We spent last night, 11 Jan 2013 on a mooring at Grande Anse
D’Arlet. We had heard that the moorings
had been installed but had no personal experience till yesterday. The mooring filed was nicely laid out with plenty of swing room between
moorings. It looked like there might be
more than 50 mooring on the North side of the Bay and probably half that many
on the South side. Many people were
still anchoring up close to the town dock area and that is just as onfused as
before.
The mooring are good sized but do not include a pennant and
are not easily lifted out of the water so that you can attaché your own. We pulled up along side our mooring and
Lesley leaned out of the stbd side gate and attached a line then walked it up
to the bow.
We watched another boat come in after we were settled in and
they did not have such good fortune. The
Captain drove the boat up so the lady on board could pick up the mooring at the
bow. She got the boat hook on the
mooring then tried to lift the mooring ball.
You could see her surprise when she could not bring the ball up. Then the Captain came up and tried to help,
still not line on the ball. The lady
then started trying to hold the mooring ball as the boat was blowing back off
it. She could not longer hold the boat hook
so off it went into the bay. The Captain
then motored around in a small circle and came up short of the mooring and
the lady then played out some anchor
chain. The boat hook was drifting away
and the boat was dragging down on anchor!
A fellow on a US
flagged Cabo Rico 42 got into his dinghy and went over and saved the day. Picked up the boat hook and passed it back
then took a line and motored the dinghy up where he attached it to the mooring
ball. The boat then motored back up to
the mooring where the lady was finally able to secure the boat to the mooring.
We figure that watching boats attempting to moor may be a
local form of entertainment – sure was for us.
The mooring filed is nice and for now is free but there were
many free mooring but with many more boats still at anchor.
We’re underway now headed for Roseau, Dominica.
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