Laying Low in Grenada

On Sep 24th, 2013 Published By B.J.

Last week we had to go apply for a visa extension here in Grenada.  That’s a first for us – staying in one place long enough that we’ve worn out the initial visa given to us when we cleared in to the country.  In Grenada they give you three months which we passed on September 16th.

Why so long?  The major reason for a long stay here is that it is summer, and with summer comes the Hurricane Season.  Starting in June and running until October it is the time of greatest risk for tropical storms and hurricanes.  Our insurance company frowns at us spending time in a hurricane and in fact puts severe restrictions on our location as a result.  We can actually BE anywhere we want to in the summer, but if our boat gets damaged or lost in a tropical storm inside the “exclusion zone” we will have no coverage at all which would be pretty back breaking financially.  So it pays to stay near someplace you can run to safety.  Our particular insurance policy states that we need to be South of 11°50″ North latitude in the event of a storm – that line is just North of Trinidad.  Grenada is about 80-90 nautical miles North of Trinidad, so in the event of a storm it is less than a day’s sail to the area where – even if we are not safe from a storm – at least the insurance policy will fix the boat if she is damaged.  Although Hurricanes do visit Grenada from time to time they are very infrequent this far South.

Mt. Carmel Upper Falls

We’re not the only ones in this situation of course, Grenada has a large and vibrant cruising community during the summer as hundreds of boats come here for shelter from the weather North of us.  Many boats are pulled for the season and stored on land while their owners return home.  But there are many like us, where home IS the boat and these cruisers stick around to enjoy the island.  There are a a good number of children, lots of social events, and a fair amount to do.  Much like our extended time in St. Martin we’ve fallen into a happy routine of doing school, hanging with friends and occasionally checking out the charms of the island.

Will & Danielle sliding on the lower falls at Mt. Carmel

Grenada is certainly not without many charms, the weather is warm and the water pretty clear.  There are beaches, mountains, volcanoes, water falls, and of course warm water and water sports.  Grenada is known as the “Isle of Spices” and with good reason.  It is the second largest producer of Nutmeg in the world (and it’s associated spice, Mace, which is the red vein like coating around the nut), as well as a producer of a wide variety of other spices.  There’s no excuse for using old dried cinnamon sticks in your curry when you can get fragrant cinnamon bark still damp from the tree!

Sightseeing

One great day trip we took was to the Mt. Carmel Falls, which is a stretch of river with two separate falls on it.  We piled onto a bus and made the long and winding trip through the foothills into the mountains where we got off at the trail head for the falls.  The walk is quite short and easy, and the path littered with mangoes and beautiful vegetation.  The upper falls are scenic and the water breaks up into a cooling mist as it cascades down more than seventy feet.

A short walk back up the path and a fork down the river takes you to the lower falls.  As falls they aren’t as impressive – as you can see from the picture they are more like a long rock slide.  Which is exactly what a group of local kids were using it for when we arrived.  Will and Danielle quickly joined them, learning how to ride the falls from the top all the way down to the big splash in the pool at the bottom.  All of the local kids were very warm and friendly, taking time to show our kids how to get the best ride from the top and how to get back up again quickly.  One particularly charming young girl was fascinated by Kathy and determined that she needed her hair braided on the spot while the older boys roughhoused and splashed in the falls.

Danielle and friends walking on the Cocoa Beans.
This is just one of many steps in the processing.

One very popular way to see the island and the sights is by guided tour, and a friend of ours arranged a taxi bus for another day to visit the Seven Sisters falls, and the Belmont Estates cocoa plantation.   The plantation provides the organically grown cocoa beans for the Grenada Chocolate Company as well as growing other spices and local products.  While I always knew that the path from Cocoa Bean to chocolate bar was pretty convoluted I had no idea there were quite so many steps.  Whoever figured out this process did mankind a wonderful favor – all the drying and rolling and roasting and grinding; it’s certainly not something just anyone would have thought up!

Local fruits, vegetables and spices.
I am still intimidated by cooking many of these.

The array of spices and foods available and produced here on Grenada is quite intimidating.  Many of these same fruits and vegetables are available on other islands but it makes them no less daunting!  While we’ve mastered a few, and a few are familiar we’ve still not yet figured out things like the Soursop, breadfruit, or any of the local root vegetables.  The tour of the plantation gave us a lot of information about the history of cocoa and agriculture on the island.  And plenty of samples of the Grenada Chocolate Company’s excellent products!  For those of you reading this within range of a Whole Foods, you are lucky enough to have access to one of the only places where the chocolate is exported too.  It’s worth the extra premium in price to give it a try, if you are fond of dark chocolates.  If you are looking for milk chocolate here you will just get a puzzled look in return.

Grand Etang Lake

On the same tour that took us to the Belmont Estates we also stopped at some of the famed Seven Sisters falls for a nice hike and a refreshing swim.  Beautiful falls with two nice swimming pools under them, unfortunately none of us brought our cameras because we were all planning to get wet!

The Grand Etang National Park is another must see tourist spot on the island and very popular with visitors.  The park is centered around the Grand Etang lake, a good sized body of water formed in the basin of a volcano.  Surrounding the lake is the park with numerous trails that went their way through the rain forest to a number of scenic overlooks.  Supposedly there are monkeys around this area, we didn’t see any.  Our visit was pretty muddy, so we didn’t complete a lot of trails so much as went as far as our sensibilities and desire to get muddy permitted.  It’s a lovely spot, and the Grand Etang House across from the park entrance offers a decent and affordable lunch.

Water Sports

The founder of the Grenada Chocolate Company, the late Mott Green, was a visionary who envisioned a company producing organic chocolate with fair labor practices – something almost unheard of in much of the chocolate industry.  While he could be eccentric, one of the more interesting things he did was deliver his chocolate to the nearby island of Carriacou by small sailboat, in fact a Hobie Catamaran.  Following Mott Green’s untimely accidental death this past June, the Petite Calvigny Yacht Club acquired his boat for their members use.

The PCYC also sponsored periodic “Catamaran Match Racing” events.  Prior to acquiring this boat they had to borrow boats which made the event more difficult, though now they can use another one that is on the same site as the club’s.  We attended two this summer, at the first one in July we decided to join the club for the sailing and the social aspects.

Kathy and Will sailing the same boat that Mott Green
would sail 30 miles to Carriacou to deliver Chocolate.

Match Racing is a head to head competition between two boats.  Much like the America’s Cup, without the billionaires and seventy-two foot boats that sail on hydrofoils at three times the wind speed.  In the PCYC event they drew lots to set up an elimination bracket.  Unfortunately in the first event Will drew a tough competitor and he made a big mistake at the start.  Against a weaker competitor he might have recovered, but not this fellow so he was eliminated in the first round.  I made it to the second.   It didn’t matter though – it was a fun day of hanging out with other racers, eating burgers and drinking cold beer and watching the races.

We learned watching the races, and by the time my race rolled around we figured out how to avoid Will’s mistake.  He took it more to heart – since we’d joined the club we could use the Hobie Cat whenever we wanted he spent some time figuring out how to avoid mistakes, make better starts, and get more speed out of it.  It paid of.

For the second event I drew the fellow that won the whole event in July…not good for me.  I made him sweat the first leg and he didn’t really get clearly ahead of me until more than half the race was done.  Will did much better.  Of thirty two initial competitors, Will handily won all of his races until the semifinal round with just four competitors left.  Will’s semifinal race was a tight one, he started out ahead but lost position after a crossing when his competitor – the guy who eventually won the whole thing – got into some better wind earlier.  He ended up losing by a mere 10 seconds, one of the closest races of the day.  Slight changes in the race and he could have won the whole event.  Again good times were had by all, and Will surprised quite a few people because after his ignominious adventure in the first race no one was expecting him as a contender to win it all.

There have been many other wet adventures here in Grenada as well.  We completed our quest to find a reasonably priced wind surfer for Will and he has been working to learn that challenging new sport.  We took him for a lesson and he had no problem mastering the beginner level board there.  His board though is smaller, less buoyant and trickier.  The upside is it will be much faster and more fun than a beginner board when he masters it, but the learning curve is steeper, and involves a lot of splashing and falling in the water as he practices.

From what I can tell much of Danielle’s free time is spend in free form play with other kids of a variety of ages – from playing on the beach to sailing around in a boat loaded with other kids to playing king of the hill with a surfboard.  We’re not sure what she does all day every day with her friends, but she always arrives back at the boat wet, tired, and happy.

