Fortunately, it only took a few hours of hand steering and pounding into the wind to arrive at Britannia Bay. We picked up a mooring next to our friends on Evening Star, with assistance from it’s captain, Denny, a former Admiral in the navy, and settled in behind our other friends on Solmate. Shortly thereafter, we were visited by the Mustique Moorings men, who charged $120 (US) for 3 days, whether we stayed that long or not, and instructed us on where we could and couldn’t go on the island.
That evening, Jen & Adam on Solmate, graciously invited all The Dawgs in town (and some) to their boat for pot luck dinner. Miraculously, everyone showed up with something delicious and different. We met our other mooring neighbors, Debra & Scott (on s/v Grand View), Mike & Wanda (on s/v Going to the Sun), John & Ann (on s/v Chilli Pepper), and tried to get as many sailors as we could on Solmate’s roof top deck. It was good fun!!
Since Mustique is a privately owned island, by many rich & famous fashion folks and a musician or two, when they said we could go to the little village off the dinghy dock (to the north) and down the beach to the first hut (to the south), they were serious. Any other ventures on the island needed to be with an official tour guide/taxi driver. So, the next day, we ventured into the village, which includes the famous Basil’s Bar (where Mick Jagger has been known to take the stage, as he is a landowner here), a liquor store, a grocery, a bakery, a couple cute shops with very expensive clothing and trinkets and a fish market on the beach… pretty much all a sailor needs (sans the expensive items)!
Around noon, we had one of the two taxi drivers on the island, take us (and the crew of Grand View) to meet up with Solmate and Evening Star for lunch at The Cotton House, one of the fanciest hotels in the Caribbean. I had an excellent quinoa & beet salad and Andrew had a good burger, as we watched the presumably rich & famous lunching around us.
Afterwards, we were supposed to go on an island tour but our taxi driver had a flat so we settled for a few more fancy drinks while he texted us that he would be right there. An hour or so later, we got to go on the tour and it was worth the wait. We drove past Mick Jaggers estate. We saw the monster homes of Tommy Hilfiger, Bryan Adams and Jack Daniels built into the hills overlooking Macaroni Beach (although I’m not sure which was which), the Royal House where English royalty stay and the blue tile house owned by Louis Vuitton. Our driver, Kennest, kept mentioning ‘the terrorist’ place on the highest peak of the island, which was now for sale for $200 million. We later learned he was saying “the terraces” and there were no terrorists involved. Apparently, we also saw the homes of Gucci and Timberland, but they mostly looked like long driveways with lots of trees.
The next day, all of our friends in the harbor left but we had planned to stay all 3 days so we spent the time updating the blog, snorkeling within swimming distance of the boat and enjoying lunch at Basil’s. The place has a cool, relaxed vibe with an outdoor stage and various living room seatings mixed in with wooden dining tables and shelves of books and sailing memorabilia. The food was definitely catering to the high end with a trio of tacos (chicken, fish & beef) being my choice and a burger for Andrew. It was amongst the best meals we have had all season and not too unreasonably priced. Sorry, no food pics!
That evening, we were early to bed after a light dinner, since our quest south to Grenada would commence again early the next morning…
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