We were torn. We love the view and the clean clear water of St. George’s, not to mention the grocery store has its own dinghy dock. But we have friends in Prickly Bay and in Clarkes Court Bay, not easily accessible from the St. George’s anchorage. Then we learned that Sue on Macushla was making a month-long trip back to the UK so the decision was made for us. We wanted to see her before she left, and to be near Mark who would be alone on Macushla for the duration. We said goodbye to St. George’s for the time being, weighed anchor and motored the nine miles directly into the wind to Clarkes Court Bay. We motored up to Macushla, yelled a hello to the surprised crew and dropped the hook not far behind them. Tropical storm Chantal was making noise and we felt this location offered better protection than the open waters of St. George’s.
Mark and Sue dinghied over to tell us it was Mark’s birthday and invited us to celebratory lunch at the Little Dipper on a tiny balcony up a very steep incline with a beautiful view of the anchorage.
It was great to catch up with them, but sad that we’ll lose Sue for a while. Later that evening they joined us on Escape Velocity for after dinner painkillers and our first batch of mango coconut sorbet. It was perfect and I feel sorry for cruisers without a freezer!
We are now well entrenched in the cruisers’ activity realm and we took advantage of one of the shopping buses that depart the various marinas for set routes to the bank, chandleries and grocery stores. We figured the higher cost relative to a city bus was actually a good deal given that this was a round trip and on city buses we’d have to take several different buses to get to all of those places and it would take the better part of a day. Our reasoning was sound but we were not prepared for the impatience and less than chipper mood of some of the other cruisers.
To be fair, at the chandlery we decided to pull the trigger on new anchor chain and the process took a while, so long in fact that the bus driver came looking for us, apparently because the other shoppers were getting restless. When we finally rejoined them our apologies were met with frosty stares, and later they continued to express their displeasure by piling their grocery bags on our seats.
We’re finding it hard to feel bad about this while we’re catching up with old friends and checking out a new neighborhood.