We’re not in a hurry, but don’t want to stay in Anse Chastanet any longer than necessary. It was fairly rocky last night with large boats going by and pretty soon the party/charter boats will start roaring by again. No reason to stay here anyway. Just before we take off the rangers come by and extract EC$54 from us for the mooring. Thought we had gotten away with that. If we had left 15 minutes earlier … Off we go towards Canaries where we hope to stop, anchor in the nearby shelter and do a couple waterfall hikes.
While the wind seems down, the sea is a bit rolly, but no problem. We motor over to Canaries, takes about 45 minutes. Get a great little anchorage in the shelter of the headland. The water depth is perfect and the bottom sandy. Not sure where to land the dinghy but we’ll figure that out.
Doesn’t take long for a dinghy with a local to arrive, he talks to Christy while I’m below getting things together. She buys a coconut from him. They’re talking about the waterfall walk and where to land the dinghy when the guy mentions snakes. Says there’s a lot of them in the village and several people have died. Well that’s the end of the hike for Christy. I look up the snake, it’s never come up in any of our readings, either guidebook or online. It’s the Fer de Lance, yes it is poisonous and only found around Canaries and the same region on the windward coast. It’s so rare it’s endangered – the only snake that’s not protected people kill it whenever they see it. I try to convince Christy there is no way we are going to see a snake, but no way, we’re not going.
She goes for a swim. We depart for Marigot Bay. Too bad, this was a better anchorage than Chastanet and free!
As we’re getting ready to depart a young fellow, Jimmy, rolls up in a paddle kayak. We think he wants to sell us something but he just wants a lift to Anse Chochon a couple bays up the coast. We’re happy to give him a ride and he is very appreciative. We give him a soda and say fond farewells at the next bay.
Nice ride to Marigot,, pleasant to hug the coast and see the sights. Marigot Bay is very quiet, there are no boats at anchor and very few on the moorings, the ones that are there are locals. Makes anchoring easy as we have first pick. Two more will come over the rest of the day but still pretty quiet.
I’ve ordered Starlink to be delivered to Huntsville so now gotta figure out how to wire it up. I take apart the ceiling panel in the salon by the mast and discover a massed tangle of wires. Was hoping it was organized. I think about 30% of it is not being used but need to be careful, our AIS and radar runs through there. I think I’ve got some of it figured out, pretty sure there are at least two of the waterproof connectors that go through the deck I can repurpose for Starlink. Plan to go up the mast tomorrow to verify.
Around 3:30 pm we dinghy into Marigot Beach Club and check out their menu. Not cheap of course, but not crazy. Buffet night tonight so we decide to do a little exploring, come back for Happy Hour and decide about the buffet.
We drive around the lagoon a bit, run into Santa who sells us a pineapple, some mango and bananas. They look like store bananas, but maybe off a local tree.
We land the dinghy on the beach beside the Hurricane Hole, schwank restaurant part of the hotel there. We go for a walk up the hill towards the sea. Turns out there are lots of roads and villas up here. Some very high end and many for rent.
We walk back down, check out the new “market”, part of Chateau Mygo (where we usually eat) they have a few things, not a lot, but good to know. Dinghy back across to Marigot Beach where we’re a bit early for Happy Hour. Doesn’t matter, the service is so slow it’s well after 5 pm before we get served.
“What’s the Happy Hour deal?”
“Two beers for the price of one”
“OK, we’ll have one for two.” We joke that the Happy Hour price for beer is probably EC$10, normally a beer is EC$5. Sure enough, that’s the HH price tho we don’t know if they charge less for non HH.
We stay and gorge ourselves on the bbq buffet. It’s pretty good for a buffet, we get two meats each so together we get fish, beef, pork and chicken. Altogether the meal costs us C$130, which is no bargain but we’re full and Christy has packed her purse with some of their home made chips. Very good.
Back on Milu, we, of course, are in bed early.