It’s been quite a week since we arrived. Welcoming other yachts in with as much noise as possible regardless of the time of day was great fun and well received by all.
One night a yacht was close to the finish line but had a rope around its propellor meaning it couldn’t come in. The ARC have a water taxi available to tow but charge 150 US dollars which we thought unreasonable, so 2 RiBs, ours and the yacht Ithaka along with assistance from Steve on Allegrini went out to bring them into the marina. It was much windier than we’d anticipated and once we were tied alongside the yacht our RiBs started filling with water! They’re not going to sink and the water was warm but it did feel like it took a long time to bring them in. The following day the final yacht arrived to a huge welcome as they were only 2 persons on board with a failed autopilot and damaged rudder meaning they had to hand steer pretty much all the way across the Atlantic!!!
We decided to take a couple of days out before the leaving party & prize giving, so sailed down to the famous Pitons at Soufrierre where we picked up a mooring for $20 US a night…. well the boat boy handed it to us at a cost of 10 EC dollars. It’s only $3 US and we were quite happy.
The ladies went off for a day trip to the local mud bath and waterfall leaving the guys to do maintenance, after a sleep and beer of course.
On our way back to Rodney bay we stopped at Marigot bay which used to be a very popular hurricane hole, although today insurers won’t cover the area at all. We stopped in the inner lagoon which was so protected and calm. Security is always at the top of conversation in the cruising community, especially where we had been in the last few days but we can only comment on what we found. Boat boys and vendors visit by small boat all the time and are polite and non pushy, we felt quite safe.
Prize giving included top 3 boats in various classes (it’s not a race?) and some fun categories including largest fish caught “which we won”!!!It was a very big fish š
The next morning we said our goodbyes to many of the friends we’d made along the way knowing that for some we would not see them again as they were on a fixed timescale. For others it was a case of see you for a beer soon!
And so onto Martinique…..
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