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DECEMBER 2011 CARIBBEAN COMPASS PAGE 26
Yacht at Rest, Mind at Ease
Photo by Onne van der Wal
Meditation on Marigot Bay:
Sails, Snails and
Other Tales
by Sean Fuller
A considerable amount of legend, lore, fact and fancy shrouds the historical background
of Marigot Bay, St. Lucia. It’s such a perfectly concealed bay, so surprising
when revealed, and so perfect in its proportions, halfway down St. Lucia’s west coast,
that it has captured sailors’ imaginations for centuries.
It is not hard to believe that in the days of the buccaneers, many a pirate, including
the legendary Bartholomew Roberts, used it as a base for attacking treasureladen
galleons homeward bound from the Spanish Main. Cruising guide author Don
Street says, “When anchored in Marigot Bay, read Ramage and the Freebooters by
Dudley Pope; part of this novel is set here.”
In the early 18th century, before France colonized St. Lucia, the land around
Marigot Bay consisted of a few smallholdings used for raising livestock. Red mangroves
lined the perimeter of the inner lagoon and coconut palms covered most of
the hillside at low elevations. Copra, the meat from the coconut, was extracted and
used to feed the livestock or for making coconut oil, used for cooking and in soap
and detergents. The small village of Marigot at the head of the valley was populated
mainly by families of fishermen who worked the coastal waters in dugout canoes
carved from the gommier tree.
With French colonization in the 18th century came the planting of sugarcane,
which was first introduced to St. Lucia in 1763. 0n the inner bay close to the mangroves
are the remains of a sugar mill and part of a stone house once used as a
cookery to extract the syrup. Below the ruins is a well which is still largely intact
although now full of earth. Close by, there used to be a dock built by the French but
VOYAGES FROM THE CARIBBEAN
November, 2011 - June, 2012
TO THE MEDITERRANEAN DEPARTURE
Martinique � Genoa 03/2012
Martinique � Taranto 06/2012
Martinique � Toulon 06/2012
St. Thomas � Palma de Mallorca 04/2012
St. Thomas � Port Everglades 04/2012
TO THE EAST COAST USA
Martinique � Port Everglades 12/2011
St. Thomas � Newport 05/2012
Nadine Massaly
DYT Representative
Le Marin, Martinique
silt from the hillside has since buried all
remains of it. It is thought that fairly large
sailing vessels used to call into the bay to
collect the sugar.
Although St. Lucia was French, the British
wanted it, and after a long series of battles
eventually took possession. One notable
exchange, the battle of Cul de Sac, took
place in December 1778, when the British
under Admiral Samuel Barrington with 12
ships and more than 5,000 men, entered
Grand Cul-de-Sac Bay, just a little over a
mile north of Marigot, with the aim of recapturing
the island from the French. It is said
that Admiral Barrington later hid his fleet in
Marigot Bay behind the palm-lined sand
spit and covered the rigging with palm
fronds. The French fleet sailed past unwittingly
and was subsequently ambushed by
the British.
This scene has been reproduced in a huge
mural painted by Barbara Byfield and commissioned
by Walter Boudreau, the schooner
skipper who built the first hotel here in
the 1950s. Boudreau asked that his family
and other Marigot residents be painted into
the historical scene and the result is a
somewhat amusing caricature of the distant
and more recent past. The mural still can be
seen in the Boudreau restaurant at Marigot
Bay Hotel.
In the mid-1800s sugarcane began its long
decline as a cash crop in the Caribbean as it
was gradually replaced by cheaper sugar
beet, which could be grown in Europe.
The Bay today. A modern resort development
dominates the shoreline where pioneering
yacht-charter skipper Walter Boudreau once
had his base
One of the largest landowners after 1900 was Alfred Littman, who bought the land
called Marigot de Roseaux estate from Oscar Napoleon Long in 1923. The property
consisted of approximately 210 acres on the north and east side of the bay. Littman
was the grandson of a Garifuna (Black Carib) from St. Vincent and a veteran of World
War One. He was brought up in Vieux Fort and took various jobs aboard ships. He
used the land for rearing sheep, made some copra on the estate, planted palms and
marked property boundaries with immortelle (African tulip) trees.
Twice during World War Two, local fishermen reported a German submarine lying
in Marigot Bay’s inner harbour. A destroyer can just squeeze through the narrow
straits between the south side and the central sand spit. One can imagine it being
an excellent hideout from the chaos elsewhere!
A notable figure in the ‘modern’ era of Marigot Bay was Walter Boudreau. Born in
1918 in Nova Scotia, Canada, Boudreau began sailing as a young boy. After spending
three weeks at a medical university, he decided the call of the sea was more
inviting. He got his first job aboard Angelus, a square-rigged barquentine, and
worked his way around the globe over the years. At the end of World War Two he
bought his first boat, a former rumrunner, which he sailed from North America to
the Caribbean.
He first visited Marigot Bay around 1952 onboard his schooner Doubloon and the
images of this beautiful bay remained indelibly etched on his mind for years to come.
To Walter, Marigot had a magical aura. After cruising up and down the Windward
and Leeward islands for years, taking charter guests on cruises, Walter and his wife,
Terry, decided to settle in Marigot Bay with their young children.
—Continued on next page
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