St Lucia

Vieux Fort (St Lucia)







First stop after St Vncent was at the south end of St Lucia at Vieux Fort which is a very busy local town town 'without a tourest bone in its body' according to the guide book, and it seemed to be right. We enjoyed our few days there with cheap food and drink and not a boat boy in sight which was a refreshing change. Not so sure about the shoes though, I spotted a sign saying 'Ladies shoes only $29 buy one get one free', first time I've seen that option, must be a one legged person's dream shoe shop.



On a disappointing note, the day we got up to leave, the painter (line, for those of a land lover persuasion) from our spare inflatable dingly ( we had been using the spare while we were repairing the main one) was all that was hanging on the back of the boat..............no boat attached! We had towed it some considerable way some days before so the knot would have been really tight on the boat end so we can only assume someone has stolen it during the night.





Soufriere (St Lucia)







A two hour sail to Soufriere Bay which is in the Pitons, A breathtaking anchorage in the Bay and some great snorkelling around the point. Met up with Andy and Sue again on Spruce and decided to share a car hire and drive around the Island.







Rapau anchored in the beautifull Pitons

















snorkelling at the Pitons






It was an open top jeep type of car and we drove clockwise around the island stopping at a little village called Anse Le Raye and chatting to a nice lady called Greeta who was selling bread on the street and very excited that we would put her on the blog. She told us her life story, 8 kids, dead husband and still baking bread for a living at 68. She even tried to give us some bread for free which put back our faith in people here.






Greeta the bread maker












Coffee stop





Stopped for lunch in a one horse town called Micoud (no horses only chicken and sad dogs) and got very cheap lunch at a rum shack (bit early for the rum though even though we could see the panadol on the shelf with the alcolhol!)









The handy Panadol!







We drove on down the east side of the island to Lattille Falls were we chatted to a Rasta man who was living off the land and all the lovely fruit and veg by putting a homemade ram pump (Andy assures me people will be impressed with this!) onto the falls and generating electricity to pump water around to the crops etc. We then went for a secret walk in the rainforest (we should have had a guide but hey had all gone home when we got there so we snuck in). We named Sue the Banana Bandid the way she sloped into a wooded shack we passed and picked up the stray bananas as we drove past the Banana plantation! All in all a very nice day.






The secret walk








Keith can't communicate via a coconut he realises!
























Andy and the Rasta man








Us at Latille Falls

















Banana Plantation




Keith spent a few days dealing with the never-ending problem of trying to get the SSB radio to work with help from Andy who is a wiz at these things. Still no real joy though. We really need this to be working so we can get weather forecasts during the return crossing.


Marigot Bay

An overnight stop at Marigot Bay where a British Admiral hid his fleet from the French by disguising the masts as coconut trees by tying coconut fronds in the rigging, the french reputedly sailed right by! The Bay is well hidden from view, but it would be impossible to hide here now as the mumber of tripper boats coming in and out of the Bay is astonishing and it is certainly not a quiet place!











Marigot Bay



Rodney Bay (St Lucia)

Another couple of hours sail saw us enter Rodney Bay, home of the famous maina were the ARC rally boats finish. Pigeon Island stands to the north end of the bay and was the main base of the British Navy in this area in the old days, apparently because you can see Martininque on most days which was the French main base






Pigeon Island on left of picture












Rodney Bay is very commercialised, but it is a premier yachting haven and we needed to get work done on the alternator and one of the reefing lines needs changing. We were there during St Lucia's independence day (1979 they gained independence from Britain). We didn't see much in the way of celebrating in this area, though we were told there were parades in the capital town of Castries.





St Lucia Yacht Club near our anchor spot, had to try it out......several times






There is a desperate water shortage in St Lucia at the moment as the rainy season brought no rain last year and they have no desalination facitities. We have been conserving water as much as possible but we needed to have some jobs done, so a trip into the marina for the night was needed, and they have water.......or so we thought! The day we wanted to go in there was no water to the marina. The next day there was, so we went in and managed to fill our tanks, get a problem with the reefing system sorted and some other jobs, all at considerable expense. Still not got the spare alternator sorted unfortunately so another job still outstanding for our next port of call.

St Vincent

St Vincent (Young Island Cut)



St Vincent is a very un-touristy place and very poor. We needed to get the main alternator fixed (we are using the spare) and the anchor winch and do some repairs. So it was onto the local bus which was the usual rolleroaster ride at 80 miles an hour round blind bends where people grabbed their children out of the way and dogs were used to jumping out of the road pretty quick. We held on for dear life as usual while the locals just gaze out of the window and don't seem to notice anything remotely dangerous might happen!




























Repairs on dingy


I was waiting for Keith in the alternator fixing place having a quiet beer on this quiet lane where the peace was shattered about every 30-60 seconds by a car or bus hurtling past as if it was on a motorway. When suddenly some local men set up a cricket game in the middle of the road and began to play! To my amazement the traffic never once slowed but just careered in and out of the game while the players stopped throwing the ball......sometimes! (I only had to duck once).

The cricket lane!

Sunset in Young Island Cut

Andy and Sue whom we know from our sailing club were also in St. Vincent. We had a good couple of nights with them in Canaouau and kept up the tradition here in St. Vincent having a sing-a-long with Sue's guitar one evening (she was playing of course). I took them both for a dive which they had never done before and they were brilliently enthusiastic about it afterwards talking of doing a course etc.

Andy enjoying his dive

Sue and me

Andy and Sue's boat 'Spruce'

Wallilabou Bay

With succesful result on the anchor winch and unsuccessful one with the alternator, we left Young Island Cut and headed further north up the leeward side of St vincent ot Wallilabou Bay.