Social Life

As I mentioned earlier there are a lot of cruisers here.  So there is a lot going on with social functions almost every day.  The waterfront business and “Cruiser’s Bars” also have a lot of specials and activities going on, from happy hours and special priced nights for food to trivia nights and live music.  Some highlights include:

Donut Boat.  Not winning any speed records, but it has
a nifty spot to hold a case of beer in the middle

Trivia Night   OK, we’re blowing our own horn here and we only went once.  But Trivia Night at Prickly Bay Marina is a hotly contested event and we showed up with just Kathy and me to compete against teams of up to seven people.  We picked up another fellow name Bill from a team that had too many people and the three of us went on to win the whole thing, beating out the usual contending regulars.  Valuable prizes!  We won a case of beer, three pizzas and a two hour tour on one of the marina’s “Donut Boats” which are these marginally ridiculous contraptions consisting a a huge round boat with a canopy and a tiny outboard motor.  Unfortunately Bill had to leave Grenada before we could redeem the prizes but it was actually a fun couple of hours motoring around Prickly Bay in this silly thing.

Pizza/Restaurant Specials  More than a couple of times some other kid boats have arranged to do some of the food special nights – Half Price Pizza, Buy on Get One Free night, etc.  Once we pulled together a group of 32 people (more than half children) to take some buses over for this.  I think we made the restaurant’s night if we didn’t traumatize all the “normals” there.

GO ORACLE TEAM USA!!!

America’s Cup!  What a blast it has been to watch this spectacular event with other cruisers!  Several of the local bars have arranged daily showings of the Cup races which people are turning out for standing room only viewing.  It could be that the bars have gotten smart enough to coordinate the start of happy hour with the start of racing, but the crowd has a fun festive feel as we watch this exciting event together almost every day for the last few weeks.  It’s still going on, with what might be the most stunning comeback in any sport history under way.

Being near all these like minded people – other cruisers – affords lots of opportunities to make new friends and enjoy off the cuff social events.  The kids are enjoying  having other children around, and the adults are enjoying company as well.

Moving On

Sadly, out time in Grenada is drawing to a close.  In October we are meeting family in Trinidad and that is a place we do want to spend some time as well.  At the end of hurricane season we are making our way to Panama to pass through the Panama Canal so when we leave Grenada it will be for good.

That’s one of the sad parts.  We’ve met a lot of nice people here.  But most of them aren’t headed to the Pacific, they tend to stay in the Caribbean, bouncing back up the islands again when the threat of hurricanes has past.  Going through the Panama Canal is usually a one way trip, or at least it seems that way because when you do it you do not return for several years.  The Pacific is a huge place and the prevailing winds take you on to the South Pacific and French Polynesia.  Getting back to Panama from there is a long upwind haul that very few people do.

So for us, unlike most of the folks here, when we leave Goodbye will really mean Goodbye, because we won’t see them again for many years if we ever cross paths again.

Posted in Grenada, hurricane, Water Fall | 1 Comment

Carnival in Grenada!

On Aug 19th, 2013 Published By B.J.

Yes, I’m breaking chronological order, but better to be posting than not at all…so better late than never!

Carnival in Grenada, or Spicemas,  culminates in a series of festive parades and parties in early August.  Like many Caribbean carnivals, this one actually runs for quite some time with events, concerts, competitions and attractions starting weeks before the costume parades – it actually kicks off on June 1st and runs more than two months.  The final days of the festivities are a Monday and Tuesday which are national holidays and everything is closed.  Some businesses on the parade routes go so far as to board up their windows, just in case.

Some of these competitions are for the best local band (in the traditional sense of ‘music act’) in various categories such as Calypso and Soca.  Soca is the Grenadan version a hybrid of Calypso music and techno dance hip-hop styles.  Other “Bands” are not musical acts at all, but groups of dancers garbed in brightly colored costumes that compete each year for the best band.  Took us a little while to figure out the difference between a “band” and a “Band”.

Each Band comes up with a theme, and the task of the band is how best to represent theme with costumes, pageantry, and dancers.  Some of this year’s themes included “Moods and Attitudes”, “The Reef” (the Band of the Year winner), “Essence of Life” among others.  Some of the groups feature children, all of them feature skimpy outfits, feathers, sparkles and glitter.

Some of the groups have men and women, some are apparently all or mostly all women.  In some cases the grouping of the men and women is thematic, for example the for “Essence of Life” theme the “Affection” dancers were the only group where the men equaled the number of women – the point being that you need both men and women for that part of life.

There are also “Bands” that are associated with villages throughout Grenada; the didn’t seem to participate in the big Pageant Mas competition but they were colorful and in some cases themed as well. They might well be competing, as non-Grenadans at our first Carnival some of the order of events and proceedings were a bit confusing.

The major event we missed (because we slept too late and really regret it) was the J’Ouvert parade early Monday morning.  This is the Jab-Jab or “Devil Mas” band parade, and it runs early in the morning starting before dawn.  The parade participants cover themselves in oil, dark molasses and paint and don fearsome horns and chains and devilish garb.  Apparently it is a raucous and rowdy affair, and much of the paint, molasses and oil that starts on the Jab-Jab bands ends up on the crowds.  Evidence of the J’Ouvert

One of the village bands

parade was clear with splotches of paint and black smears in the streets and sidewalks.

All of these things start on Island Time.  For example a parade might be scheduled to “Start” at 1:00 p.m.  Anyone in the know isn’t going to bother to get on the parade route much before 3:30 because there’s not a thing to see.  Apparently the “Start” time is really the time for the marchers to start showing up at their meeting points and putting on their costumes.  A real Start time for the parade where we were was around 4:00.  And the parades didn’t exactly run with Macy’s Thanksgiving Day precision, they tended more towards fits and starts with long periods of stopping.  We later learned that since we were right around the corner from a judging station the stops in the parade were caused by the Bands performing for the judges.

I don’t know about J’Ouvert, but all of the rest of these parades bring their own sound.  And by sound, I mean SOUND.  Each of the larger bands has a truck which is a mobile speaker platform.  Each has big gas generator run the speaker stacks, you can not hear it.  The volume on all of these is set to eleven and then some.  In my youth I attended a Judas Priest concert and sat on the floor about eleven rows back from the band.  From what I could tell, the noise of these bands was louder.  At least it’s closer, and the inverse square law had your diaphragm rattling in time with the Soca rhythms in a way that one of the louder heavy metal bands in the world could not achieve.  Fortunately we were prepared from attending the Carnivale in St. Martin and brought cotton to stuff in our ears so we were tinnitus free at the end of each day.

Monday starts with J’Ouvert, then proceeds to Pageant Mas – the parade of bands and elaborate costumes.  Monday Night is…Monday Night Mas.  We weren’t sure what this was and thought it was the Parade of Bands (which is actually Tuesday).  This wasn’t supposed to start until eat least 8:30 at night and run from Grand Anse to St. George’s until late in the evening.  When we started hearing on the boat (about half a mile off shore…) we could see thousands of flickering, sparkling lights weaving their way ashore.  We decided that in spite of all being tired we wanted to at least see what it was about.

A music truck approaches in the distance at Monday Night Mas

It turns out it was basically a long, crowded slow moving street dance.  People were almost all wearing things that flashed, glowed or blinked.  And there were LOTS of people, this was the most crowded Carnival event we attended.

Stretched along the parade routes were several of the music trucks, blasting Soca music at skull crushing volumes.  There were DJ’s on the trucks, and some had Soca stars that gave live performances.  Food and rum vendors lined the parade route.  Each music truck was preceded by a small cluster of dancers, and followed by a large swarm of sparkling, dancing revelers.  This was a street ‘Jump Up’ – a party and a revel and it did go into the late hours.  Apparently each of the trucks was also a “band” of some sort though, and there was a judging competition for these as well though we were all a but bedeviled as to what the criteria could be since they seemed to frequently be playing the same music and had no discernible difference between them outside of the DJ patter and which live singers they had on board.

After a while we’d had enough; none of us has developed an affinity for the local music yet and there weren’t any real costumes or pageantry to this affair so we slipped back to the boat by midnight.  Early, by carnival standards.

Tuesday morning the island felt…quiet.  Many of the carnival revelers had been going full steam from the night before J’Ouvert until the end of Monday Night Mas with only a few rests in between.  Everyone needed their beauty sleep before the final events.

The final event was the Parade of the Bands.  After what we learned we realized that this would likely feature most of the same groups we saw during Pageant Mas the day before, but we headed in anyway just to be sure we weren’t missing anything new.  If nothing else I wasn’t too happy with my elevated location for taking pictures on Monday (and Fedex & Coke could send me some product placement money…) and I figured some street level shots would come out better.  It did turn out to be the same bands, but we walked to the judging platform, and there we learned a lot more about what the bands themes meant and how they were expressed.  And the pictures were better from the street.

Posted in Carnival, Carnivale, Grenada | 1 Comment

Getting Back in the Saddle

On Jul 16th, 2013 Published By B.J.

OK, OK!  To all my friends harassing me on social media I’ll stop wasting time out there and update the blog already!

We’ve been in Grenada now for close to a month.  I’ve got a few more trip reports to do, such as our visit to Union Island and checking in to Grenada on the island of Carriacou.  I’ll get to them.  You don’t want me to rush though, since we’re now fairly parked and I now can start regaling you with stories of broken boat bits and repairs instead of cute pictures of turtles!

