Marigot Bay …. Friday 26 January 2018
After a peaceful night in the harbor at Castries, the
morning brought two new cruise liners to the dock. We first saw “Celebrity
Eclipse” complete a 360o turn in the outer harbor – it looked like there might
have been 10 feet clear on either end! Then “Grandeur of the Seas” came in to
the dock right next to us. We were literally the only sailboat in the inner
harbor – our only company were these humongous cruise liners and tug boat. In
contrast, Marigot harbor, which we reached after a one hour sail on a broad
reach, is jam packed with cruising boats. It’s a narrow finger of water, with
steep hills on either side and a lagoon at the end. It’s a perfect hurricane
hole. The inner lagoon is full of moorings with no room to anchor, so we chose
to drop our hook outside of the channel in the outer harbor. The water shoals
quite quickly from 50+ feet in the channel to 7 or 8 feet close to shore. With
so many boats it’s a challenge to find a spot with good depth and adequate
swinging room. Our initial attempt seemed fine until we spotted a large rock
off to the side, probably too deep to bang into, but perfectly set up to wrap
the anchor chain around. We opted to move and found a better spot in 10-15 feet
of water, depending on the direction we are lying.
In the afternoon we rowed the dinghy to shore and took a
hike up the hillside from the “Mango Beach Hotel” to the ridge and national
Park above. It was a short but steep
walk straight up hill, with ropes to assist you at the steepest sections. Once
on the ridge you get some nice views across the hills and down into the inner
harbor. A little further along there is a view along the coast line, but it’s
all quite heavily vegetated so hard to see too much. We hoped to see lots of
birds, but it was only towards the end of the hike as we entered the Oasis
resort gardens that we started to see much. There were lots of humming birds
and Caribbean bullfinches, as well as a Saltator and a warbler we yet to
identify (not in our East Coast bird book). We stopped at the resort bar “Doolittles”
for a drink and then wandered back to our dinghy and on to Cotinga for a quiet
evening. Dinner was a fine vegetarian meal with black beans, quinoa, corn and
eggplant with cumin and ancho pepper – it was delicious!
Castries 14o
0.8 N, 60o 59.6 W
Marigot 13o
58.0 N, 61o1.5 W
Water lily at Mango Beach Hotel
Celebrity Eclipse - Castries Harbor
Female Caribbean Bullfinch
Male Caribbean Bullfinch
Water lily at Mango Beach Hotel
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