Jan. 7, 2009 - The old and the new.

Moved out of Rodney Bay marina and anchored in the bay for a day and saw this sight.  The ‘new’ is Maltese Falcon, reputedly the most expensive private sailing vessel ever built and the old is the ‘Unicorn’ used for tourist trips and she has working cannon – can scare the whatnots out of you at 8 in the morning when she fires them as part of her routine.  Allegedly she was in Pirates of the Caribbean films.  Nice to see such a variety rather than scores of Scumsail charter boats.  Heard the skipper of Maltese Falcon on the radio the next day complaining to a friend that he had charter people on board and wasn’t allowed to set the sails – tuff life.

Sailed over to Martinique today and had yet another brilliant trip, well off the wind and really flying – well apart from ‘those that got away’.  The first was a lovely 10lb mackerel that managed to leap off the hook just as we got him alongside – shame as he looked great for supper.  Later as we approached Martinique something took my deep lure but was gone by the time I hauled it in.  However as I let it out again something really really big and very close to the boat, grabbed it and made off, taking my line despite the brake being full on.  The 80lb line snapped soon after and we never got a look at what it was, but my guess would be a big Marlin.  Any fish that big is not welcome on my Barbie, so apart from losing a good lure I was not too disappointed.  Consolation was briefly seeing a whale soon after in almost exactly the same place we saw them last year.  The weather then cleared up and we anchored in beautiful Saint Pierre at the top of the island.  As an added bonus it was not full of charter boats as it was last year – maybe the credit crunch/recession/slump thingy has got its good side.

Intend to spend a couple of lazy days here – go and visit the museum and do some walking, I’ve also got a water filter leak to fix – then down Island to go back to St Lucia on the 14^th ish.  Internet is more iffy here so if anyone is e-mailing please give me a few days to reply.