So in the next day or three I will get my last collection of travel pictures together to bring you up to date, and I can start telling you about Grenada.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Tobago Cays – Maybe Our Favorite Place Yet

On Jun 22nd, 2013 Published By B.J.
Turtles-In-Bequia-ans-Tabago-Keys,-with-other-stuff-181
Sailing the Pudgy by the turtle sanctuary.

Breathtaking.  If we had to pick one word for the Tobago Cays that would be it.

As we left Mayreau and sailed closer to the Cays we were more and more entranced.  Yes, the water is really that color.  Actually the camera can not do it justice, I don’t have the skill in Photoshop to balance the colors just so to really reflect the stunning colors in the water, sky and sand.  The closer we got the more enthusiastic and excited the children became.  When we finally dropped the anchor within minutes the kids were deploying “the fleet” with the fervor of a combat crew deploying for an beachhead assault at Normandy.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Pudgy, the kayak, and the main dinghy deployed so quickly and energetically.

One thing that makes the Tobago Cays such an interesting place to be is the protection afforded by the horseshoe reef that encloses it.  The trades blow constantly, but the reef breaks up all the seas leaving a relatively calm and quiet anchorage amidst the open natural beauty.  The boat stays cool in the breezes and you can see for miles.

The Tobago Cays consists of a handful of small Cays (islands, except without any natural water source on them) surrounded by a number of beautiful reefs.  The water is a clear as we’ve seen it anywhere in the islands yet.  Near the Cay of Baradel is a turtle sanctuary where you can snorkel with Green Turtles as then feed and swim around.  Each Cay has a nice sand beach on it.  With the steady breezes this is heaven for someone like Will, with good sailing and places to explore on shore.  Snorkeling and turtles and reefs – Danielle was ready to go before we had the hook down. In fact she was so excited to be here she even agreed to go camping on an island with Will if it was permitted in the park.

IMG_0719Reefs

The large horseshoe reef that surrounds most of the Cays is where the most visually stunning snorkeling can be found.  Most of the protected side of the reef is 7-10 feet deep which is perfect snorkeling depth.  The reef itself is a delightful maze of paths over white sand bottoms through winding corals.  The reefs are a constantly display of colorful fish and intriguing structures.  

IMG_0732Exploring these paths provided some fascinating findings; reef fish, corals, sponges and other sea life.  As we approached the Elkhorn coral in the picture to the right I got a ghostly glimpse of a shark fading off into the distance as it swam away from us.  Unfortunately I wasn’t close enough to identify it’s species exactly, but the tail looked more like that of a reef shark (one of the genus Charcarhinus, perhaps a Grey Reef Shark, as the tail had no black tip) rather than one of the slower and lazier Nurse Sharks that are common around reefs.  We also were treated to an inspection by a rather large Great Barracuda, by my estimation about four feet long.

We spent a few hours on the reefs, they were so captivating.  Before we left, when the wind and weather were starting to pick up a bit, Kathy and I made one more visit as well.  The currents then were a bit stronger and it made for quite a workout!

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Turtles!

Turtles in the Caribbean have become for us like the seals in Maine.  Sighting them popping up for air generally attracts everyone’s attention and admiration, though admittedly they do not have quite the same anthropomorphic charm as seals they still are appealing creatures.  Danielle in particular has become quite fond of sea turtles, and the few brief glimpses of them we’ve gotten as we’ve snorkeled around the Caribbean have always been special.

Turtles-In-Bequia-ans-Tabago-Keys,-with-other-stuff-164In my reading and discussions with people about the Tobago Cays, I’d learned that we’d be pretty sure of seeing some turtles in our time in here.  With the Turtle Preserve they have a protected area to swim with lots of their preferred sea grass.  But I didn’t want to get Danielle’s hopes up in case we were disappointed.

I needn’t have bothered.  There are turtles aplenty in the preserve, and they aren’t terribly shy about snorkelers since they seem to largely ignore us.

Turtles-In-Bequia-ans-Tabago-Keys,-with-other-stuff-191
Chillaxing turtles.  Like the ones in Finding Nemo, but mellower.

We saw turtles swimming and feeding from the moment we got close to the buoys marking off the turtle watching area.  At one point we could see as many as five turtles at one time feeding on the bottom and swimming up for air.  We were surprised to see a few turtles with healed injuries; one with a crescent shaped bite mark on its shell and other missing a front left flipper.  We shouldn’t have been surprised though, young turtles have a hard go of it before they get big enough to ward off the largest of predators.

Most of the time the turtles spent on the bottom eating.  They would occasionally come up for air, but generally they settled on the bottom in a patch of grass and grazed.  Extending their necks they’d crop at the grass on the bottom for a while.  It seems that these turtles went up for air more often than some turtles we’ve seen elsewhere.  Our theory is that the water is shallower, so the turtles need not breathe so deeply or dive so deep.  So they are basically chillaxing with the easy pickings in 7-8′ of calm protected waters, not working too hard and enjoying the grass and sun.  Not a bad way to be.

In addition to turtles in the sanctuary, as usual we saw some other interesting things.  Some schools of ballyhoo – small baitfish with little bills, were coming through and we spotted a small long armed octopus on the bottom.  That one was near impossible to see, and we lost him after looking away for just a minute.

There’s that octopus, don’t look away!

Camping

As you may have heard in prior posts, one of the things Will has enjoyed doing is camping on an island when it gets a chance.  Ideally the camping expedition will involve sailing to the island with no adults in the Portland Pudgy with all the camping gear in the boat.  After beaching the boat for the night you make camp and sleep on the beach, returning to Evenstar by sailing back in the morning.  The camping trips so far haven’t quite fulfilled all that.  A couple of the ones in Maine had issues where the tides were so extreme there wasn’t a place to beach the Pudgy, requiring the campers to be unceremoniously dumped on the island like being dropped at the mall, then having to radio for a pickup in the morning.  One Maine trip had one too many adults on it too.  The camping trip in Antigua was close, but the camping was actually on a beach that was not on a separate, small island it was on mainland Antigua.  But here we had a real possibility and Danielle had agreed to go.  If it was allowed.

When the park rangers stopped by to collect fees (the Tobago Cays park asks 10 $EC per person per night for stays in the park) we asked for permission to camp – just the kids, no fires no cooking.  They looked around and said “like on that island?” pointing to nearby Jamesby island.  “We’re not really supposed to, but for the kids for one night we could overlook it.  You have to check on them.”  Excellent!  We promised to send a radio with them and leave ours on all night so we could check on them and they could call us with any problems, and the kids were on.

A damp sail back from Jamesby Island (background)

We had an early dinner and send them packing with snacks and drinks.  After a quick easy sail to the island we watched from the boat as the tent came up and kids ran around on the beach.  Eventually they settled down and had a good night.  Until a squall came through just before dawn.  We heard it on the boat and watched the winds climb to 35 knots at the mast head.  It was a short squall, and we went back to sleep.  An hour or so later another squall came up.  We woke up and went up to check on the kids since it was light.  We noticed them out running around the tent in the rain.

Apparently what happened is the first squall loosened the tent pegs a bit.  The tend has the small wire style pegs, easy and convenient in the woods or a yard, they don’t hold so well in soft sand.  When the second squall came through it pulled the rain fly off the tent and uprooted the pegs.  That was the running around we saw, the kids in the rain sorting out the rain fly.  Eventually the squall stopped, and soon after the tent came down and the Pudgy was launched.  They sail was upwind into some stiffer breeze than the night before, there was a fair amount of splashing and no one arrived dry – unusual for a sail in the Pudgy.   Of course, everyone started the sail a little damp to begin with!

In spite of the mishaps with the squalls and then rain fly, apparently a good time was indeed had by all; a successful expedition!

We hope to find the time to get back to the Tobago Cays before we leave the Caribbean.  Perhaps some visiting family will provide a convenient excuse to make the trip again.

Posted in Camping, Tobago Cays, Turtles | 1 Comment

Mayreau – a Little Bit More Paradise

On Jun 18th, 2013 Published By B.J.

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This picture totally doesn’t do Saltwhistle Bay justice.

Saltwhistle Bay on Mayreau is a postcard.  Literally, looking at is while sailing past it looks like a photograph right off of a post card.  Sparkling green and blue water running up to a curved white sand beach, it is scattered with palm trees in just the right way to look picture perfect.
On shore it is close to the idyllic Caribbean beach.  The leeward (protected from the wind) side white sand beach is soft and protected from surf and chop yet the Easterly trades cool things off and keep it from becoming baking hot.  You can stroll under the shade of palm trees or walk with your feet in the sand and warm, clear water.  There is a windward side beach as well over a short of spit of land that looks out on the Tobago Cays.  Being windy it is also a bit rough – more of the natural raw beauty type of beach rather than the paradise of the leeward side beach.