The boat boys in St Vincent row out to try to get you to enlist their help from a couple of miles out but not using outboard motors like most of the other places, but rowing like mad. They then row back alongside of you hoping to be able to help you to tie up when you get there.

Boat boy giving us a hand

Those of you who are fans of Pirates of the Caribbean would probably recognise the bay for it is here that Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead man's Chest was filmed. The buildings were built by Disney as part of the set and some buildings were built on top of exisitng buildings to make a re-creation of the pirate town Port Roayl during the 18th Century. It it really is a typically Caribbean bay.

Port Royal re-creation at Wallilabou Bay


We walked to the waterfall at Wallilabou were we had water torture! Great to have fresh water, if a little bit of a battering......but worth it!!

Grenadines and north to St Vincent

Hog Island, Grenada

We stayed in Grenada for 3 weeks in the end as it was such a nice place and we got a bit settled. We moved from Prickly Bay to Hog Island (visiting Phare Bleu Bay in between to get hold of the electrician for an electrical problem).

Keith even went a little way up the back stay to fix something which is unheard of with his vertigo. You would have thought he had climbed Everest, but I suppose in his mind he had really.

Hog Island bay was so protected from the winds that it was flat calm in there. There was a tiny uninhabited island where local man (Roger) had set up a bar and came out in his boat everyday and sold beer. On Sundays he had a BBQ and a reggae band we visited the BBQ two Sundays on the trot before we finally tore ourselves away from Grenada!

Rogers Bar on Hog Island

Hog Island in the distance

Carriacou

A 7 hour sail back north up the chain took us to Tyrill Bay in Carriacou which we had stopped at overnight with Pete and Jacquie on the way down, this time we visited the island which was sparsely populated with goats just about everywhere (Very good idea I think, first it saves getting the lawn mower out, and secondly you can have goat stew or curry eventually!) We took the dinghy to explore the mangrove swamps. People put their boats in here to protect them from the hurricaines, we could see that some never come back for them!

Here we also had to clear out of Grenada as we are into a different country another 3 hours up north at the next island.

Goats everywhere!

Sunset at Carriacou

Entrance to the Carriacou yacht club!

Union Island

A small very poor island (not reflected in the price of everything). On provisioning we found it to be the most expensive island we have visited.

Rapau in Union Island

There is a tiny island on a reef on the edge of Clifton Bay on which a guy has built a bar made out of conch shells he calls it Happy Island. We had a beer in there, but just one as it was double the price we had been paying in Grenada so we wouldn’t call it particularly happy.

Happy Island

After stocking up on victuals we went around the corner to Chatham Bay which is lovely and remote but with the inevitable boat boys coming round in their boats to flog you anything from bread to fish to jewellery. They wanted 15 EC dollars (around £3.75) for a baguette so I have now taken to baking bread again. I am still experimenting. One lot I made was called galley bread which turned out like a cross between bread and crumpet. The next loaf was left a bit long to rise while we went out snorkelling, it looked like a breathing alien I had to squeeze it into the oven. It then burnt on top but was a bit squidgy in the middle. I intend to keep practicing though at £3.75 a loaf. Water too has become an extortionate price so we are now back to washing dishes in sea water and getting washed in the sea off the back of the boat, (shampoo lathers up well in sea water). The salt will either give us glorious natural skin, or we look like a couple of old salty dogs by the time we get back (no comments please!)

The alien loaf

There was good snorkelling in the bay but it was amongst where there were many pelicans diving into the water to catch fish. Keith was a bit nervous he would get a pelican diving up his ar..e but he was quite safe, not even a bird would want to do that!

Tobago Cays

The wind blew up above 25 knots so we stayed in Chatham Bay for 3 days before moving to Tobago Cays (which is nowhere near Tobago incidentally) only about 7 miles from Union Island. That was after Keith got over the shock of finding that one of the bolts holding on the alternator had sheered right through when he was doing his engine checks to leave. Luckily he found a spare bold the right size to fix it.

Tobago Cays

Tobago Cays is a designated national park which is beautiful only it was a bit too windy while we were there unfortunately. We snorkelled off the Turtle area and were amazed by the number of turtles eating the sea grass there who weren’t at all perturbed by humans swimming around them. It was too windy and rough to take the dinghy over to horseshoe reef to snorkel there sadly and the forecast was not due to change till later the next week so it was too long to stay around longer.

Upon leaving Tobago Cays the anchor winch stopped working so Keith now has to use muscle power until we can get it fixed.










Canouan

A lumpy 2hour passage took us to Canouan and we anchored in Ramau Bay where Sue and Andy from our sailing club on ‘Spruce’ were, plus their son and his girlfriend visiting. We invited them and a family cruising from Denmark to come over for sundowners which proved to be a jolly affair and after a few rum punches, for those of you that know the song, we now have the Danish people going round singing the Focal Song!

There was a pretty reef nearby we all snorkelled on the next day.

This sleepy little island is a product of the ever-changing development process which is happening to all these islands. Half of it has been taken over by Italian developers who have transformed half of the island into a big fancy hotel complex and now even the locals cannot access half of the island which has resulted in some understandable disputes. Even the best beach on the island where some of the locals made their living has been put out of bounds. Andy’s son went spear fishing with Glen, one of the young locals who sells his catch to make a living. We all bought some lovely fish (red snapper and ‘old wife’) from him for a much more reasonable price than we have previously paid. He had a lovely puffy fish which disturbed me a little, but he said that it is difficult to catch one of these and he can get a good price for it as the meat is superb. He also told us that he is hoping to join the British Royal Navy as Canouan is part of St Vincent which is an independent state within the commonwealth.

Glen the fisherman

St Vincent

We sailed a bumpy windward passage around 5 hours to Bequia stopping overnight to have the spray hood repaired, then another 2 hours on to St Vincent.