Union island walk and Libertad is laid up in Carriacou
LIBERTAD
Paul Huntley
Wed 11 Mar 2009 00:54
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12:27N 61:29W
Carriacou 09/03/2009
So since the drama of Mustique Libertad has been
pretty quite and we have been giving her some TLC. So it's now Tuesday evening
and I am sitting at the Chart Table rocking side to side - not because of the
general sway of the Caribbean ocean making Libertad roll but because we are no
longer in the ocean and the side effects have not worn off yet! We arrived in
Carriacou at Tyrrel Bay yesterday and she has been laid up since then, now to
the details...
Union island still survives as the best one yet
according to popular opinion, after our calm night in the natural harbour
(created by the reef that it's difficult to navigate into) we went into Clifton
(the main town by the harbour) again and into the supermarket, a few raandom
objects all sat on wodden shelving (no fridges or freezer units and absolutely
no signage as to where to find the goods. The Caribbeans don't seem to have
grasped the ethos of the supermarket at all - there is no sense to the ordering
of the goods and we are now in serious need of some milk - we found milk in the
supremarket... but your choice is either 3 boxes of chocolate milk (2%, nice and
healthy) or about 3 crates of full fat, full cream UHT. Regardless of my
continuous efforts to persaude the rest of the crew that chocolate milk will be
great in our tea, which by the way is actually very popular even in the heat, we
didn't get any and the Las Palmas milk is thin on the ground. Then I stood in a
queue at the bank in Clifton for fifteen minutes to find out that I couldn't
cash travellers cheques without a passport. In the meantime the rest of the crew
went in search for more essentials with obligatory mangy dog in tow - not sure
why it picked that lot to hang around with but it did make an odd sight out of
the blackened bank windows!
Back at the boat we set sail for Carriacou
with plenty of time to get Libertad hauled out for the scrub down and re-anti
foul. We literally got to Tyrrel bay and got straight out of Libertad, then
picked all of the barnacles of her hull whilst the boatyard workers took a high
pressure hose to her. This was apparently not the done thing and there were
quite a number of dock workers staring at the three pale girls scrubbing a
propeller and getting covered in the mess that was descending from higher on the
hull whilst scraping. The prop now looks nice and shiny and we left the boys in
the boatyard today to let them get on with the sanding and repainting. Not
before we all went out for a lovely meal at the local pizzeria on the beach
(where Sarah enquired whether there was free internet access so that we could
keep in touch).
Kirsty was persuaded to walk with Sarah and I to
the big town on Carriacou this morning and we thought that it was 'just over
that hill', not a chance! We walked miles with every mini van stopping on the
way to enquire whether we'd like a lift, after a few hairy moments with mangy
dogs and some arguing locals we were glad to see that a very non-local looking
couple stopped and offered us a lift - they were Italian and spoke little
English but dropped us right in the middle of town so that we could look around
and try and find the post office. More random shops later and discovering that
not one person in the town could tell us the location of the post office (which
I find distinctly odd) we decided to catch the one dollar bus back, it cost
three dollars fifty....hmmmm. We bartered down to ten dollars for three with a
"group discount" but the perplexed bus driver seemed put out by our apparent
lack of trust and stopped all his friends to double check the
price.
So we have now had a very relaxing afternoon, after
a quick swim in the bay (not the cleanest of the Caribbean swims I've taken) and
a good dinner, Sarah is preparing for a mosquito feast again - putting all the
clothes she can possibly find on and covering herself with towels and sarongs.
None of the rest of the crew seem to understand this as the mosquitos only have
eyes for Sarah.
Must go as we are all getting an early night ready
to launch her again first thing tomorrow and get
straight up to Tobago Cays for a days snorkelling.
Love, Emma
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