On shore there are a few low key tables and stalls set up which sell some local crafts, trinkets and souvenirs.  So low key I think I would have had to go shake one of the vendors awake if I wanted to actually buy something; just my sort of beach vendor!  There are a few small bar/restaurants that offer beach BBQ’s and dinner.  Small enough so you need to call ahead so they know they’ve got enough for everyone.  We didn’t end up eating ashore ($80 ECD per person plus drinks still seems a bit outside our regular dining budget), but if we did we would have gone to the Saltwhistle Bay Club with the really cool stone tables with individual thatched palm roofs over them; that place looked funky and different.

When we arrived at the dinghy dock we were adopted by a local pooch, a very cute and engaging little fellow that decided he felt like a walk with company.  He joined us on our walk down the beach and to the far side beach, and when we started hiking towards the “village” – the only real settlement on this tiny island.  Sadly this whole hike was rather impromptu and once again no one had the wit to bring a camera with us.  So no pictures of the dog, and no pictures of the stunning panorama of the Tobago Keys from the deck behind the Catholic church at the peak of the hill.  We lost our adopted dog to a larger group at the church, we think he was too comfortable laying down on the cool stone in the shade behind the church to give it up to stay with us.

As with almost any walk on these islands there are a lot of up and downs.  When we reached the summit of the road we still hadn’t found someplace to stop for some cold drinks so we headed on down into the village.  We eventually found “Paradise”, a well kept and comfortable restaurant overlooking Saline Bay.  We regretted our timing, as we discovered that Paradise (and presumably the other restaurants in the village) had a more reasonably priced menu than the waterfront places.  But it was too close to lunch and too far from dinner, and we weren’t about to make the schlep back to town a second time three hours later for dinner!

If you’d never seem Saltwhistle Bay, Saline Bay would impress you as a lovely idyllic Caribbean beach.  White sand, palm trees, clear water yada yada yada.  One end of it, where the village is, is a bit less pristine because of the buildings, ferry dock, and some industrial looking facilities.  But the beach is so much larger you don’t really notice the parts North of the dock.

Mayreau sits in the Tobago Cays National Park and many yachts (including us) use it as a staging place for visits to the Tobago Cays.  The park collects $10 ECD per person per day for use of the park, however this is not collected for staying on Mayreau.  With the Cays only a short four mile sail way it is a pleasant place to stop before you head to the Cays the next morning or on your way out of the Cays.  We stayed in Saline Bay on the way to the Tobago Cays, and stopped in Saltwhistle Bay for a night on the way out of the Cays, followed by another night at Saline Bay.

Even without the Cays nearby Mayreau is worth a stop for a night or two.  We found the people on shore to be welcoming and pleasant and the scenery is tough to beat.

Posted in Grenadines, Mayreau, Tobago Cays | Comments Off on Mayreau – a Little Bit More Paradise

Milestones?

On Jun 14th, 2013 Published By B.J.

Living aboard and cruising is NOT what would would consider to be a focused, driven and goal oriented lifestyle.  Maybe it is for some – I’m sure there are people out there with checklists of what islands they want to visit and what they want to do when they get there.

Not us.  This morning’s discussion revolved around whether we wanted to clear out of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and make the four mile sail over to Carriacou and enter Grenada.  The key points of the discussion were 1) the predicted 30 knot squalls, 2) the predicted 8-10 foot waves, and 3) how OK we are anchored here in Union Island and what we could do if we stayed.  True, it would take less than an hour to get to Carriacou so even if it was horribly snotty weather it wouldn’t last that long.  But why bother?  We’ve got food, water, power and there is a cool looking bar on a tiny island about 200 yards from where we are anchored.

It turned out to be a good call; the sun was shining when this discussion happened and now it is overcast, windy and raining.  But this is how life tends to run – day to day, with an overall sort of general fuzzy goal (get to Grenada some time in June) but quite without specific plans.

So how do we know how far we’ve come?  Some people measure how many miles they’ve cruised, or where they’ve gone.  Other benchmarks and milestones may be more fuzzy.

Mileage

According to the logbooks kept by my electronic charting software, since leaving Rhode Island last July we’ve sailed 3,702.1 nautical miles (remember – those are bigger, so that is 4,459 “statute” or highway miles).  I’ve always wondered how the claims of “last year we put 10,000 miles under our boat” came from.  Did people measure point to point?  Did they calculate mileage totals every day and write them in their log books then add them all up?  We’re way too lazy and disorganized to do  that.  Fortunately Maxsea, our PC navigation software, will log all of our movements as long as it is up and running – it usually is.  So with the exception of a few short moves where we didn’t bother to fire up the ship’s PC it has tracked us everywhere. 

Of course it tracks ALL the movement, precisely.  Sailing rarely takes you in a straight line.  In our case if we were to measure the distance from St. Kitts to Antigua by a straight line course we might come up with a number like 49 miles from one anchorage to another.  But that was a LONG upwind sail, we were zig-zagging all over the place to sail upwind so when you add up the log entries for that trip you realize we actually sailed more like 66 miles that day, not 49.

I like our way though – it is easy, low maintenance, accurate and properly inflates our numbers.  We passed 1,000 miles before we even left the U.S., I suppose 5,000 miles might be a next nice milestone.   If we notice.

Maple Syrup

Back in St. Martin we met another cruising family, when talking about breakfast it came out that we had syrup with our waffles that morning.  “You guys really haven’t been out here that long, if you still have syrup left!” exclaimed the other mom.

True, we stocked up on pure, real maple syrup before we left.  We rightly figured it would be expensive beyond all reason down here.  Apparently we were not the only ones to reach this conclusion – newbie cruisers are syrup hoarders!  We left with four or five one quart bottles on board.  Expensive enough in the states, it truly is obscene down here.  You can find it but you won’t be able to afford any other food to put it on if you buy it.

Evenstar finished our last bottle of Real Maple Syrup about a week ago.  In some ways watching the kids try to nurse the last bit of syrup out of the very last bottle made me feel a lot farther from our old home and life than a lot of things we’ve experienced so far.

Captain’s Note: Disturbingly, Pure Cane Syrup was found to be an acceptable waffle/pancake alternative to Maple Syrup in a pinch.  Cane Syrup is a key ingredient in Ti’Punch, an important part of the evening cocktail hour ritual.  We will need to monitor supplies.  It takes more syrup to cover a waffle than it does to make a drunk drink.

Places & Passages

Getting to Maine, the Chesapeake, the British Virgin Islands, St. Martin – those felt sort of milestone-ish.  They feel that way because they generally involved a long sail, a passage of more than a few hours to some place you couldn’t see and over night travel.  Sailing from Mayreau to Union Island in the Grenadines?  Not so much…I’m still using the Wifi signal from Mayreau here on Union Island.  I can see it from here.

Our next major passages will be the crossing to Panama.  It’s about 1,100 miles from where we are sitting now.  We’re hoping to do it in stages, breaking the trip up in to less unpleasant chunks with stops in some pleasant places along the way.  I haven’t felt like we’ve made a ‘destination’ milestone in a while, through Grenada and/or Trinidad may kick off that feeling.

Anniversaries

Definitely the easiest to track, though if you have a marginal memory for these sorts of things it can be a struggle.  Thanks to the help if things like computers, the internet, and Facebook though we can go back and look things up to help remember when exactly they happened if it wasn’t a nice round date like the start of end of a month.

We’ve passed one important Anniversary so far (beyond our 20th wedding that is!) on this journey.  One May 31, 2012 Kathy finished her job and walked away from practicing medicine.  This was pretty huge, it’s been such a defining part of our lives that the change was profound.  For the entirety of our married lives – with the exception of vacations – we rarely went a whole week without spending a couple of nights apart.  I compare this to my parents who have been married for fifty years and complain they don’t sleep well if they’re apart for more than two days.  It is a big change to a little thing a lot of people don’t even think about unless you’ve got a spouse that travels or stays up all night taking care of other people.  It also means that we’ve all been together for dinner every night, and every night she gets to say goodnight to the kids in person instead of sometimes on the phone and join them for breakfast.  Little thing, huge change.

Certainly she misses aspects of practicing medicine – special patients she had long relationships with, friends among the other doctors, nurses and staff and the job satisfaction.  Her practice was something she worked hard to make succeed, now life goals change a bit.

We set sail from Rhode Island on July 22, 2012.  Still about five weeks until we reach that one!  It might merit some special attention.

Log Books

Captains are supposed to maintain logs for their vessels – where you go and what you come across, as well as maintenance performed, fuel consumption and the like.  We ceremoniously started a brand new log book on July 22nd when we left last year.   For years we’ve preferred the Evergreen Pacific Log Book, also known as the “Walker Common Sense Edition”.  It has good organization for maintenance and fuel records and a Daily Cruising Log page that is quite well laid out for everything but long, multi-day passages.

