Sail on Sail Pending

We raised our anchor at first light and the rising sun gave us a beautiful view of The Piton’s as we departed St. Lucia. We have a 65 mile sail to our destination, Blue Lagoon Marina, on the Southern coast of St. Vincent.

As we sailed across the St.Vincent channel we were greeted by two whales.

The sail was lovely!! We had nice winds and the seas were very calm. It’s very rare that we get to sit out on the trampoline while under way. In the picture below the main Island of St. Vincent is on the left and the island of Bequia, (The Grenadines) is in the distance straight ahead.Here are a pictures of us rounding the Southern point of St. Vincent.

We have spent the past 234 days on the hook (our anchor) or a mooring ball, so we were really looking forward to all the amenities and conveniences of a marina. We kept talking about the unlimited free wifi, unlimited power usage, Air Conditioning, the long showers with warm water, the fresh water swimming pool, and how we could finally sit at a restaurant and eat without dingy butt!!! (For those of you that don’t know what dingy butt is, it is a wet butt from riding in a dingy from the big boat to the dock.)

Desmond met us at the dock with Rum Punch and Welcomed us to Blue Lagoon Marina!!!

Sail Pending tied up at the dock….. Oh, wait there is no power here. We have to move to a different spot. Kristie goes to find Custom’s and Immigration to get us checked in before they close while the boys move the boat.

We got all checked in and raise the courtesy flag.

Sail Pending is in her new parking spot and this spot doesn’t have any power either.

After more observation and other boats moving in and trying to hook up, we discover that there is no power to any of the outlets. So, that means we won’t get any extra power to run the A/C. Bummer!!! We will only have A/C if the generator is running, just like at anchor, BUT…. AT anchor our boat will swing in the wind and we always have a nice breeze going through the boat. When you’re on a dock at a marina there is not breeze and the boat is not always pointed into the wind. CRAP!!!!

NEXT STOP…. A very long, warm shower. YEA!!!

But….I get into the shower and it is infested with mosquitos. AGH!!! I end up taking a quicker shower on land than I would have on the boat to keep from being eaten alive. I didn’t even wait for the water to warm up. AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

The, I get back to the boat and the boat is also infested with mosquitos!! When we are anchored a couple hundred yards from shore we never have any mosquitos on the boat. YUCK!! So, We have to close everything up AND run the generator constantly. (OK, I wasn’t counting on this.)

We went out to dinner at the Marina restaurant and enjoy a very nice dinner with a dry butt, for the first time in over 7 months. When we got back to Sail Pending, Rich and I went up to the trampoline to watch the stars, as we always do, but because the marina was lit up so bright we could only see a couple. I think I prefer the dingy butt, to the bright marina.

As I said above, boats sway on their anchors/mooring and gently rock with the waves. When a boat is tied to a dock it is constantly banging and jerking up against the dock. Tonight, we were not gently rocked to sleep as we are use to, but were woken up all night, as the boat banged against the dock. Big YAWN!!!

Luckily, we had nothing to do all day, except wait for our package to arrive. So, we head to the fresh water swimming pool!!! YEA!!! After swimming our skin and hair was so dried out from the choline that we were itchy and very uncomfortable. AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!! I just want to be able to jump off the back of the boat into a crystal clear infinity salt water sea.

OK, Maybe I am rethinking how great staying in a marina will be. So far, I am not enjoying this land based boat life and want to get back on the hook, as soon as possible!!!

Our package arrived a day early and we got out of the marina as quick as we could!!!

Next stop, the exclusive private island of Mustique.