Marigot Bay St Lucia

On Friday 16 February we left Cumberland Bay at 0625 for the 45-mile passage up to St Lucia. The wind is often accelerated between the islands and the tide can carry you quite a long way west and so the early start was necessary to give us time to get there with a few tacks but also before the immigration and customs offices started to charge a $100 overtime bill for processing the arrivals paperwork (between 1630 and 0830 on weekdays and all day at weekends and public holidays).

St Lucia’s iconic Pitons   

The passage between the islands actually went very nicely, with a gentle 15 knot wind, and the dramatic Pitons at the southern end of St Lucia made for a spectacular landfall.

Arriving at Marigot Bay. Yin N Yang anchored outside the lagoon (left)   

Once we were in the lee of St Lucia, the wind dropped right off, so we completed the passage under engine which was actually quite a good thing because it meant that we had fully charged batteries. We also ran the watermaker to top up the tanks. We continued ¾ of the way up the western side of St Lucia to Marigot Bay, one of several ports of entry. Marigot Bay is probably the easiest place for yacht arrivals but, more importantly for us, it was where James and Anna-Malin had anchored Yin N Yang to drop off the last of their Atlantic crossing crew. We hadn’t seen them since we were in Las Palmas and so we were looking forward to hearing about how their Atlantic crossing had gone.

Marigot Bay marina complex   

We passed Yin N Yang anchored just outside the inner lagoon and made our way into the hurricane hole where we were directed to a mooring buoy. It is a fabulous setting. The inner bay, the hurricane hole, is almost entirely surrounded by mangroves. To our right was the Capella Resort and marina whilst behind us was palm tree lined peninsula with a small dock and a beautiful sandy beach [Ed: but the better beach looks out over the entrance channel to the lagoon].

The view behind BV from our mooring buoy in the inner lagoon   

We’d actually made good time on the passage, arriving just before 3pm, and so we had an hour and a half in hand to pump up our dinghy and report to Immigration and Customs. Their offices are conveniently located on the boardwalk in the marina complex right next to the marina office so it was very easy for us to complete all the formalities.

The resort bar and pool complex   

As an added bonus, we discovered that we could use the resort bar and pool complex during our stay.

Not a very successful temporary repair on the fuel tank   

That evening we met up with Anna-Malin and James (and Bubbles the dog) and had a very convivial evening catching up with them and hearing all about their crossing. We also had a stroke of luck in the saga of our dinghy petrol can. A short while before our dinghy petrol can had sprung a leak; not a particularly bad leak but enough to require us to turn the can around in the locker every time we tacked. We had tried to replace the can in Bequia but none of the available cans would fit into our locker. So I had made a temporary repair with Araldite and tape and we had kept our fingers crossed that we’d find the right can along the way. When we mentioned to James and Anna-Malin that we were looking for a chandlery and why, they said that they had a fuel can they wanted to get rid of and brought it round to BV that evening to see if it would fit. Amazingly, their can was exactly the same as ours. Perfect! I removed all the hardware from our old can to keep as spares and our old leaky can was relinquished to the dump.

Anchored in the outer part of Marigot Bay   

The following day we moved from our mooring buoy to the anchorage in the outer part of Marigot Bay. We spent the day doing various jobs and then, as evening fell, joined Anna-Malin and James and their friends Teresa and Wolfgang for a meal at one of the local restaurants.

It was tucked away inside the mangroves and so, having tied our dinghies to the dock, we had we had a fun stroll along a boardwalk through the trees. The boardwalk opened out into a lovely area with a floodlit pool and bar and a large, airy restaurant. The meal was very good and, of course, after we had eaten, the pool just had to be tested. All great fun!

It would have been very easy to stay for several more days in Marigot Bay but there was more of St Lucia that we wanted to look at. To the north is Rodney Bay, the port that all of the ARC yachts arrive at after their Atlantic crossing. It’s a little bit of a yachting mecca and so we thought that we should visit there, but before that we wanted to see the Pitons close up. To visit the bay between the Pitons (Anse des Pitons) we needed to get a permit to moor outside one of the ports of entry and so before leaving Marigot Bay we took advice from the authorities and purchased our permit. Mike and Cate on Kealoha V turned up shortly before we left Marigot Bay and with our heading south to the Pitons for a couple of days, it looked like the timing would work out that we’d meet up with them again in Rodney Bay along with Yin n Yang and Sea Wind.

Marigot Bay, St Lucia