We woke up early to find wild horses roaming the long sandy beach. One small foal, oh so cute! We did a few jobs and around lunchtime made the decision to move up to the next anchorage on the island. Two reasons for this: Firstly it’s closer to where we have to go and check out, and Robbie wanted to enter the anchorage by a direct route, leaving a track on the chart plotter so we can make an early exit the following morning for our departure to St Barts.
The wind picked up and it was quite choppy for the few miles to Low Bay. There was another Trawler style motor boat anchored and two yachts further away. The trawler we had seen previously in Jolly Harbour she’s a pretty girl looked like an older style Selene. We went and said hello, they are an American couple with one other guy on board. They have the same duck as us, and they were trying to repair it. They had had a stern anchor out and somehow the duck inflatable side got punctured by the stern anchor. Luckily they had replaced the inflatable tubes some time ago and had kept the old ones. They commented on how new our duck looks, we said well its 12 years old. They couldn’t believe it, but it goes to show that all the hard work we put in to look after it pays off. Their duck is only 8 years old but it looks very sad.
We carried on into the beach and anchored the duck out, Robbie dropped me off at the shore. The beach is not as nice as Coco point but still very well as far as beaches go. We walked up a way towards the resort, which we later learnt has also closed. It looks very new.
We were amazed how the waves were rolling in and standing up, it almost looked like a small vertical wall of water and you could see through it and see the sand getting puffed up. It was hard to get a photo of it but we have never seen anything like it before.
There is a 2 storey shack on the beach that has a small bar area, the guy was just closing up. We arranged for “Guinness” to take us over to Codrington, the town on the other side of the lagoon for us to check out tomorrow morning. The lagoon is a salt water lake between the beach and the town with a very shallow water depth, and a very narrow entrance from the sea. Hence easier to get the water taxi than take your own boat. It was very choppy and rough.
It was a white day for us and we watched a movie, Robbie cooked a chicken curry and we hit bed early again.
24th
I can report that the new internet is working a treat in this remote location. (check it out Roaming Expert) We were able to talk to Jessie on Facebook and it was as clear as anything. Only a few days until she arrives and we are all very excited. She has just had to apply for her position as HR Officer permanently and it’s an arduous task writing an application. She will hopefully have her interview when she returns.
We took the duck in and what a difference to yesterday! The wind has picked up and the waves are now surging and crashing on the shore. Robbie was able to drop me in with the backpacks and then he anchored out and we tied a long line to a wooden pole on the beach. It took us a while to find Guinness he was pottering around a couple of little shacks. He happily took us over to Codrington and said he would wait for us. We said no we will have lunch as well, come back in a couple of hours. (I don’t think there is a dentist in Codrington, all the men we saw had very few teeth)
Codrington is a sleepy little town with some concrete but mainly dirt roads, ramshackle cottages and a lot of horse poop everywhere. All the shacks have fences around them to stop the horses coming in. I have to say it is one of, if not the, worst place we have ever had to check in or out of. First of all we found the immigration office, she was so busy doing her hair extensions she could barely greet us or say hello. She informed us we had to first go to the Port Authority which she pointed generally and said up that way, then go to customs and then come back to her. So we walked, and walked, and asked a few people with no luck. Then we went to the police station and they directed us out to the airport. So we walked out there, the young lady in the office said oh he forgot his stamp, walk down the road to the palm tree and turn left and it’s the second house on the right.
We found the young customs officer, and he was quite pleasant. We were making jokes about the huge piles of boxes of paperwork stacked in the corner, taking up a lot of room. He processed our paperwork and then sent us on our way to the Post Office. We asked a young mother and her two young daughters where the post office was. The mother quite happily showed us, but one of the daughters was complaining “why you walking with these white fellas”!! She had a really negative attitude to start with but eventually I talked her around a bit.
So the lady at the post office, said no the port authority is down the road in the blue and white building, ask for Samantha! So we walked again through the horse poop and dirt, and the blue and white building is signed “Department of Tourism”, there were two guys standing outside and we asked one of them is this the Port Authority? No he said, so we said “Samantha work Here?” yes, inside he said. Finally! She completed some paperwork and then we had to go back to the immigration office. She was still doing her hair extensions! She completed some paperwork and then talked on her phone and just waved us out with an unfriendly gesture. We were not impressed! We always try very hard to be friendly and chatty with them but it sure wasn’t working here. We both thought they were probably all getting a laugh out of seeing us walk around the town in circles.
The other thing is that there were no restaurants for us to be able have a meal. We were actually by this stage quite happy to get back to the boat. We walked back to the dock but no Guinness! Robbie went and brought a couple of beers and small packets of crisps to keep us going. Finally Guinness turned up with the guys off the other motor boat and we had a quick chat. They were also looking for a restaurant and Guinness informed us all that they had all closed down.
We had a quick ride back across the lagoon, $20 USA dollars for both of us, return so it was a reasonable cost. The water taxi was just an open fibreglass ponga boat, quite long and skinny and although it didn’t look very seaworthy it rode very well.
It was still quite rough and we didn’t feel like swimming so we just mucked around, we cooked Mahi Mahi in Panko breadcrumbs (currently our favourite meal) for dinner watched another movie and early to bed, we are setting off at 5.3am in the morning. Just as we got to sleep Paul and Maree rang from Nashville. They have another 5 days left in their motorhome and are loving their tour of the USA.
