Ñandú

With hurricane season upon us and the weather being pleasant at higher latitudes and sweltering in the tropics, crowds are supposedly thinning around here. Somehow, the few remaining ones seem to be stubbornly following us. There’s a strange unevenness to it, though. In Mustique, for instance, one day we had the entire bay for ourselves, and the next we shared it with seven other boats. In Tobago Cays, when we moved to a mooring buoy in the turtle area few buoys where available, and our closest neighbors were two boat widths to our side. The next day there was a massive exodus and we got some breathing room.

Salt Whistle Bay

A friend had mentioned that he wasn’t sure he’d recommend Salt Whistle Bay in Mayreau Island, our intended next stop, and also part of the Tobago Cays Marine Park. On the one hand, he said, it’s a gorgeous bay, but on the other, it’s small and popular with reckless charter boat skippers who follow dubious anchoring techniques, so it’s hard to have a good time if your boat is at risk of being smashed by a rental boat on the loose.

We decided to try Salt Whistle Bay anyway. We got there early and space was abundant. We picked the mooring buoy that was closest to the beach. Perfect spot in a beautiful bay! We even thought of telling our friend how wrong he was. Ha! Perfection lasted only one night, though. The next day boats started to arrive as if it was the only place on earth to anchor, and they dropped their anchors haphazardly, left and right. One boat anchored right in front of us, in the minimal space between the beach and Ñandú. We felt social rules had been transgressed, as when someone cuts in a line.

People say that how close is too close depends on where you are from. Europeans, and French in particular, seem to feel the most confortable with closeness. Actually, in our experience, Quebecois also are relaxed and confident with togetherness (is it something with the language, perhaps?).
We, and many of our American friends most definitely aren’t. We have, however, learnt to pick our battles: if you suggest to the newcomers that they are too close and succeed at getting them to move, you can just have the next guy use that vacant space to anchor even closer. When the next boat dropped the anchor behind and only slightly to the side of the one in front of us, we picked that battle. That was too much. They did reanchor slightly farther away, but now very close to another boat whose crew didn’t seem bothered at all. Maybe they were French too.

Just minutes later, a huge 70-foot catamaran (for reference, Ñandú is 41 feet) made its way barely fitting between us and our newest neighbors, and then past us to the front row where there was barely enough space to turn around (for the non-sailors reading this blog, and also for the benefit of some boat charterers out there, you can’t park your boat as if it was a car: you need space, first to backup a couple of boat lengths after dropping the anchor, and then to swing around your anchor). Luckily the captain came to his senses and moved to a slightly less crowded space, where they had to use a stern line to the beach to keep the boat from swinging. It seems that they really, really wanted to be close to the beach.

Even though we had already paid the buoy for a second night, we got ready to leave, but we reconsidered and stayed. We spent the rest of the day sulking and bitching, nostalgic of the past when the beach wasn’t crowded.

Union Island

The next day we moved early to Chatham Bay in Union Island. A review we had read said that Chatham Bay was a relief from the Cays, because you are separated from your neighbors by yards instead of feet. It is a large bay that could fit a hundred boats, and we found only six when we arrived. It was indeed a relief… which lasted only until mid-afternoon. We had chosen the right place for peace and solitude, only at the wrongest of all moments. A fleet of forty catamarans, each crewed by six to ten young and energetic partygoers, started arriving one by one. And they were French! Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but as I’ve just said, they seem to have no problem with boat coziness.

It was the Hippocup Rally, “the national nautical rally of the interns and doctors of France”, 24th edition. I have the hunch now that Hippo is short for Hippocrates, not Hippopotamus. The winner of the previous edition gets to organize the next one. Given that each boat was ornamented as if it was a parade, I presume judging to determine the winner was not based on speed. We were literally in the middle of it all, because we had anchored by the beach where preparations for the all-night party were taking shape. So, there we were, separated by mere feet again, surrounded by the BDSM-themed Fistiboat, the Greek-themed Poseidon, the cocaine-themed Pablo, the Pussy Wagon, the Unicorns and Rainbows, and many more, with their crew dressed (or undressed) accordingly. If Waterworld had spring breaks this is what it would look like.

The other cruising boat in that corner of the bay decided to leave. We do love quiet nights, but this was getting too interesting to pass.

“Are you leaving tomorrow (please)?” we asked our closest neighbors.

“Oui”. Alright, the decision is made: we’re staying to enjoy the show, and will rest the following night on a quiet Chatham Bay.