We have four pages left in the “Cruising Log” section, then the book is full.  Four more days of traveling.  Past log books, using the same format, took us a few years to fill.  Each weekend trip would use two pages (there and back again), a week or two of vacation might use 6-8 pages depending on how many stops we made.  This one is done after eleven months.

This is a nice log book format, I’m concerned that I won’t be able to find one down here and I need to find one fast!  I may bring a few back with me from the states when we visit over the holidays if I can’t find a new log I like in Grenada.

Well that’s enough waxing philosophical for today; it’s not my strength.  To date it’s been a great experience and well worth it, and you can’t really measure and quantify that.

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Canouan – one of the Grenadines

On Jun 13th, 2013 Published By B.J.

The country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (or “SVG”) is pretty small, but spread out across a number of small islands.  The largest population centers are in St. Vincent, the largest island.  When we entered SVG we went straight to Bequia and bypassed St. Vincent.  From Bequia we decided to sail to Canuoan, passing several islands such as Mustique for which we’d have to sail upwind.  Also for various reasons some had less appeal, Mustique for instance is a playground for the very rich, which isn’t inherently bad.  However beautiful it is, you can not anchor there and there is a pretty steep charge to pick up a mooring for a single night.

Canouan

Canouan is interesting – almost two different islands in one.  The North end of the island is almost completely dedicated to a large resort.  The middle and South ends of the island are still sorting themselves out from the economic changes.  We anchored in Grand Bay, near the town of Charlestown.

Grand Bay is a little odd from a wind and current perspective.  Sailing up to Canouan we had strong breezes which almost died as they started to shift and veer in the harbor approach so we motored in.  With the prevailing winds from the East in the Caribbean we were surprised to see all the boats anchored near shore facing out to us, to the West.  But we came in and anchored in reasonably shallow water.  There was little wind in the harbor so Will broke out the kayak and headed out to explore as we settled in at anchor.

Thanks for the picture, Wikipedia!

At the North end of the harbor is an interesting island that looked like good snorkeling so the rest of us headed over in the dinghy.  As we swam towards the reef we spotted a huge spotted eagle ray swimming off into the distance.  He seemed to do laps around us, or maybe the little island, as he came back into view a few more times as we were swimming around.  Not bad snorkeling, but the eagle ray made it a lot more spectacular!

As we sat in the anchorage we figured out that the light and variable winds were from the island blocking the trades, and the odd directions the boats faced were from current.  The net result of this is that some of the rolls coming in from the open water were hitting us oddly…not the most pleasant motion, but certainly not the most roll-y conditions we’ve slept in.

Green parts sand, dark parts coral

After a restive night we decided to check out the island a bit before moving on.  On the far side, the windward side, is a huge reef enclosing a shallow bay that looked like some spectacular snorkeling.   We were thinking of maybe moving Evenstar to a nearby harbor and taking the dinghy to the reef, or perhaps walking there with our gear in hand.  One side of the debate held that the walk over would be wretched and it would be easier to dinghy.  The other held that it would be a tricky approach through a reef and it would probably be a rough anchorage with the wind conditions.

Lovely flowers I don’t want to trip over on the way down a cliff.

It turns out of course that we were both somewhat  right.  The windward side of the island is stunningly beautiful, but it is nigh impossible to get down to the water.  The road is under construction, and it runs along the top of a tall hill which is covered with cacti, scrubby bushes and looks painful and uninviting to scramble down.  A mile or so down the road from where we walked it had gone downhill enough to get near the water, but there was still no guarantee of a clear path to the beach.  From the high points you could clearly see a lot of reef.  And a lot of wind and waves – getting through those reefs looked only marginally less fun than rolling around at anchor once we got there.

Used a high shutter speed to avoid motion blur…

As we walked around we came across several red footed tortoises.  They seem quite common, and approximately 67% of the tortoises we encountered needed rescuing from some sort of navigational mishap.  Given that we were the sort of people that would stop the car back in the states to move a tortoise out of the middle of the road you can imagine that we would not leave these little guys stranded, be it in a road or a drainage ditch.  I can only wonder what the locals thought as they watched us carrying these things around.  Based on conversations we’ve had with some local people about things like the spotted eagle ray and iguanas we’ve seen, I think the thought might have been “soup”.

Poor navigation left this guy in the middle of the road.

Can you see the similarities?

These tortoises were interesting to watch, because they move differently than the box turtles (technically, “box tortoises”) we were used to seeing at home.  Those tortoises moved quite slowly, as they drag their shells across the ground which of course creates a lot of friction.  These guys extend their legs fully, and lift themselves and their shells right off the ground like little Imperial Walkers from Star Wars.  They can move at a pretty good clip!  Well, for tortoises they moved a lot faster than I expected, climbing right over those sticks prickly cacti just like they weren’t there (armor plating!)

 

Charlestown, like most of the towns on these islands, is fairly small.  City planning doesn’t ever seem to be a high priority, with vegetable stands, bar/restaurants houses and “supermarkets” (and they use this term loosely) all sort of sprinkled together with government buildings.  And goats…lots of goats.

Part of Charlestown, the careful observer might count the goats

We almost always try to stop in a market, usually because we are out of stuff but sometimes because you can never know what you will find.  We’ve seen odd things, like frozen White Castle hamburgers in places you wouldn’t expect had even heard of White Castle.  Sometimes you catch good prices on things you didn’t expect, and sometimes the prices leave a lasting impression on you (like the $16.00 gallon of whole milk we found in Virgin Gorda).  And sometimes odd things are missing, we scoured a warehouse store style place in St. Lucia for bacon and couldn’t find a single slice.

But what did we find here, on Canouan, in a tiny hole in the wall supermarket we visited to take a break for cold drinks?  BACON!  Something we ran out of a while back and have avoided buying much of since, as we’d have to sell one of the children to pay for it.  Not only did they have bacon, they had two different brands and both were reasonably priced!  We grabbed a few packages and headed pack to the boat.

Although Canouan held some appeal, we decided to move on because we were anxious to get to the Tobago Keys and we didn’t relish another night with weird rolls in the anchorage.

Posted in Canouan, Grenadines, St. Vincent | Comments Off on Canouan – one of the Grenadines

Bequia – Love at First Sight

On Jun 12th, 2013 Published By B.J.

Maybe it was the afterglow from seeing whales on the trip to Bequia, or the feeling of being warmly welcomed after our bad experience in Soufriere, or maybe all this combined with a fast fun sail over, but we liked Bequia before we even got off the boat.

Sure, some guys in boats came up and approached us, one for a mooring and one with fruit.  But they were friendly and nice, and quite polite instead of surly when we said ‘No, thank you’.  The fruit guy ended up coming back multiple times when we DID buy fruit, turns out he is a chef that has worked in various restaurants around the island and does beach barbecues.  His little yellow fruit boat is just one more way to make a living.

Heading into town to clear customs, I was pleased to find a clean town with a well maintained and secure dinghy dock.  As I walked towards the government buildings I passed tables with local offerings of crafts and goods, the people smiled and greeted me and let me walk on.  Customs was in an air conditioned building with short lines and only took a few minutes.  I returned to the boat refreshed and eager to see this island after my hassles trying to get out of Soufriere the previous day.

Colorful sponges in the harbor

We quickly came back in town to check things out.  Bequia has a lot to offer visitors.  Around the harbor there is a nice walking path that goes past several waterfront bars and cafes, as well as the Frangipani hotel.  The main harbor of Port Elizabeth on Admirality bay has some nice beaches and some excellent snorkeling.

When we pulled into the harbor we saw our friends (and sister ship) on Infinity were here – that always makes a harbor visit more fun.  We caught up with them for a beach BBQ one night, and helped them dive to find a lost wallet.  Talk about unlikely – dropping a wallet while riding in the dinghy to the boat, then spotting it on the bottom!  The advantages of clear water; all was recovered.

Over the coming days we visited a few of the cafes, seeming to always be caught at just the right time to duck a rain storm coming through.   In one case the rains persisted.  Enough so we had to stay long enough for several rounds of rum punch and lime squashes while we ordered appetizers and watched the rain.  The horror.

Turtles

Really small turtles…

On the far side of the island lies the Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary which is worth a trip.  We weren’t sure from the maps how far, or more importantly how steep the roads were to the sanctuary – the major road we could see heading out of town looked like it climbed straight up the side of one of the larger hills on the island!  You never can tell with these island roads, the volcanic nature of many of the islands leads to a steep, hilly, almost mountainous terrain and you really have to pay attention to the contour lines on a map to see if it will be an easy mile long stroll or a sweaty back breaking climb up and down huge steep hills.  So we did something rare:  we took a cab.

Turns out it was unnecessary, when we got to the sanctuary our friends from Infinity were already there.  They’d walked…their youngest girl is about four years old.  I think we could have made it…’oh well’ cringes my inner cheapskate.

