Mustique - Man Overboard!

We spent a few more nights over in Mayreau in an anchorage on the windward side of the island. It was a much quieter spot; only one other boat anchored there during the time we were there. Troy and Winnie live aboard their trawler "Lucky Dog" with three cats and a German Shepherd the size of a small bear. We had drinks with them on their boat and we had a nice evening.

We then headed up to Canouan, which is the next island to the north. It's the base for the Moorings charter company, and it is also home to a huge Raffles resort. We spent the afternoon walking around the island, and the road along the windward side had some beautiful reef views. When we got back down to the bay we bought a couple sodas and "limed" with young guy named Martin and an old local sailor named "Sheriff". Sheriff claimed to have lived all over the world, from Norway to Taipei. Then he offered to sell us some of his land on Canouan, as he took a sip of his rum and juice. We couldn't tell if all his stories were true or not but they were interesting to say the least. The younger guy, Martin, was curious as to where our children were while we were living on the boat. We explained that we didn't have any and seemed pretty amazed by that. He advised us to start having some right away. This is about the fourth or fifth time that we've run into someone who was surprised that we didn't have a family. I guess in the islands most people our age would already have several kids. So I asked Martin how many kids he had. "None yet," was the reply. "First I got to find a good wife, then we have thirteen kids. Lots of kids." Wow. Ladies of Canouan, be warned!<>

This morning we got an early start and motorsailed up to Mustique. Britannia Bay in Mustique is a protected harbor and they prefer that you take a mooring instead of anchoring. Normally Kevin drives the boat while I stand on the bow and pick up the mooring with the boat hook. But these moorings didn't have pendants so that meant we'd have to thread our line directly through the mooring. It would have been easy if we hadn't given away our Happy Hooker (a tool just for this purpose, but that we had never used in nearly 3 years of sailing) back in Grenada! So Kevin suggested we switch: that I should be at the helm while he picked up the mooring. I was a little nervous because I rarely have the helm in these situations and didn't want to do anything embarrassing, such as run over a line or crash into another boat. So I very carefully approached the mooring, and Kevin bent over to thread our line. I watched in amazement as I saw his torso go overboard, followed by his legs. The big splash that followed was confirmation that my eyes weren't deceiving me. I made sure both engines were in neutral and just stayed at the helm, figuring that since he was in the water already he should be able to thread our line through the eye no problem. (I am nothing if not practical.) He finally called me up to the bow to catch the end of the line as he tossed it to me. As I secured the line I looked up and realized we had provided the morning's entertainment for the people on the boat in front of us, who were grinning as Kevin loudly announced that the next show would start at 1:30. Luckily Kevin was unharmed; I wish I could say the same for our boat hook. The aluminum pole was bent in two places and so badly kinked that it couldn't be bent back into shape.

[Kevin's Post]Hey, at least I got it on the first try!

Where we are:
Location=Mustique, SVG
Lat=12 52.738
Lon=61 11.347