Week 37-38;July 20 –Aug 4We’re anchored near a small island called Carriacou in the country of Grenada, West Indies. We’ve been rushing to get south of a latitude of N12º degrees to get out of hurricane range. Carriacou is at N12º 27,’ close enough that we could easily move south and out of range if a storm did develop. Now it’s time to rest and relax a bit and this seems like a good place for that. Between what’s right on shore here in Tyrell Bay and what’s available in Hillsborough, only a short bus ride away, we have what we need in terms of groceries, restaurants, fuel and other supplies. The good Lord is providing plenty of fresh water for drinking and laundry if we will only get up and collect it. We’re learning what we’ve heard referred to as the rain dance where you scramble to close all the ports and hatches for a downpour only to open them all again in five minutes when it quits. Someone told us they “danced” 8 times one day, but we’re not counting on Opus.
We expected to stay here about a week, be ended up staying more than two. If I went into all the details it would take pages, so I’ll try to just list the highlights.
- Jennifer finished 6th grade. Both she and Linda are extremely happy to finally be on summer vacation. 7th grade can’t start till it’s ordered and shipped in and we have to have a mailing address for that, so it will be awhile.
- Jennifer found kids to play with for the first time in 3 months. Yeah! What a reward for finishing school. There were several girls her age, including Nixa who is exactly her age – even born on the same day. Nixa lives on the island of Grenada, so we’ll see her again when we get there. The kids spent most of their time swimming, but Jennifer also got to go land crabbing with them one night.
- Someone suggested Jennifer get a world map and mark the countries where we’ve met people or seen boats from. 25 so far. That’s a geography lesson in itself. - Jim and Jennifer used the local bus system (vans that wait till they’re full to go) and explored some of the island. They went to the shipyard in Windward and got to see a wooden boat being built.
- A power boat named Halleluiah was anchored near us. It was a floating bar. We went a few times and got to know Denise, the owner, and Tom who maintained the boat and help cook and serve drinks when needed. Jim and Tom got to talking about local wooden work boats and the upcoming regatta and Tom was able to arrange for Jim to crew on one of the boats in the regatta.
- A steel band played at the Lambi Queen every Friday night. We could hear them from the boat, but decided to go in and see them up close and personal one night. Loud, but really amazing. The night we went in Ken, the ‘stickman’ performed. He dances and does the limbo to drum music as he balances and twirls a stick with two other sticks. I guess you have to be there, but it was truly amazing too. He’s teaching the local children how to “do the sticks”, and they performed for the first time that night.
- The Carriacou Regatta was held while we were there. It lasted several days. Jim raced on a local wooden boat called “Passion” for 3 days. There was plenty of music and action on shore, but the most interesting place to be was on the beach as they rigged the work boats and started the races.
The Carriacou Regatta was a high point of this trip for Jim. The boat he was on was basically a 30 foot dinghy that carries a whole lot of sail with a crew of 7. It was pretty exciting sailing. Passion is a daggerboard boat with sandbags for ballast and each time they tacked, they had to move the ballast to the windward side, often balancing it on the gunnel in their attempt to keep the boat relatively flat. This provides for really exciting upwind sailing. Someone was always needed to bail the water out of the boat. Being simply rigged, the bailer consisted of a half of a clorox bottle. They managed to lose 3 crew over the side in the course of 4 races, but got them all back, two swam back to the boat and one was returned to to them by a chase boat. Out of 7 boats in their class they wound up fourth, not too bad for a crew that had never sailed together before.
Sailboat racing with these work boats is a bit different than ‘yacht’ racing. To start the race, all the boats are lined up close to shore (no start line) and when the gun goes off a couple of the crew push off to get some way on and then jump aboard and off we go. There is a lot of yelling at the start because boats are bouncing off of each other trying to get into clear air. I don’t think protests are allowed here and everyone just takes things in stride.
Week 36;July 12 –July 19 Sunday we left Bequia for Chatham Bay on Union Island, still in the Grenadines. It was another good sailing day with the engine only on to maneuver around the anchorage. The spinnaker was up for at least 25 miles of this stretch. The last time Sim & Rosie were in Chatham Bay it was a quite bay with no services. Now there are a couple of “bars” on the beach and big fleets of boats from the charter companies come in for a day at a time. It’s still a good place to rest and relax for awhile. The winds funnel through the mountain and really howl through this anchorage. It keeps you cool and bug free. The holding is good in sand so we didn’t have a problem with dragging.
In the 4 days we were here, we snorkeled, walked on the beach, drank rum punch in the beach bars, hiked up the hill/mountain and got to meet Sim’s & Rosie”s friends Roy and Dune on “Bold Endeavor” from New Zealand. On our hike we got a good view of Chatham Bay and then got up high enough to see the town of Ashton in the valley on the other side. From there we could also see the small islands of Petit Martinique and Petit St Vincent on the other side of Union Island.
Thursday we left Chatham Bay, made a quick stop in the town of Clifton on the other side of the island for water, ice, some groceries and to dump garbage and then went on to Petit St Vincent. We couldn’t go ashore here because it was a private island, but it’s a lovely setting with good snorkeling. A boat boy was quick to come by and try to sell us fresh tuna. After Jim got him down to a reasonable price, he bought one and we grilled it and shared it with Sim & Rosie that evening.
