Salt Whistle Bay, Mayreau

May 11, 2007  Friday

Salt Whistle Bay, Mayreau         Sailed 1 NM

Wednesday evening about a dozen of us walked up the hill in Saline Bay to a bar for sundowners.  The bar was closed because the owner was remodeling his house next door, but he quickly saw the benefit of stopping his manual labor and re-opening his bar to serve us.  It was a fun evening and we met some more cruisers.  Once Dutch couple sailed from Holland to the Caribbean in 1997 and are still sailing around just in the Caribbean.  The saying is:  The EC is EZ – translated:  The Eastern Caribbean is easy.   And it is.  It is very easy to sail up and down the island chain here in the Eastern Caribbean because none of the islands are very far apart.

Thursday evening we all again got together for sundowners, this time on the beach.  The flies were terrible on the beach and I was bitten several dozen times, mostly on my face.  I know better than to go onto a beach dressed like everyone else – insects love to bite me more that most people.  Everyone jokes:  “Stand next to Judy; the bugs will be so busy biting her that they will ignore you.”  So I wore long pants and long sleeved shirt in the heat and slathered on insect repellent in an effort to avoid getting bitten.  Now my face is all swollen and itchy.  Don’t know why the bugs love me so much and ignore Bill.

This morning Bill decided that the flies were too bad.  There was also a horrible “latrine” odor in Saline Bay.  Bill thinks that the restrooms built on the beach were overrun by the passengers on the Spanish cruise ship on Tuesday and that the septic system is overflowing.  Whatever the cause, the odor was too offensive for us to remain there today.  So we weighed anchor and headed over the north side of Mayreau, intending to go back to the Tobago Cays.   The winds are calmer today and it should be nice again over there.  Just as we rounded the northwestern tip of Mayreau and set course for Tobago Cays, we heard a VHF radio hail for BEBE.  It was Bob and Linda on VILLOMEE.  They were enroute from Canouan to Salt Whistle Bay on Mayreau and wanted to get together for drinks.  So we did a 180 and whipped into Salt Whistle Bay. 

We just love Salt Whistle Bay.  It is so very pretty and calm.  It does get quite crowded (especially with charter boats) and many cruisers refuse to come in here for that reason.  But that doesn’t bother us and we love it here.  In fact, there is a small Sunsail boat anchored off our starboard side tonight.  It is anchored too close for comfort but we didn’t tell him to move because there isn’t any more available anchoring space in this bay.  We don’t think he will swing into our boat during the night, but if he does then at least we know that all Sunsail boats are insured – and most cruising boats don’t carry insurance.  So we would rather have that insured charter boat anchored too close to us than to have an uninsured cruising boat anchored too close to us.

We visited VILLOMEE for drinks and visiting this afternoon.  A nice time.

May 13, 2007  Sunday

Salt Whistle Bay, Mayreau, SVG

Spent the past few days doing what we do best – reading during the day and visiting with other people for sundowners on either our boat or theirs.  We have learned to fit right into the cruiser mode.  Bob and Linda on VILLOMEE came over this afternoon and we taught them to play Mexican Train dominoes.  Our cockpit table folds out to accommodate 6, so it is a good place to play the game under the shade awning when there are cool breezes. 

It was nice and breezy today – so breezy, in fact, that the wind blew one of Bill’s dominoes off the table.  It landed on the cockpit floor and bounced down into the small scupper opening that encircles the cockpit floor – and it went right down the cockpit drain!  What are the chances of that happening?   There was only one 2-inch drain opening on that side of the cockpit and that domino bounced right straight through it!  This is a bad thing because if one domino is missing then the set is ruined; you cannot play dominoes unless the set is complete.  Luckily, Bill was able to don snorkel mask and dive under the boat and he found that domino right away!  We are anchored in only about 10-12 feet water depth, and the water is crystal clear.  Bob hung our dinghy anchor over the side of the boat aligned with the cockpit drain opening.  This gave Bill a reference point to follow the arc of the boat swinging.  Fortunately the bottom was plain sand beneath our boat so Bill was able to spot the domino right away.  The dominoes are white with brightly colored dots, a different color for each number of the set.  Luck was with us because that domino landed with the colored dots facing upward which enabled Bill to spot it right away.  It would have been much harder to spot the solid white domino top lying on the white sand.  The colored dots helped him locate it.  Still can’t believe he was able to retrieve it so easily.

We were invited to accompany some other people to dinner at a restaurant ashore tonight, but I was bitten so badly by insects the last time we went ashore in Saline Bay that Bill didn’t think we should venture ashore here again.  My face is covered with large welts; he does not want me to suffer with any additional insect bites unnecessarily, so we declined the invitation for tonight.  Tomorrow we will move back to Tobago Cays.