Jan 27th was our 35th wedding anniversary, for which we celebrated at a new (to us) restaurant called Laluna, in a resort by the same name off of Grande Anse beach. It’s a lovely spot on the water, where we watched the chef from the table as he expertly prepared our order. Andrew had LionFish, which was good but boney and I had swordfish with a mango chutney that was delish.
The next day, we did some provisioning with our taxi driver buddy, Short Boss, who we’ve known for 3 season’s now and has been very helpful picking up fuel, taking us grocery shopping, etc. That afternoon, moved the boat to a mooring off St. George’s in preparation for a morning departure to the next island north. From our perch, we saw our friends Todd & Cathy (s/v Lickety) arrive in the rain after their 11 day, 2300 nautical mile, transatlantic journey from Cabo Verde, West Africa to Grenada!!
On Jan 29th, we had a weather window for a nice sail to Tyrell Bay in Carriacou, where we spent one night and checked out of Grenada the next day. Our next stop was Charlestown Bay in Canouan, where we would check into St. Vincent & The Grenadines. Upon arrival on shore, we found the island buzzing with reggae music and construction activity… a pleasant surprise from what we heard was going on in these islands after hurricane Beryl! While driving from Customs (in Charlestown Bay) to the airport on the other side of the island to check in with Immigration, our taxi driver explained that a wealthy Englishman has provided funds, equipment and expertise to help rebuild Canouan and Union island, where he has interests.
That evening, we caught up with new friends we met in Trinidad, Eric & Deanne (s/v Touch of Grey) and met their friends, Thane & Brenda, for cocktails on their boat, Crazy Water, followed by a fun dinner at Soho Resort on shore.
The next few days we decided to sit out some crappy weather before the longish day trip to Bequia. I enjoyed long walks on the beach, meeting goats and visiting with the locals to learn more about the recovery of their island. Here’s one of my buddies overlooking a view of the harbor with Billy Ruff’n in the distance.
On Feb 2nd, we had another weather window for the sail from Canouan to Bequia, where we spent a few days walking around town and visiting one of our favorite eating joints: Jack’s on the beach. Our goal was to pick the weather windows that would get us to Martinique in time to clean the boat and provisioning for our next visitors so two days later, we were sailing again, this time to Kearton’s Bay in St. Vincent. We had never been in this bay before so it was helpful to have Chris Doyle’s Guide and other online resources recommending Nziko as a handler for managing the anchorage.
Nziko is an enterprising young man who at 21 years of age, has been in the business 10 years, helping cruisers secure a stern mooring, visit customs, etc. He’s so busy, he hired Jonathan to help us with these tasks, while he was taking visitors on island tours and signing folks up to have a home cooked meal at his mom’s house. Later that afternoon, Nziko swam out to introduce himself and collect payment for the mornings. We enjoyed a quiet and safe evening in this pretty bay.
Feb 5th presented the opportunity to go the 54 miles from Kearton’s Bay, St. Vincent to Rodney Bay, St. Lucia. We had a nice reaching sail in 15 knot winds most of the day until we had to turn on the motor for the last 10 miles. When we arrived in Rodney Bay, we saw the beautiful Oyster recently purchased by some old friends, Edwin & Karen (s/v Frog’s Leap). We motored up close to say hello; whistling and hollering to get their attention, when (clunk!), the engine cut out!! Andrew quickly restarted it and (clunk!!), it stopped again. After the third try, he looked at the fuel gauge on our day tank and yelled for me to drop anchor. We were close to our friends boat but drifting back so I waited a moment to drift behind them while Andrew quickly filled the day tank. The anchor held and we were restarted in time to avoid collision with a catamaran down wind. Our friends never emerged so we weighed anchor and motored off nonchalantly to anchor at a safe distance!
We connected with Edwin & Karen and discovered that they needed a ride in to Customs before they picked up their new dinghy motor. We went by the next morning in our dinghy, visited their new (to them) boat, confessed our near altercation and rode to shore to check-in and have breakfast at Cafe Ole. I introduced Karen to my favorite juice shot called “Booster”, made with turmeric, ginger, honey, lime & coconut water. I lived on them here during COVID!!
After visits with good friends at more of our favorite haunts in Rodney Bay (Elena’s for pizza, Bosun’s for Thai), we decided to get ahead of some looming weather and set sail for St. Anne, Martinique on Feb 9th. It was one of the best days so far this season, reaching at 8.4 knots (on average) in 17 to 24 knots of wind; gusts to 27 and manageable 4 to 7 foot seas. We arrived in time to anchor at the back of the pack but holding strong with the Starlink deployed to watch the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Chiefs in Super Bowl VIX!!!
Our guests arrive in 3 days so we’ll be getting Billy Ruff’n in ship shape and enjoying the sunsets from our back porch until then!
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