Sailing to Sandy Island
03 September 2007 | Cariacou
Randy
It felt like we were just getting started on the trip today and yet our friends were going to be leaving so soon. A Tropical Storm smack in the middle of your vacation can have that effect. Hideko had cleared us out yesterday so we were ready to do some serious cruising and we had an ambitious plan for the next few days.
We said another sad goodbye to all of our friends at Martin's Marina and got on our way. We motored out the west entrance of Mount Hartman Bay and up around the point to Saint Georges. Entering the Saint Georges harbor, we anchored in the lagoon just in time for a nice downpour. I wondered if we would get a whole day of good sunny weather for Razmig and Atsuko. We were at the peak of the rainy season of course.
After a short pounding the rain blew off and we decided to risk a trip to the Carenage in the dinghy. Saint Georges is really a quaint little town and has to be one of the classics in the Caribbean. We walked through a one way tunnel, used equally by people and cars, beneath the old fort to emerge in the wharf area. The famous Saint Georges market is just a few blocks down. We explored the market for a bit and bought lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. There is a fish market on the docks as well but Hideko was determined to catch her own. We tried to find a place that was serving Oil Down but to no avail. Our second choice was the tasty pineapple/bacon burgers at the Port Louis Marina.
We returned to Swingin' on a Star a bit late. It was getting toward 13:00 and it was a ways to Cariacou, our planned destination. We decided to make a go for it. I hauled up the anchor and Hideko drove us out into the Caribbean Sea. As usual when you're behind a big island the wind was a little fluky but we put up all the canvas to see what would come our way. It turned out to be a great sail though we ran one motor the whole way to keep the speed up in the lulls. Razmig and Atsuko enjoyed evading the sun by moving from the port pulpit chair, to the starboard trampoline, to the starboard pushpit chair, etceteras.
We arrived at Sandy Island just outside of Hillsborough Harbor right before sunset. The little anchorage south of Sandy Island is breath taking. The conditions were very settled and we had an infinite collection of stars above. As the night wore on there was a bit of ruckus out on the water, we were all curious as to what was going on. Upon looking over the side we saw large globs of bio-luminescence appearing and disappearing all around the boat. Hideko got out the flood light and we discovered that the eerie lights were coming from jellies floating along with the current. Large schools of small fish were swarming about the area as well. Even more bizarre was the appearance of several fishing bats, snatching a meal from the water. I'm not exactly sure who was eating who but it was intriguing to watch.