Older turtles, nearing release age and some that can not be released

The sanctuary is a really cool place, started and run privately by Mr. Orton King.  He’s an amusing fellow to talk to, it sounds like he almost backed into being a foster father for several hundred Hawksbill turtles when he decided to try and help a nest of hatching eggs a dozen or more years ago.  In the wild, newborn sea turtles have a really, really rough time.  When hatched they are nearly defenseless and fall prey to everything from birds and fish to crabs as they try and make their way to the water, never mind what people can do to a nest.  So Mr. King, a retired fisherman and diver, decided to give them a better chance.  He’d come to appreciate the turtles as a valuable and vulnerable species.  So with his own money and donations he’s built this sanctuary with salt water fed tanks (that are changed daily) where he raised turtles up until about the age of five before he releases them.

In a few weeks Mr. King expects about 300 new arrivals when a handful of nests on the beach in front of the sanctuary are going to hatch.  Unfortunately the government doesn’t recognize the economic value of saving the Hawksbill turtles, so Mr. King relies on donations from visitors and his own resources to raise the turtles.  We wish him the best of luck and really appreciate what he is doing!

Little Boats

Bequian craftsmen have long been recognized for their top quality model boat making.  When we spotted several model boats being sailed by boys in the harbor we just had to check it out.  Will is an enthusiastic builder of small boats and was impressed by what he saw – making a sailboat without remote control that can sail upwind is a very tricky thing!

We stopped into a couple of boat builders, our favorite was the Sargent Brothers workshop.  As boaters, we’ve looked at many boat models and owned more than a couple as decorations in our house.  The quality and workmanship on these was stunning.  Maybe we are biased, but there was a model of at Hallberg-Rassy 62 there that was just brilliant and incredibly detailed and realistic.  The models of J Yachts like Endeavour were realistic, gorgeous, and much nicer than more expensive models we’d seen in museum stores stateside.  They really made is wish we could take one with us, but living on a boat there are few things less practical to own than a fragile boat model!

More Snorkeling

An octopus – really hard to spot from far away with his camouflage

Unfortunately we didn’t even make it to the best snorkeling spot in Admirality Bay – the Devil’s Table.  We weren’t sure where to safely (as in ‘not on live coral’) anchor the dinghy, and when we went there was a dive tour there so we thought to maybe come back later.  We should have, but we still saw some great stuff off the beaches.

I have no doubt we could have spent more time in Bequia, it’s a lovely place with a lot to see.  But summer and the hurricane season is pressing on us to move South!

 
All of the pictures in this post were taken by Danielle!
Posted in Grenadines, snorkel, St. Vincent | Comments Off on Bequia – Love at First Sight

St. Lucia – the Not Quite as Excellent Bits!

On Jun 2nd, 2013 Published By B.J.

You caught me out, all of St. Lucia wasn’t all gushing about flowers, beauty and delicious fish rotis.  We had to get some work done, and we didn’t absolutely love every place we went to, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a great spot overall.  I do try not to get negative in the blog, there is no place we’ve been so far that hasn’t been worth a visit.  But there are a few we might not go back to so quickly.

The Work – aka “The Rarely Fun Part of Cruising”

The leaky thing in the water maker.

There was one major thing that drove us into a marina, which was our water maker.  It had started leaking when we ran it which was annoying as water was running through the engine room into the bilge.  While I’ve serviced the water maker before – doing things like cleaning the membrane and replacing the pressure sender, this particular leaked seemed like it might need a bit more.  It was in a place that one simply could not reach with a wrench.  The leak was close to where a previous leak was, and I was able to tighten it and stop the leak that time.  This time it was from a slightly different spot.  Conversations with the Spectra certified technician in St. Lucia by e-mail confirmed my fears – that the only way to reach this nut to tighten it was to take the fool thing out of the boat.  And then it was best to bench test it, because there was a risk the leak was from inner seals at that fitting rather than simply from a loose fitting.

As it turned out it was worse than that – the cylinder on the pump was leaking and needed to be replaced…WAY above my pay grade when it comes to fixing the water maker.  We’re dealing with warranty type of work and expensive parts (about half the pump…), fortunately Spectra sent the parts for no charge but we still had some labor and shipping.  Props to Regis Electronics for excellent work on this in getting the parts and sorting it out.  I’m not sure I could have done that repair, but I AM sure that Spectra would not have sent free parts for an out of warranty repair to an uncertified repairman like me!

The second issue was our 24V alternator, it stopped providing charging.  It was spinning and I replaced the belt and tightened it.  A series of diagnostics led me to believe that the external charge controller known as the “Voltage Regulator” was the problem.  Rather than special order a $500+ part I couldn’t return if it didn’t fix the problem I had som

eone from Regis spend twenty minutes confirming my diagnosis, and I was right!  They had another voltage regulator in stock (different brand, not as “smart” as the dead one…but here and working) which solved the problem and now our batteries charge again while we motor.  FUN FACT: A “Voltage regulator” does not actually regulate voltage, it regulates current!

“Voltage” Regulator?  Don’t you believe it!

The final problem was the Air Conditioning, which we felt immediately on arriving on the dock.  I had a new pump installed, but water wasn’t coming out.  All my diagnosis showed it was wired and plumbed correctly…but no cooling water circulation.  Well, an experienced A/C guy spent about 90 seconds in the engine room and had it working.  The problem?  Air trapped in the lines, a five second fix I didn’t know about.  Now I do.

While at the dock also we had some local guys do a compound and wax on Evenstar’s hull which was about a year over due.  Reasonable prices on labor meant we could pass this back (and arm) busting job on while we dealt with other stuff – and Evenstar looks all shiny again!

Anse de la Raye

One day we handed Will the cruising guide and told him to pick out a place, plot a course and get us there.  His choice was Anse de la Raye, which was a “picturesque fishing village and a fair overnight anchorage.”  Friday night they are famous for their weekly fish fest, and there are supposed to be some nearby hikes to a couple of falls.  We came in on a Sunday night, and indeed it was quiet and picturesque.  At first.

Almost on anchoring a pleasant young man paddled his kayak out to talk to us.  Fourteen years old, he was planning to become a carpenter and studying it in school.  Since he was close in age to Will I suggested to Will that our new friend might enjoy a sail in the Pudgy.  Will was rigging the boat to go as this boy approached us.  Off they went for a couple of hours.  When they returned we headed into town with this young man as our erstwhile guide.  We spent a few minutes walking around town on a quick tour, there really isn’t much there though the waterfront is busy and the town square is neat and clean.   We parted ways and headed back to the boat.

Apparently there was some sort of on shore party planned that we weren’t aware of.  We don’t know if it is a regular occurrence, but around dinner time loud music started up from shore.  REALLY loud.  And it got louder as the night progressed, blaring dance music so loud it was drowning our attempts to watch a movie.  Music with sirens and air raid klaxons blended into so loud it was rattling things more than a quarter mile off shore serenaded us to sleep.

We realized we simply couldn’t spend another night in Anse de la Raye – perhaps Fridays were like this, but this wasn’t Friday.  We’ve already experienced the skull-crushing loudness of some of the beach parties on St. Lucia; one downside to being anchored downwind from the wrong club in Rodney Bay was loud music all night and we don’t enjoy it.

One thing we’ve noticed about the Caribbean is the music.  Some of it is really good stuff that we like.  Some of it is not so good – air raid sirens have no place in any music I want to listen to for long  (OK…they are thematically appropriate in the intro to War Pigs, but I digress…).  But in many places it is so loud as to be painful.  St. Lucia so far has seemed to be the worst with extreme ear punishing volumes, I can not imagine attending a beach party where the music is so loud it makes conversation difficult half a mile away.  We went to see the new Star Trek movie while here and the volume of the movie was so high that all of us had our fingers in our ears throughout almost the entire movie.  My theory is that everyone is so deafened by the party music they have to make everything louder and louder to compensate.

Unfortunately for us Sunday night in Anse de la Raye was one of those really loud nights and we didn’t want to wait and see if Monday was too, so we did some school in the morning and left for Marigot shortly after.

Learning to Say “No, Thank You”, With Feeling

As one of our cruising friends mentioned in her blog also, one must learn to say “No” in St. Lucia.  And learn quickly how to say it with authority.  On this island more so than others so far there are more people selling things and trying to get you to spend money (or give them money) than anywhere else we’ve been to date.  People selling everything from jewelry, fish, fruit and carvings to marijuana, coconut soap or vegetables are constantly after you.  Many will come up and offer you directions (to places that are marked with signs, in line of sight!) and expect you to pay them for their “help” afterwards.  Some places it is not possible to walk past a line of taxis without seeming to need to decline a ride from every driver.

Dinghy docks that are public are also infested with people who will “watch” your dinghy for you and expect a tip when you return, also while trying to be helpful taking your lines and tying you on or holding your dinghy for you.  We’ve landed hundreds, perhaps thousands of times in our dinghy and we don’t need any help – these guys get in the way and I don’t trust their knots.  We have a lock and chain on the boat and the engine, so it’s not easy for someone to casually jump in and take off with it.  “Watching” our dinghy begins to feel like protection money to make sure the “watchers” don’t do anything to us while we are gone.

