Carriacou, Petite Martinique and Petite St. Vincent (PSV)

Saturday Evening, January 21, 2012

I think I had 2 rum and cokes sucked down when  at 6:30, we finally laid anchor in the bay which was at this time full of charter catamarans and cruisers.   Salty, wet and exhausted,  we showered in the boat, had dinner and set the anchor alarm on.   It was very windy and by 1:30 the alarm went off to tell us that we were not holding.  It had not moved much so we reset the alarm and went back to bed.  I decided to sleep on the settee and at 2:30 the alarm went off again.  I went up to take a look and realized that we were about 5 feet from the boat in back of us.  I encouraged Ken to get up, we started the motor and pulled up the drifting anchor.   With foredeck light on and us trying not to awake our neighbors at such a late hour, we reset the anchor and tried again.  This time it held, and at 9:30 Sunday morning we left to motor to Petite Martinique.

Sunday’s ride to Petite Martinique

Again, straight into the wind and weather was still  rainy.   What looked to be a short sail or motor around the tip of Carriacou and over to Petite Martinique actually took about 2 hours  and when we arrived in the small harbor, I called the local beach restaurant (Palm Beach Restaurant)to see if we could use their mooring.   We had read that if you eat at their restaurant, you could pick up one of their two mooring balls. They answered my call,  but said they were closed for Sunday, but yes we could use the big orange mooring!  Sweet!

Got our first line on the moorings plastic loop after a bit of trial and error (the wind was NOT helping), and then decided to put a second line on the moorings rope loop as a back up.  (with all the wind through the night, we discovered one  line had actually been cut by the sharp plastic of the mooring’s decapitated loop)   We were only held by the second (after thought) line!  We now put two lines on every mooring as a rule.

Petite Martinique Fuel dock

Monday,  after a trip to the beach for breakfast (at Palm Beach Restaurant), we decided that we would get a water taxi and go to Petite St. Vincent for drinks and maybe a light meal.   While we had been on the Petite Martinique, we met another boating couple (Gaby and Willy) at the beach restaurant and asked if they were interested in going also.

As it turned out, they had to move their mooring and in doing so, Gaby dropped their only boat hook in the water and could not get hooked up.   They called over to us and asked if we could help with our dingy.   We set out to motor to their boat, but soon realized we would be soaked from the wind and waves and decided to seek help from a local fishing boat that was moored behind us.   Our instantly new local friends, Calvin and Howard,  jumped into their beautifully painted  wooden boat that was tied up next to their larger fishing boat, and went off to help Gaby and Willi.  Despite the wind and the waves, the “boys” soon had them on their new mooring.  Calvin and Howard then came back to pick us up as we had also asked them to take us to PSV as a water taxi.  While motoring past Gaby and Willie’s new mooring, we asked if they would like to jump on board and go with us. They quickly agreed ( I think Gaby just needed to get on land and was happy to come with us!).  After the 5  minute motor to the PSV dock at the resort, we arranged for a 8PM pickup to get back to our boats.  (We paid them 120 EC to thank them for all their taxi help even though they did not ask for anything)

Petite St. Vincent dingy dock

PSV’s Resort Bar open to the public

Lobster heading to the grill

View of Petite Martinique from PSV

PSV is a private island with a very lovely resort located on the West side.   Most of the Island is off limits to the public and held exclusively for the guests of the resort.   This is where we saw the two
LARGE yachts anchored off with rumor of Kate and Prince William.   No sighting, but did see a helicopter  fly over and land on one of  the yachts.   (Bryce Berndt says the yacht on the left is called “Eclipse” and at 536 ft,  is the largest privately owned yacht in the world)  .  We had a lovely time enjoying several cocktails and appetizers while watching the sun set before getting ready for our pickup.

 

Sunset reflected off our glass table on PSV.