“Where are you going next?”

“I don’t know” answered one. “Union something” said another.

“This is Union Island.”

“Oh. Then I don’t know.”

They invited us to the beach party, but anchored where we were, it was just a formality since we felt we were already part of it. For the party they rented the installations of a small beach restaurant, to which they added concert-sized sound systems, stage, and screen. It’s a fairly isolated beach which by land can only be accessed through a terrible mile-long thing that was once a road, which takes twenty minutes on a 4WD. My hat off to the organizers that pulled that feat.

For us spectators, the wild and pristine scenery siding with a dark night to confine a rebellious microworld of laser lights, outrageous customs, techno music and modern revelry was a unique and surreal experience.

The music stopped at 5AM sharp, with the first signs of daylight. For many, though, the party wasn’t over, and they continued dancing on their boats until the sun was well up.

Petit Saint Vincent

After a finally quiet night at Chatham Bay the last thing we wanted was to bump again into the Hippo rally. We had no idea about their itinerary (neither did they, apparently) , but Petit Saint Vincent sounded safe, as it is a small anchorage on a private island that caters to affluent guests with its exclusive boutique hotel.

We were right: no hippopotamuses in Petit Saint Vincent. However, we still got crowded in a strange and ghostly manner. I woke up past midnight and went up to the cockpit to make sure we were still in the same place. Still half asleep, I looked out and didn’t recognize the place at all. Where I expected to see a small wooden dock, I was now seeing a building. A huge building, just a couple hundred feet from us. It was so large that I had to hunch to see the top of it through the window. Oh my god! I almost panicked. Have we dragged all the way to Florida?? Where the fuck are we?

Once fully awake thanks to the shock, I could make sense of the situation. No, we hadn’t moved towards a building. We hadn’t moved at all. Rather, the building stealthily came to us. Only it wasn’t a building but the bridge of a cargo boat unloading construction materials to the island. My hat off this time to the ship’s captain, who managed to position the large ship in the little space between us and the tiny dock, throw a bow anchor and then back up to the dock, all without even waking us up. I said to myself that it was going to be interesting to see them maneuvering for casting off the next day… only that when I woke up in the morning the ghost ship had already vanished, as silently as she arrived.

The abnormal seems to be the new normal for us.

The Tobago Cays is an archipelago of five small uninhabited islands, which is now part of a stunning Marine Park created by the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. For good reasons, many people call it the most spectacular anchorage of the Eastern Caribbean. The extensive coral reef that surrounds the islands, the sandy beaches, and the huge number of turtles that thrive in these waters certainly help. What doesn’t help is the problems that the park’s own popularity brings: kiteboarders zipping by in the area demarked to protect turtles and swimmers, drones flying low above your boat, idiots anchoring in the mooring field having plenty of space behind, and rangers turning a blind eye to all of the above. But even if it was high season with five times as many boats as we had, Tobago Cays is still worth a visit.

Since we were still in full zen mode after all the tranquility that Mustique Island had infused on us, we chose to anchor on the side of Baradel Island that everybody shuns. The south side is where the action is: the mooring field, the best beach, the protected turtle area. The north side has, well… nothing, but we flourish in nothingness and isolation. We were completely alone and the reef was a short dinghy ride away anyway. The reef protects the anchorage from the waves, but there’s no such thing as wind protection, which is bad for sleeping but great for windsurfing. We where thus perfectly positioned to enjoy some world-class snorkeling and windsurfing. Unfortunately, neither went very well.

The snorkeling expedition was quickly aborted by the sighting of a moderately-sized and unfriendly-looking shark (“funny how that rock looks like a shark” was my first thought; I won’t say what my subsequent thoughts were).

The windsurfing venture started bad (I had to jump into the water in my “street” clothes to retrieve the sail, which went flying early by itself), continued worse, and could have ended terribly.

As soon as I started sailing, the wind dropped. To make things worse, there was a tad of current in the same direction of the breeze. I lost some ground on my first couple of rounds trying to get my board to take off planing, but there was just not enough wind to get comfortably planing and counteract the current. Instead of spending the next two hours going slow in marginal conditions trying to get back to Ñandú upwind, I decided to signal Kathy to launch the dinghy and come pick me up, which she did faithfully. But then we found it almost impossible to tow the board and sail behind the dinghy. (Note number one to self: half-assed rescue plans are as bad as no plan).