I mention this because the way in which the people approach you makes a BIG difference in how welcome one feels in a place.  If someone offers me something and I decline – which I usually do because we live aboard and can not buy a new tchotchke ever ten minutes while walking ashore – I’m perfectly fine if they say “OK mon, maybe another time.”  What I don’t like is when the vendor follows you, trying to sell you one thing after another, breaking down into rants about how they are “just trying to make a living” while glaring at you for rejecting them.  We WILL spend money when we are in a port, it’s inevitable.  It just might not be when the vendor wants me to – when I’ve got meals for two days defrosted in the fridge I’m not going to buy any fresh fish today because I don’t need it…get over it!  I appreciate that everyone is trying to make a living and we have more money than these folks, but we will spend it when we choose to on what we want and need.

So I recognize that a vendor has to sell, but there are ways to do it that make us feel welcome, and there are ways that make us feel like a carnival mark who, being the obvious tourist, is obligated to leave a trail of $20EC notes behind us as we walk through town.  The places we like – well they’ve got guys like Santa Claus in Marigot, who are friendly and welcoming, salesmen without being pushy or surly.  Not the places where they resent us for not spending enough money, fast enough.  I say this because the vendors and how they treat you can make or break a location.

Soufriere and the Pitons

The Pitons were the most beautiful spot we visited on St. Lucia.  And the most disappointing.

The one in the front is the Petite Piton, the one in the back the Gros.

I’d been looking forward to visiting Soufriere and the Pitons since we’d arrived in St. Lucia.  My expectation was we’d spend our last three or four days on the island there, exploring the hills and waterfalls and the stunning snorkeling.  So it was with some excitement (and regret that our time in St. Lucia was coming to an end) that we set sail to the Pitons.

The Pitons are iconic to St. Lucia, the local beer is called Piton and features the mountains on the logo.  It is one of the most recognizable features of the island – if you’ve been to or by St. Lucia you probably saw them and would recognize them again.  The area around it has several waterfalls, volcanic attractions, plantation tours, a bat cave, and crystal clear water for snorkeling.

The cruising guides and web sites have a bit to say about the area too.  There are “Boat Boys” there that will come out to meet you.  Anchoring is prohibited, but the boat boys will help you find a mooring and arrange things for you on land.  There is some crime, and it is recommended that you leave someone on the boat.  One of the local restaurants will go so far as to send a boat for you and leave a guard on your boat for no charge while you dine as dinnertime is apparently the highest risk of theft.  So armed with this background we figured some extra caution would be in order, but the attractions and the stunning natural beauty would be worth the hassle.

It started out as expected, with a boat coming to meet us to perform the completely unnecessary service of guiding us to a mooring and “helping” to pick up the mooring.  We aren’t some clueless charter boat that struggles with simple tasks like picking up a mooring, we’ve done this many, many times and know how to do it and have a system.  Unless of course you have someone sticking their boat in the way while trying to help.  They figured out pretty quickly that they were only in the way, and to their credit didn’t try too hard to help us.

Some discussions with the boat boys indicated they’d be willing to arrange any “tours” we wanted to do, and from what he was telling us the only way to get anywhere was by taxi.  We pay him, he makes the arrangements and we go.  A simple tour to see a water fall was going to cost us about $125 EC per person – or about $225 U.S. for a partial day trip for the four of us.  This is not how we generally do things on Evenstar.  We’d rather take a bus close and/or walk than spend hundreds of dollars on cab fare.  So we deferred until the next day to tell him what we wanted.  He did warn us against trying to arrange things on our own in town as there would be lots of people that would try and get our money.

During the next hour no less than six boats stopped by.  Several were selling things and some got quite surly and aggravated when we declined everything.  Two were unusual – patched up inflatable boats with two men that stopped by to see if the could borrow our dinghy pump since their tubes were leaking.  In all the years we’ve been sailing we have never had a stranger come up and ask to borrow our dinghy pump.  Now twice, in less than half an hour with town no more than half a mile away and easily reachable?  We decided that our boat was being cased – by stopping by and talking with us these fellows were able to get an idea how many people were on board and what they looked like and what valuables were visible so we could be identified when we got off our boat and left it empty.  Call me cynical, but it was very odd behavior and the area was known to have a theft problem.

Eventually we decided to head into town to check it out and look into buses and less expensive means to get to the attractions.  Kathy opted to stay on the boat; after being cased we decided to follow the advice to never leave the boat empty.  The kids and I headed in to find the dinghy dock.

We should have been alerted by the guy on the dock helpfully waving to us to show us where to park the dinghy.  He grabbed our chain and held it for us while we got off the boat and introduced himself as John.  We left him behind and walked off the dinghy dock to be immediately be besieged by taxi drivers and people selling fruit, fish, jewelery, and who know what else.  We just wanted to look around, we’d been there for less than five minutes and were already quite uncomfortable with the treatment.  We walked a bit, declining offer after offer.  Eventually I spotted the grocery store, something we usually like to scout out.  As I approached it I was harangued by yet another guy, standing so close to me I could smell his rancid breath as he shouted out instructions to me about things that were right in front of me with signs.  Then he demanded money for his help, and was quite insistent.  I didn’t have a lot of small bills with me and I was not at this point inclined to start giving away any larger ones.  It was time to leave.

When we returned to the boat John was waiting for us.  I told him I could get the lines.  He loomed over me, insisted that I “had to give him something” for watching the dinghy.  “It’s the rules, you must give me something.”  “For watching my locked dinghy for ten minutes on a crowded pier across the street from the police station?” I replied.  “Yes, you must give me something.”

I’m ordinarily a pretty easy going, low key person.  I’m friendly and I smile when I meet people.  I like to be polite when I am a guest in someone’s country.  I say please and thank you to everyone that is doing things for me.  Ten minutes in this town and I was ready to push a stranger off the dock.  I threw him the smallest amount of money I had at him  (a $10 EC note; way too much).  He then tried to sell me fish, when I told him he’d already had quite enough of my money for today and we left the dock.

On arriving back at the boat we conferred and we all agreed that though the spot was stunningly beautiful and the natural attractions sounded really cool, but no one felt comfortable staying here.  Had it been an hour earlier in the day we would have either cleared out of the country for St. Vincent or moved the boat to Vieux Fort.  But it was too late in the day to do either safely so we prepared to leave first thing in the morning.

On some levels I am completely certain that we didn’t give this area a full and fair shake.  Our friends from Patronus had a great time here, as have many others.  Other friends told us we should have stayed further from town between the Pitons, as there were not all the bothersome boats coming out to sell things and case your boat for later pilfering.  Maybe had we been willing to spend the hundreds of dollars necessary to do these tours in a safe, hassle free fashion we would have been happier.  Or maybe because it was so late in the season and everyone wanted a last shot with the few boats still around did we get too much attention.  It is hard to know.

But our experience, whether sitting on the boat or simply trying to get off the boat and look around a little, was that we were so profoundly uncomfortable that we didn’t want to stick around for the rest.  If there is someplace that Kathy is not comfortable going into town without me I don’t want to be there with my family.  And if we can’t all get off the boat together – who am I going to leave on board to deal with the thieves when no one wants to go ashore without me in the party to fend off pushy people?  One of the kids?

The next morning the boat boy stopped by as we were leaving.  He asked when we would be back, and I told him “To this place?  Probably never.”  When he asked why I told him.  He said “I warned you about that” but really didn’t seem to understand why we weren’t even spending a single day at the premier attraction in St. Lucia.  Maybe we will get back some day, but it will probably be by bus from a different anchorage.

Goodbye, St. Lucia!

But certainly not good riddance.  Please do not take our experiences in Soufriere or Anse de la Raye as a condemnation on the island as a whole.  I do not like to write negative blog entries, but those stories need to be told.  Some of these islands can and do manage to deal with boaters in a positive way, and places like Soufriere can learn a thing or two from them;I sincerely hope that they do.

We spent three weeks in St. Lucia and loved almost all of it and would be more than happy to return.

The Pitons fade into the haze as we sail away from St. Lucia on a cloudy, rainy day.

Posted in St. Lucia | 3 Comments

St. Lucia – the Excellent!

On Jun 1st, 2013 Published By B.J.

Rodney Bay, St. Lucia as seen from Pigeon Island

St. Lucia is a beautiful island, and we’d been looking forward to a visit for some time – it wasn’t just because there was a certified Spectra Watermaker vendor there to deal with our annoying water leak.  The reason we were looking forward to it?  We knew someone there.  When visiting a strange country as a tourist knowing someone, even if not well, is huge.  When we come to many of these islands it’s pretty obvious we’re not local.  Besides being white (where the overwhelming majority of islanders are not), by our dress, way of talking, modes of transportation, and being on a boat its obvious from a mile away we’re visitors.  People don’t invite strangers into their homes, or might not want to give them a real view of what life is like.

