Mustique is unique among the eastern Caribbean islands. It's privately owned and is managed by the Mustique Company – like a big gated community without the gate. The Company controls everything, including where visiting yachts can anchor or moor which is limited to gorgeous Britannia Bay. Shucks. When we arrived from the Tobago Cays on January 24 it was during a squall and since Pas de Deux is less than 70 feet long, the Company rules required us to use a mooring ball. For our size boat the mooring ball fee was US$25/night, which is the typical rate in the eastern Caribbean. But the Company requires a minimum three night stay so our cost was $75. "Just want to stay one night? That’s OK, $75 please!"  The minimum effectively minimizes the number of charter boats that visit since most charter parties are on a short schedule and want to keep moving. Three nights was fine with us as we wanted to see the opening of the Blues Festival at Basil’s Bar on January 26th in addition to exploring the island, so we timed our arrival accordingly.

But picking up the ball turned out to be an unexpected challenge . In the driving squall we employed our usual mooring ball routine – Donna maneuvers the boat with the engines and Dave retrieves the mooring ball pendant from the starboard bow with a boat hook since he has longer arms. The bows of Pas de Deux are over 6 feet off the water so this ballet can sometimes be a challenge, as it was on this occasion. As Donna expertly crept up on the ball we had chosen, Dave could see there was no loose pendant to snag with the boat hook as is usually the case. The other vacant balls were the same, and boats already attached to balls looked like they had their lines attached directly to the eye atop the ball. How did they do that? And where were the persistent island boat boys when you really needed them? Nonetheless, Dave hooked the eye with the boat hook and attempted to lift the whole rig high enough to pass a line through the eye. Nothing doing. After a quick huddle we decided to lower the dinghy as Donna held the boat stationary--Dave would attach a line from the bow to the ball pendant working from the dinghy. It was raining really hard by now. This plan worked and we finally got settled just as the rain stopped. Later we figured out that this particular style of mooring ball actually slides along its chain like a bead and all Dave had to do from the beginning was to lift the eye vertically and allow the chain to slip through the ball. But we didn’t feel quite so stupid later as we watched some folks on other boats, perplexed as we were by these unusual mooring balls, elect sacrificial “mooring ball boys” from their crew who gamely jumped from their moving boats to carry a line in their hands to thread through the ball and pass to their comrades aboard to secure their boat.

The hassle picking up the mooring ball was offset by the nice visit we had to the island . The island is very well kept and groomed – all apparently funded by the rich and famous with vacation homes here. It was well worth the walking tour we took around the island, trying to figure out from a scant map which of the huge mansions was Mick Jagger’s and which belonged to Princess Margaret.  No published “map of the stars’ homes” to be found here! There are no sprawling resorts on the island, but we walked through the reknowned Cotton House with its intimate villas for rent and peeked around the famous Firefly restaurant and bar.   We walked past the island’s small airstrip—remarkable in that it looked like the form of a ski jump for a plane approaching its runway. For all we know, it may seem that way as well to the plane’s passengers! We spent about four hours on our walking tour, which is all the time you need to circumnavigate the entire island on foot. We chatted a while with an “imported” worker with the Mustique Company who served as one of the electricians for the island, dispatched by the Company. All of the workers live in a special “community” in shared housing established specifically for them (which we were passing by when we met him). He explained to us that most workers came from St Vincent for these jobs.

We attended the opening of the Mustique Blues Festival at Basil's Bar the evening of January 26. Wow, was that some good music and a good time as evidenced by the fact that we stayed until after midnight for the final act—way past our usual bedtime. That's saying something for us! This is an annual event and we’ll certainly try to see it again in future years if we’re anywhere close by (although the $75 mooring fee is a bit stiff!).