By the time we finally figured out a way, the wind and current had pushed us very close to the rocky and hostile shore of Petit Rameau Island. Kathy put the electric outboard in full power to escape… but the battery died! It supposedly had 91% charge a minute before, but it went straight to zero. (Note number two to self: we need a new battery).

I frantically grabbed the oars and rowed not towards Ñandú, but parallel to the shore to at least clear the island and remove from the equation the immediate threat posed by the rocks. I succeeded, but we were then in deeper water with stronger current. It was impossible to make progress dragging all that crap behind. I jumped back to the water to derig and roll the sail while Kathy rowed to minimize our drift. (Note number three to self: bring a knife to cut the downhaul line if the need to derig quickly arises).

After we had the rolled sail, the boom and the two-piece mast in the dinghy, I resumed rowing, already exhausted, towing the board. Negative progress—Ñandú farther and farther away. The wind and current were stronger than me: I could at most reduce our backwards speed to a slow drift.

It was time to forget Ñandú as a target and come up with a new plan. (Note number four to self: always, always bring the portable VHF radio, no matter how protected the waters look). We pointed the dinghy now in the opposite direction of Ñandú, around Petit Rameau, towards a group of boats. It looked like the current could still make us miss the boats, but hopefully we’d get close enough to catch their attention. I kept rowing while Kathy made hand signals—the rescuer calling for rescue. Ñandú had already disappeared behind the island when a local fisherman saw our predicament, and came to the rescue on his panga. He got close, grabbed the towing line I threw, tied it to his boat’s transom, and towed us back home, without speaking a single word. He had the demeanor of someone resigned to his destiny of saving clueless cruisers from their own stupidity. Had he said anything it may well have been “oh no, not again”. I gave him a good tip. (Note number five to self: rethink hobbies—consider chess).

The next day we decided we had enough of nothingness and failed endeavors, and moved to a prime spot in the busy neighborhood: a mooring buoy right in front of the turtle area. We had a wonderful couple of days swimming with turtles right out of the boat, snorkeling in the reef, hiking the islands, and meeting other cruisers.

Mustique is a small island—less than 5km long—and quite unique in several ways. In the 1960s, when St. Vincent and the Grenadines was still a British colony, the whole island was bought by some guy, Lord Something-or-Other, who had the lucrative idea of creating The Mustique Company to “develop a private island hideaway for the rich and famous”. In a master stroke of business genius he gave a plot to Princess Margaret. Media attention followed and soon the rich and famous started flocking to Mustique, either building their own mansions or coming to one of many for-rent villas that offer a “world class [sic] degree of modern luxury” (too bad The Mustique Company didn’t hire a world-class website developer who would better know to hyphenate compound adjectives).

The island is somewhat open to mortal cruisers like us, if you are willing to pay a “conservation fee” for the privilege of bringing your boat to the anchorage. Strangely enough, you pay for blocks of three nights, so if for instance you stay four nights, you pay six anyway. And then you receive a list of rules and a map. The rules warn you that the rich-and-famous residents value being rich over being famous, because they care very much about their privacy and don’t like tourists pointing cameras to them. The map shows where in the island you can go ashore, and that’s essentially the village and Brittania Bay. However, if you pay for a taxi tour, the driver is allowed to take you to more places. And if you rent a villa, you can wander freely anywhere you want. They managed to create their own system of castes. For the top caste “there are no rules […] guests can simply do as they wish“.

Large areas of the island have been left untouched as nature reserves. We hiked a trail around a lagoon (inside the area allowed to our caste). It was a splendid trail that meandered under the shade of old trees, but something seemed odd, something you wouldn’t notice until you consciously tried to understand why you have that nagging feeling that there’s something dissonant. It was the trail itself. It was immaculately clean because it had just been raked.

We had initially decided against the taxi tour around the island until an overenthusiastic group of people from a charter boat, just coming off the tour, convinced us otherwise. Not that we regret it, since we got to visit a couple of delightful beaches, but the tour was very close to what we had expected. “This is the library… there’s the statue of the founder of the Mustique Company… this is the airport… that roof over there is Mick Jagger’s house… this is the entrance to Bryan Adams’ retreat… that’s the villa where William and Kate honeymooned”. We are spoiled. We need more than that to get impressed. And who is Bryan Adams anyway?

The best part of Mustique, and we’d happily go again just for that, was the anchorage: protected, calm, quiet and secluded. Above water we had a wonderful view of the beach, and below water a world-class reef at a short swim distance.