Position Report. 26th December Arrival Mayreau
Catou
Paul and Sylvie Tucker
Sat 8 Jan 2011 23:26
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12:38.00N 61:24.00W
After a lovely Christmas Day in Mustique, and the
opening of Christmas presents in the morning, we swam off the boat, and after
lunch, we went ashore in the dinghy, and had a lovely walk around a large
Mangrove swamp in the SW corner of Mustique. It may not be what everyone
thinks of doing in this island (we had earlier declined a taxi trip around the
pop star's homes!). I really don't know who has holiday homes here
now, but a number of pop stars used to, as well as the late Princess
Margaret. It seems that the local trading company runs a 'tight ship' and
the number of visitors to Mustique is strictly controlled to keep
privacy for the residents (no vessels with more than 25 passengers aboard
are allowed to stop - which sounds pretty sensible to me!) We were charged
EC$200 on arrival (about £50). It was a minimum charge, and was valid for
3 nights, so seemed pretty reasonable.
Anyway, we slipped the Mustique mooring at about
10am and sailed southwestwards for about 18' towards the island of
Mayreau. This island has a lovely inlet in it's NW corner that
goes by the wonderful name of 'Salt Whistle Bay'. It is a
beautiful bay that I have been fortunate enough to visit twice before. It
is horseshoe shaped, with a lovely palm-tree fringed sandy beach all the
way around it's perimeter. We dropped sails off the entrance and motored
into the bay to discover that firstly, it was packed with anchored yachts and
secondly, there was a heavy swell, and everyone was rolling heavily, so we
decided to motor around into the next bay in the SW corner of Mayreau that had
the slightly less sexy name of Saline Bay. It was almost empty, so we
found ourselves a suitable spot and dropped the hook. There was quite a
strong offshore wind, and after about 1/2 hour, we realised that the anchor was
dragging, so we weighed anchor and re-anchored a little further in, and all was
OK. We did roll a bit, and we didn't go ashore, since it wasn't safe to
leave the boat unattended. Brian and Pam attempted to get ashore in the
dinghy, but it was too rough to land on the jetty, so they returned
quickly.
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