Another rainy day. Actually it’s torrential when we wake up and the wind is strong even with the protection of the deep bay.
Crazy Horse and Ocean Jasper leave early in the morning to try to get to St Lucia before dark. E-mails from Rosemary during the day though say it it horrible outside the bay for a few hours although it improves as the day goes on. I hope it is better for us tomorrow although the weather forecast doesn’t hold out much hope.
During the night Ocean Jasper had pulled back on their mooring ball and their solar panel had suffered damage from the ridiculously long bow sprit of the boat behind. He hadn’t discovered this however until he was out at sea and the weather conditions were not conducive to coming back into the bay. Rosemary asks us (by e-mail) to go over to the boat and get their names etc which Mike does, but the skipper declines to give us any information. That’s the trouble with these mooring balls. In some places like this, the holding is not good as the sea bed is muddy sand and you have no real choice but to go on a mooring ball. Now they are supposed to be set far enough apart to allow you to swing in all directions without hitting the boats around you. If they are properly regulated, they will give the maximum length of boat that should use them. If they are not regulated, like here, it’s all bloody guesswork and there’s no legal redress if accidents happen. Crazy Horse had moved after the first night to a new ball as they were too close to another boat – if they hadn’t, they might have been on this guy’s bow sprit too as they and OJ were alongside each other.
So anyway, the skipper declines to help, but we do notice during the day that he removes his bow sprit, so has obviously realised that it is a potential danger to other boats in this crowded anchorage. What a pity he didn’t do it earlier.
Mike clears customs in the afternoon so we are ready to leave. It is so bloody humid with all the rain that all I want to do is sleep but I try not to in case I don’t sleep well tonight. I spend a lot of time getting movies from Moe for our overnight passages and evenings in, although we won’t need to view much now before we leave for the UK in a few weeks.
Chessie call us and invite us for drinks tonight. This means that I need to get the dinner prepared before we go just in case I am in no fit state to do it afterwards. I took out the huge piece of marlin that Joe and Jared caught and by the afternoon it is nicely defrosted. I cut off five big steaks and marinate them for tomorrow’s lunch and prepare the rest for dinner. Tonight we are having ‘marlin catalan’, my onion, garlic, tomato and wine stew that we have with any white fish that is available.
The crew from Kalliope arrive in their dinghy to say hello. They too are going over to Chessie and as we are unsure of exactly where Chessie are anchored, we quickly get in our dinghy and follow them over. When we arrive we find that Chessie and another boat are touching but they quickly get the situation under control while we wait in our dinghies and no harm is done to either boat.
We have a lovely evening with them all and the rain manages to keep off which is very welcome. Jutta gets out one of her wonderful bottles of Constansia SB that she bought in South Africa – totally moorish! We meet some really interesting friends of theirs, a German couple, Cora and Stan, who are jazz musicians and have spent the last 25 years sailing around the world earning their living from playing at clubs and bars. They stay somewhere until they want to move on.
Reluctantly we leave, arranging to travel with them to St Vincent mid morning tomorrow. The rest of the Jeannius crew heave a collective sigh of relief that we are not going to drag them out of bed at 4 am to go the full way to St Lucia. The weather forecast is still for foul weather all the way and at least this way we will break it up.
The rain holds off for our journey back in the dinghy and everyone enjoys the marlin – thanks Brown Eyed Girl! Mike and I go to bed leaving the others to continue their evening on shore with Eline, Oisin and Cora.
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