Darrell makes another friend or two!
Stream
Darrell Jackson and Sarah Barnes
Mon 19 May 2014 17:51
Friday 16th May
After a slightly rolly night, we were up and away from Friendship Bay by 09.00 and had a fast beam reach to do a fly past of exclusive Mustique, sailing close into Brittania Bay, the only allowed anchorage. Neither of us was particularly keen to stay off this privately owned island, but wanted to have a quick look as we sailed by. The island charges a "Conservation Fee" of $EC 200 for a maximum 3 night stay for yachts of our size (about £50) The island is very small, less than 2 sq miles, with a matching very small population. There are only 90 large houses on the island plus one hotel, a guest house, a beach bar and a few boutiques with a very small local village. The cheapest house is worth well over £1 million with the sky's the limit on most of the others. It is the home of the "colourful, rich and famous", most of whom do not live permanently on the island, and, from our observations, they may have plenty of money but not necessarily good taste in design. The highest point of the island is dominated by a building that looks like the Parthenon crossed with the White House with extensions, or very large wings, on either side!
Fly past over, we bore away to run for the island of Canouan passing close to Montezuma's Shoal. What Montezuma was doing around Mustique is anyone's guess, (delivering his first samples of chocolate?) but it's a great name for a reef!
We sailed down the reef protected West coast of Canouan and into another Friendship Bay for a lunch stop. (They have as much imagination in naming bays as they do volcanoes around here.) This particular Friendship Bay, although wide, has a narrow, safe entrance as it is surrounded by reefs and so required careful pilotage into the anchorage, but it was well worth it. The waters were calm and a fantastic shade of turquoise with waves crashing on the reef outside and no other yachts here. We had views across to many of the Grenadine islands; the Tobago Cays, Petite Martinique and Petit St Vincent, Union Island, Carriacou and Mayreau our destination for that day. A perfect spot for lunch.
A short 5 nm run after lunch saw us entering Salt Whistle Bay on the northern end of Mayreau, another small island which is only 1 1/2 square miles in area and has a population of around 250 people. Due to the time restraints we are now feeling, the idea is to pack in visits to as many of the islands as we can, in recognisance for future sailing. We were greeted by another boat boy, who asked if we wanted a mooring, but on telling him we were going to anchor he picked a suitable spot of sand amongst the other moored and anchored yachts that also looked good to us and then watched to check our anchor had taken in the shallow waters (just a couple of metres below the keel). He then offered a beach barbecue, which we declined (not good value with one veggie!) but we accepted his offer of bread delivered to Stream at 7 the following morning.
We didn't launch the dinghy but Darrell had a swim ashore to explore the immediate surroundings. When about 20 m off the beach he was greeted by a blonde swimming out to meet him. Unfortunately this particular blonde was a friendly, golden coated mongrel, who tried licking him and pushing his head under with excitement. What is it about Darrell and dogs? Once ashore, the dog continued to escort him along the beach and finally disappeared amongst some fishermen who were gutting their catch - much more exciting! There is a well camouflaged resort in the small bay which has an amazing bar/restaurant area next to the beach, where the tables and seats are of a circular stone construction with a 4' wall and with a fixed wooden and palm leaved roof over them, most bizarre. Sadly, in keeping with what we have come to expect, no one was around!. After completing his tour of the beach Darrell decided on a longer, but downwind swim back to Stream. He was about 100 m into the swim when he was suddenly aware of something on his left side and when he looked, saw the blonde head of his new friend swimming alongside but much faster than him towards the boat. There then followed a comic few minutes while he tried to persuade his aquatic canine friend to return to the beach but who was most reluctant to go. Darrell treading water whilst throwing non-existent sticks towards the beach and the dog joining in the game by chasing the non-existent stick and bringing it back for him to throw again! Eventually, after stern shouting at the dog, he got the idea and started the long swim across the bay towards where the fishermen were.
Back on the boat we had other guests in the form of a pair of Carib Grackle birds, who hopped all over the cockpit unfazed by us. They ending sitting on the wheels talking loudly to each other or us, we weren't too sure. But they ignored all our attempts to move them on. We were then joined by a very noisy Laughing Gull who sat happily on the life raft at the back of the boat for five minutes as he checked out the boat. Leaving when it was clear that there was an absence of food at this particular stop. However, we watched the birds visit each yacht in the bay before flying off for the evening.
We had a very quiet night but were awoken at 05.30 by our friendly boat boy delivering out bread. Obviously he was on Island Time. We were just getting back to sleep when our Grackle bird arrived in the cockpit and started a very tuneful call that resonated through the boat. Well it would have been tuneful at any other time of the day but not when we were trying to get back to sleep. Obviously the local birds had seen the bread delivery, as shortly after the Grackle had given up on us rising, the Laughing Gull returned to try his luck on rousing us, again to no avail. The second arrival of the Grackle had Darrell up looking for an out of date flare to get rid of the offending avian alarm clock! His presence had no effect as they were back as soon as we started having an early breakfast in the cockpit!