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.