Saturday we moved to Windward Bay on Mayreau Island. This was Roy and Dune’s pick. They’d been there before and recommended it for good snorkeling. Besides a wide variety of coral and fish, there were tons of large sea fans in different colors. Swimming between the reef and the boat we could see large starfish all over the sea floor. There might be up to 20 in your field of view at any given time. It’s nice to be traveling with boats who have been here before so we can learn from their experience.
Week 35;July 6 –July 12 We left Martinique around noon for a 20 mile sail to Rodney Bay on St Lucia. This put us in a good place to begin the 70 mile sail to Bequia early the next morning. Rodney Bay was just a quick overnight stop, but it was significant in that this was the very first leg of our journey where we didn’t turn the engine on at all. Sailed off the anchor and still had the sails up when we dropped the anchor. The trip to Bequia the next day was also good sailing. The highlight that day was seeing 2 large pods of dolphins (20-30). One pod came right up to the boat and played in the bow wave for at least half an hour. Sim & Rosie were a couple miles ahead of us that day and missed out on the dolphins, but saw a pod of whales they estimated to be about the size of Opus!
We spent the next 5 days in Bequia anchored close to the beach. Linda and Jennifer swam to shore every day. Jim preferred to take the dinghy in most days to check out all the shops and meet the locals. English is spoken here, so communication was easy. The currency is East Caribbean dollars, about 2.7 EC’s to $1US. The first day Jim came back from shore with a bag of small fish, fresh out of a net on the beach that someone offered him. We think they may have been sardines. It was a free meal, but quiet a lot of work for Jim to clean and pan fry them. Quite a lot of work to eat them too without eating all the bones. They were tasty though. The bread man came by in his boat every morning and his banana bread was super.
They fill propane tanks in Bequia! Hurray! We had to leave the propane tank overnight so that gave us and excuse to eat out. Rotis are a local favorite here, so we gave them a try. It’s chicken (or other meat) and potatoes in a curry sauce wrapped in a thin flour tortilla. Kind of like a burrito. While the tank was gone we made a meal of locally grown avocadoes and crackers. Sim & Rosie were more than willing to come over and show us how to make guacamole. It was like a cooking party in the cockpit with everyone cutting, scooping, mashing, chopping and mixing. The final product was terrific.
Saturday was the Fish Festival. Local fisherman go out in the morning, their catch is weighed when they come in, then they clean the fish on the beach and sell them. There’s a big food tent where they fry fish and sell fish dinners and of course there’s lots of music.
All 6 of the “Southbound Boats” were together again in Bequia, so the 13 of us got together for a good meal on one of the boats. We provided about 40 deviled eggs and left the hot foods for the boats with ovens. Jim from Blue Heaven entertained us with his guitar and we sang along to any song we knew.
Week 34;June 29 –July 6 We arrived in Le Marin on the south end of Martinique with 3006 miles on our GPS trip meter! We’ve come a long way! Le Marin is considered the boating center of Martinique – a big city with a 600 boat marina, hundreds or boats moored and anchored, lots of boating supply stores and services, but no propane in the city or on the island. The anchorage was deep and crowded and the water was very murky, nothing you’d want to swim in. We got checked in, got groceries, got laundry done (17 Euros for 2 loads!) and rested for a day. Then we were very happy when Sim and Rosie suggested we move to another anchorage. It was only about a mile to St. Anne, but what a difference – small quiet town, less than 20 boats, we could anchor close to shore in clear shallow water and anchor close to Sim and Rosie again. They’ve been here before and know some of the best places to go.
A long walk along the beach in St. Anne will take you straight to Club Med. This must be their off season or it’s closed down because there was no one to keep the scraggly cruisers off their beach. Can you imagine Jim, Linda and Jennifer at a Club Med in Martinique? We couldn’t either!
This has been a banner week for Jennifer with her school work. She knows she’ll be running into some other boat kids soon and doesn’t want to be stuck on Opus doing school work while they’re out playing. She finished Reading, Grammar, Spelling and Art History and made some good progress on Science. That good work earned her in a day in town to “mooch about” as Rosie would say. Linda and Jennifer browsed through most every shop in town and bought their first touristy T-shirts. Linda forgot about unisex sizing, so both their shirts are too big, but they say Martinique and they like them anyway.
Jennifer planned a 4th of July party and invited Sim and Rosie. They offered to host it on their boat since they had more room. What good friends to host a party for an American holiday on a British boat. They flew both American flags and the Union Jack. We managed to down 20 hot dogs, 2 cans of baked beans, potato salad, chips and 2 liters of Coke. Jennifer made sure we were dressed in red, white and blue even if it was just red toe nails. The 4th was on a Saturday and the quiet little town really came alive for it. There was loud music on the beach until at least 4am. Apparently that’s a normal weekend thing for this little beach town.
Monday we went back to Le Marin to check out with Customs, fill up on fuel and water and pick up a few groceries. We left around noon heading for St Lucia, St Vincent and Bequia. There should be propane there. Jennifer’s burn is healing nicely. We’ll let her go with lots of sun screen instead of a bandage when we get to Bequia.