outside the local police station and being watched by two police officers who were standing outside having a quick ciggy. Every single place we have stopped in the Caribbean, we have seen numerous chickens in the streets and on beaches, whether we have been in quiet rural areas or Road Town, the capital of Tortola. Those Chinese have got a lot to answer for. (If you don't follow this reference read Gavin Menzies excellent book "1421" for some truly amazing revelations on our current understanding of the early exploration of our world)
As we were heading back towards the marina at about 17.30 we saw the local school children leaving school. Was this normal? Was this Wed night film club? Was this after school child care? Whatever, we were greeted by one of the teenage children riding a bike that he must have had since he first learnt to ride on two wheels. He did not look as though he had been at the head of the queue when either good looks or intelligence was being distributed but he made eye contact and his greeting of "yeh, yeh" was well received and returned by us. This does seem to be a common greeting for teenage bike riders on many of the islands and we are becoming quite at home with the youth speak here.
We saw another two food/general provision stores on our way to a bar at the other marina. We stopped here for a sundowner and on the big screen was Premier Football! So we caught up with all the goals, and watched Newcastle being beaten 4-0 by Spurs and Man U failing to get the winner in extra time as is their usual trick. We met a couple from Maryland, America, who were having their first season on their boat here. Although, Jean was flying back the next day to check on the animals. We had a good chat discussing plans, although were taken back by their account of an incident on a boat in the bay the previous Friday, where some men had tried to board it during the night. Luckily, the owner scared them off and no one was hurt, apart from a gunshot which went through the bimini. The local authorities are taking it all very seriously, as tourism is their main economy and they can't afford for yachties to stay away.
This obviously spooked Sarah and gave Darrell the chance to set up and test the cockpit motion sensor alarm. It's likely to give us both heart attacks if it goes off! During the night, although both of us were extremely tempted to test it while the other slept by climbing out of the fore hatches and walking round to the cockpit, but we refrained. Our self control is still going strong, or was it the thought of the silent treatment for the next few months in a confined space?
When we returned to Stream, we were rather surprised to find a huge ship, in comparison to all the other boats in the bay, anchored along side us. Darrell got more concerned by the noise it started to make and when looking out a little later seeing it fully lit and moving towards us! However, it left without incident about 11pm. Next morning we had a visitor who dinghied over to warn us about the mad anchoring of said boat, who apparently didn't seem to mind in the past if he hit a few yachts whilst manoeuvring or during the night!
It was a very rolley night, which Darrell slept soundly through, while Sarah caught up on her reading. Some things never change, but it does make a difference from doing schoolwork in the early hours, if only she could get the World Service!
Despite Fat Hogs Bay being the nearest thing we have found to Supermarket Heaven, I don't think we will be returning here in a hurry. (The ironic thing was that we had stocked up on provisions only that morning in our least favourite place so far, and so didn't really need a supermarket!)