March 2008
St. Lucia - St Vincent - Bequia - Tobago Cays - Mayreau - Palm Island - Union Island - Petit St. Vincent - Grenada
The first of the month found Gypsy Dancer moving from Soufriere a short distance round to the anchorage between / below The Pitons in St Lucia. These 2,500' high volcanic plugs are overwhelming and awesomely picturesque, providing one of the most stunning anchorages in the Caribbean. The hotel there is a great place to watch the sunset over your boat as you sip your sundowners in the terrace bar overlooking the manicured tropical gardens.
From St. Lucia one of the longer inter-island passages takes you, in 37 miles, to Cumberland Bay on St. Vincent which we made in seven hours. It would have been faster but we tried to sail it all and the wind can be very erratic in the lee of the islands.
Approaching St. Vincent we saw the temporary shelters of the marijuana farmers dotted around the steep an inaccessible hills.
We spent one day at Cumberland Bay. We walked steeply up to the local village which has great views over the bay and an aggressive begging grandmother demanding peremptorily "Give me 5 dollars."
St Vincent is a relatively poor and undeveloped island and security there is a concern for cruisers.
From Cumberland we sailed round to Wallilibou Bay, famous for being one of the film-sets for 'Pirates Of The Caribbean' but the film set is falling to bits and is not being maintained so a unique tourist attraction is being wasted.
From here we hired 'Speedy' a local boat-boy / guide to take us up the 3,000' active volcano, called like most of them 'Soufriere', on the north of the island.
A guide is highly recommended here not only because the path isn't obvious, but because it passes through some of the marijuana growing areas and the farmers can be rather touchy about visitors.
The walk was superb. Starting off with a mile along a beach and then cutting up through a dry river bed before branching out and climbing ridges through dense vegetation and out onto scrubby hillside above the tree line.
Speedy was fuelled all the way by joint after joint as he puffed his way up the steep slopes. The top ridge was very windy as the trades were accelerated by the mountains. At the top we looked down into the caldera with it's more recent dome of shattered blocks steaming and smoking in the centre.
On the way down we called in to one of the farms where Speedy knew the farmer who was happy to give us a tour and share with us some of the finer points of ganja cultivation. Some of the plants were as big as Christmas trees.
He also grew a wide variety of vegetables to eat while the ganja plants matured! All in all this was a fantastic day and a very interesting window into the alternative economy of this poor island.
We also took a trip to Kingstown to have a look round the capital. The 'dollar bus' trip back was a nightmare of idiotic driving in an overloaded minibus. Life is cheap here.
It was a bit of a relief to sail to Bequia, 18 miles south and a different world. This, the most northerly of The Grenadines, is a much more relaxing place and a major tourist centre. What you lose on the crowded swings you gain on the facilities roundabout.
Everything a cruiser needs is there; a choice of good anchorages, good food shops, free wifi, chandlers, a good beach and island walks. Bequia is one of those places that's hard to leave!
We spent 5 days there before moving on to the superb turquoise waters of Tobago Cays where we anchored behind Horseshoe Reef and spent a couple of days exploring the small islands and snorkelling. As well as green turtles (which aren't green) we managed to see a small nurse shark and many other tropical fish darting amongst the coal heads.
We were chased out of the Cays by a forecast 'north swell event'. Thde forecast was for 18' swells in the northern Caribbean and 10 - 12' feet further south where we were. This happens when a large depression forms in the North Atlantic and the effects can be felt as far south as the South American coast.
There are few anchorages in the Grenadines that are protected from swells from the north so we chose to head south sooner and tuck into one of the south coast bays on Grenada.
But we had a couple of days warning so we set off to sail to Mayreau where we spent a night in the perfect Salt Whistle Bay before moving on to Palm Island, a resort island with a good beach.
We checked out of SVG (St. Vincent & The Grenadines) at Union Island and headed across to Petite St. Vincent (PSV) - another resort island with a great turquoise water anchorage and easy dinghy access to Petite Martinique where we went for a day to look round and came across a beach-based boat builder's yard.
From PSV we sailed 44 miles down the windward (i.e. eastern) coasts of Carriacou and Grenada making landfall at St. David's where we cleared in - eventually (when the immigration officer turned up) and then went on to Saga Cove in Clark's Court Bay as we found St David's too deep and the holding poor in the soft mud bottom.
The last few days of March were spent in Clarkes Court Bay, Hog Island and Prickly Bay.
Unfortunately Jacky's three months on GD were up and she flew home at the end of March. It has been a very relaxing trip since January idling down-island, visiting new places and re-visiting some favourite ones.