Back in the States before she left her practice we learned that one of the medical assistants in her office was from St. Lucia.  Wendy brought her mother, Marie, in to see Kathy when she was in town and when they discussed that we were to be in the islands in the future Marie gave Kathy her number and told us to look her up.  Kathy warned her we’d take her up on it!

When we arrived on St. Lucia we gave Marie and her husband Robert a call and they met us at the marina with hugs and fresh fruit from their backyard.  We chatted and made plans to come to their house for lunch and they introduced us to Chris, whose taxi they insisted should be at our disposal during our stay in St. Lucia.  Those of you that have been following along know how rarely we use taxis since walking and buses are almost always available.  What a treat!

While in St. Lucia we needed to sort out a leak in our water maker as well as a couple of other issues.  Our 24V alternator on our engine had stopped charging, and I still hadn’t gotten around to sorting out the air conditioning since we arrived in November.  We’ve rarely wished for it, but we were anticipating a couple of days in a marina here to get the water maker sorted and the only place where the A/C is beyond just “nice” is in a marina, since you don’t get the breezes you get at anchor.

Rodney Bay Marina is a nice, clean, well run and quite reasonably priced marina.  Two East Caribbean dollars per foot worked out to about $40 U.S. per night for a slip.  I’ve spent $65 for a mooring in Newport, RI and marina rates typically run from $2.00 to $4.00 or more per foot in many marinas ( $100-$200+ per night USD at our fifty-three feet) so this really got my inner cheapskate excited; even if it wasn’t actually free the internet access and showers were!  We popped in and out of the marina over the coming weeks as we were getting our work done and enjoyed the long showers and Skype calls.  We do even fewer marinas than we do taxis.

There are worse places to take the dinghy our for a spin!

The anchorage outside in Rodney Bay is also a comfortable, easy anchorage.  It’s a huge anchorage – even when it is “crowded” you have much more space there than in many other places.  There is always a breeze from shore to cool the boat, the water is clear and it’s an easy dinghy ride into the inner harbor where stores, restaurants and services are a short walk from the town dinghy dock.

Pigeon Island

Pigeon Island is a bit of a misnomer, it used to be an island on Rodney Bay but a causeway was completed some time ago and the island is now connected to the mainland.  Apparently it has been renamed “Pigeon Point” but apparently no one calls it that.  A fort was placed on top of the island a few hundred years ago, and the whole island has been turned into a national park.

Will on the second peak on Pigeon Island

The island has two peaks, the lower on has the bulk of the fort ruins on it.  We all walked up to the fort and the views were stunning.  The guns on the bluff commanded a full sweep of the entrance to Rodney Bay, and their rusted hulks were still in place.  In the saddle between the peaks is a musket redoubt where infantry could cover approaches up the steep hillside from cover.  It was here that the two less enthusiastic of us settled under the shade while Kathy and Will headed up to the second peak (I claim an excuse, while everyone was doing school in the morning I was cleaning the bottom of the boat – an exhausting task!).

The park is also home to Jambe de Bois,  a lovely waterfront restaurant located on the beach facing Rodney Bay.  This casual lunch was one of the more enjoyable meals we’ve had at a restaurant in the Caribbean.  A beautiful setting, great food and drinks, and very reasonable prices – how can you go wrong?  Our only regret was that we ran out of time to go back again.

Gros Islet

The village of Gros Islet is next to the channel into the inner harbor at Rodney Bay, and every Friday night the main street closes down for a street fair.  We headed there our first Friday night and it was quite a nice time.  Admittedly, sampling home brewed rum punches and dancing until dawn IS more of an adult venture, we headed there earlier with the kids and enjoyed some of the food, music, and sights.  In hindsight we should have headed later without the kids, as it is more of an adult affair and our kids aren’t used to staying up super late – when we left around 9:30 or so things were just starting to swing.  But it’s a lively, loud affair with local foods to sample, lots of music and dancing and certainly worth a visit.

Marigot

It seems that almost every island down here has a Marigot on it, somewhere.  We’ve been to Marigot in St. Martin, Dominica, and St. Lucia and apparently there is one in St. Barth’s, a district in Martinique and also another in Haiti.

Marigot in St. Lucia is a small, pretty steep sided protected harbor.  It’s a quiet place, with a marina and some restaurants and a beach club.  It’s one of the places on St. Lucia that is geared towards the visiting yachtsman and it shows; it is a nice place to be. 

When we dropped anchor we were greeted by a fruit vendor who called himself “Santa Claus” and wore a Santa hat.  An easy way to get recognition, I suppose you can pick him out across the harbor with that hat.  When he pulled up he immediately started peeling bananas and handing them out to us to try.  When we told him we had enough mangoes, he said “Not like mine, these are from my yard you have to try them” and asked us to borrow a knife.  Okay, a more ambitious sales approach than some of the guys with the samples and all…but holy cow, those were the Best Mangoes Ever.  No kidding, we’d tried a variety of mangoes in a variety of places.  Some we liked, some were too squishy or stringy…Santa Claus had the best variety mangoes we’d tried to date.  We were tempted on our final sail South from Rodney Bay to swing into Marigot just to find Santa Claus and get some of his mangoes.

While anchored Danielle and I took a swim to one side of the harbor where there was some quite nice snorkeling.  We’d planned another day in Marigot, but got the call that our water maker parts would be arriving in Customs shortly and we were needed to get them released so they could be installed.

New Friends

Some of the best times in St. Lucia were spent with our new friends Robert & Marie.  They invited us to their home for lunch one Saturday.  Robert picked us up at the marina with his adorable youngest granddaughter and brought us back to their house.

From the driveway the house doesn’t look so large.  Pulling into the garage (where Robert has a collection of Parakeets), we came out into the front yard which is devoted to the family business.  For quite some time Robert has sold building materials and housing trim and decor items cast from concrete.  His business is very understated, he doesn’t even have a sign on the street, but he’s done very well.  Raising and educating seven children (now all adults with good careers) with his own industry is an impressive accomplishment.

Inside it quickly became apparent what a unique structure their house was.  Over the years Robert had expanded…and expanded…and expanded to accommodate his growing family.  To the point where the house was up to seven bedrooms and full of a generation’s worth of furniture and family memories.  A warm and inviting place to visit!

Neither Robert or Marie eat any meat, their diet is mostly fish and vegetables so we were a bit unsure what lunch would be.  It turns out they’d prepared a many course meal of island specialties.  Grilled fresh tuna, a salad with a conch compote, “Provision” – which is local root vegetables, lasagna made with conch and vegetables, lentils & beans, roasted breadfruit, fried plaintains…I tried everything and loved it all and was sad that in spite of my ability to eat stunning amounts of food when provoked I was unable to finish everything.  Everyone ate well, even Will – who is notoriously skittish about strange fish and odd vegetables – finished his lasagna and tried and liked most everything.

After lunch we retired to the back yard where Marie gave us a tour of their wondrous garden.  Mangoes, breadfruit, sour orange, bananas, plums – I can’t even remember how many different fruits and vegetables they had ready for the picking in the back yard.  A beautiful place and lush with all sorts of local delights!  Mango trees seem somewhat reminiscent of zucchini, in that anyone who has ever planted even a single zucchini plant knows they will be inundated with more zucchini than their entire extended family and all their friends could ever eat.  It seems the same with these huge trees with hundreds of mangoes waiting to ripen – and Marie’s certainly give Santa’s a run for the money!  We weren’t about to turn any down.

More plans were made, and the following Saturday we took Robert, Marie and several of their family members out for a sail.  As we left the harbor Robert mentioned that he’d never seen the harbor from the water.  Marie and her daughters and friends had made some shopping day trips to Martinique, but I guess Robert never joined them.  It didn’t seem that anyone had really spent much time on a sail boat so we hoped to give them a good day out.


Living on a sailboat and sailing a lot you tend to take for granted what it is like, the feeling of pressing on sail and seeing things from the water.  After all that’s how we see everything, all the time.

From what I could tell everyone had a nice time.  With cooperative winds Evenstar certainly had a chance to kick up her heels and put on a lively show for our guests.  As we headed South our guests started picking out highlights on land, and seeing friends houses and familiar places from a new angle.  Marie quickly figured out that the chart plotter she was sitting in front of could give her a guided tour and the exact names of all the features and landmarks we were passing and she began calling out the highlights for Robert.  A few phone calls were made of the “Hey, look out your window…can you see that boat we’re on!” variety.  We saw schools of fish splashing and jumping at the surface while flocks of birds wheeled overhead, and a large sea turtle.  There was much laughing and pointing.  It was really a lot of fun to take some people out and show them a bit of our life that they’d rarely see and have them enjoy it with us.

Returning to the dock, we sat in the cockpit enjoying some crackers and cheese a few more cold Pitons as we chatted about the sail, just enjoying the company and making a few more memories.
New friends are harder to leave than any harbor or port!

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