Goat Island & Cliffton 2 – 23 July

we started the day with a delicious avocado egg meal. we have been getting great avocados here that a giant and delicious. after breakfast we tried to dingy back to our island with the camera to get some photo’s of our rocket but alas the sea was too rough to even make it to the far side of the lagoon let alone through the pass and out to the other island. the rocket is on peteti tabac at aprox W12 37.4 N16 20.8 if anyone is in the neighborhood and wants to check it out!

we had a nice 30 min downwind sail to “goat” island, now renamed palm island for the tourists no doubt. this was listed as one of the “best beaches” in the windward islands. well there was a nice piece of beach about a 100m long that we anchored off but no where near “best”. we had a relaxing afternoon until a major squall blew through we had blinding rain in 30 kts of wind with 180 deg wind shit. this pushed us “toward” the island so i had to hang out in the cockpit for an hour or so reading and monitoring the situation in case we had to make a hasty departure.

eventually the rain stopped and we headed across to the town of cliffton. i did not like the harbor at all, there is a big reef in the middle and the charts are not perfect here and it was too overcast to be able to see anything. we made a fun passes around the harbor. finally dropped but where too close to our neighbor. we moved again only to have some crazy catamaran yell at us that we where dropping too close to his anchor even through we where miles away from it. finally 2 more times and we where in a perfect spot between two derelict boats and just inside the barrier reef.

we headed to shore to check things out and where a bit underwhelmed. no action to speak of at the “yacht cub” a couple stores, we did find a couple of avocados for 3 ec each from a roadside vendor. we tried to head out to the “happy island” for happy hour but alas happy island was closed. happy island is built on a pile of conch shells piled on top of the barrier reef. apparently they have a major surplus of these shells as there where several uncharted “islands” around the harbor.

we made it back to shore to a little pizza place we had seen a few cruisers at and settled in for 5ec beer and a 25 ec pepperoni pizza made by a french women. very good and the first time we have eaten off palapa in quite a while! see the photo of aimee and the avocado in the pizza place.

cheers, Roger