Mustique - the real Caribbean.....??
Tillymint.fortescue
Fri 1 Jan 2010 14:36
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12:52:63N 61:11:43W
You must be in Mustique at New Year,
practically everyone is going to be there..............
And so Tilly Mint set sail from Tobago Cays,
beating against the relentless warm winds for an arduous 3 hour voyage through
turquoise waters, her sails filling against an azure sky, the seas around
infested with super yachts and pirate charter catamarans. It would be a race
against time to secure an anchorage and get a table reservation for dinner that
evening; the crew were on the verge of mutiny, 2 days in Tobago with nought but
tomato puree concoctions to sustain them, fortunately the rum store was holding
out but the rounds of extra grog rations rations had merely served to fuel
discontent. We needed a restaurant, not just for tonight but for New Year's Eve
too, it would be a bad omen to see in 2010 with tomato, there are tales on the
High Seas of crews doomed to consume tomato til the ends of time, a dreaded
destiny of disgusting cocktails as the tomato daiquiri has not yet been
perfected and vodka can't be got by the barrel.
Fear drove the crew on and we spied land ahead of
dusk, there would be time to launch the long boat and send out a shore party.
There is a tribe on the island with extra ordinarily large mud huts and a
propensity to consume enormous quantities of Gin & Tonic and they are
rumoured to be beautiful and they are all called Darling. Their society is
built on trade and we would subsequently discover their unusual taste in
large sculptures as the photographic evidence shows...We hadn't searched far
along the shore, between the immaculately trimmed verges and manicured palms,
when we found a trading post selling large garden ornaments and embroidered
kaftans; was there room on the foredeck for a metre wide concrete clam
shell..??
Then we fell upon Basil's Bar, a short stagger from
the dinghy dock and full of reveling pirates and yachties. Our motley crew would
blend in well with what we can only assume are the lower echelons of the tribal
society, the beautiful people were nowhere to be seen although possibly they are
largely nocturnal creatures? Vittles for dinner that night were secured
and, after piling many pieces of eight on the bar, we were secure in the
knowledge that we could dine on New Year's Eve too.
Back aboard our good ship we watched the sun go
down and the anchorage fill up with an array of ever increasingly huge galleons.
We captured ( alas just on photo, not a true pirate prize...) 2 more fine
vessels for our mega yacht Bingo. Having already hauled in "Rising Sun" in
the Tobago Cays we have added "Talitha" the classic 1930's built yacht
owned by the Getty Family and "Skat", the coolest yacht on the block. Military
Grey with a helicopter on top and the cool toy of a Microsoft systems engineer
(whoever said a job in IT is dull...) . The rest of the horizon was blotted
out by the riff raff of many meagre 50m white stink pots and a dizzying array of
beautiful sailing yachts with red lights on top to scare off the
airplanes.
Next morning we knew we were trend setters when
"Rising Sun" came across the horizon blocking out the rising sun. We guess
there was a billion dollars of boats at anchor in anticipation of New Year's
Eve, is this the real Caribbean?
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