Tobago to the Grenadines & Grenada

November & December 2003

Phil's birthday was celebrated in Bequia with Ann and Graham from Rasi.   We enjoyed the rest of the tuna we'd caught on our trip from Tobago and Ann even baked Phil a cake!     Phil and Nicola on Splendid Adventurer, with whom we'd spent a lot of time in Tobago, and their visiting friend "Rooster" arrived in the anchorage and the next day we shared a fish picnic on the beach.   Hurricane season was over and it was time for Splendid to get back to work, chartering in Mustique.   We agreed to head over to Mustique and visit them there.   Before we left Bequia, we feared that we'd have to finally buy some water for our tanks, the first time since fitting our new rain-catching awning, so we were very pleased to finally have a full day of rain and fill our tanks.   Bequia's water is the dearest in the Eastern Caribbean.   By the third day of continuous rain, however, we were not quite so happy!

Basil's Bar and celebrity Boobies in Mustique!

The island's poshest restaurant - unfortunately no longer available in Mustique!

In the Cays we met up again with Clive and Margo on Revid, who mentioned that they'd spotted another Welsh flag on a charter boat anchored in front of them.   By the time they mentioned it, the anchorage was already pitch black.    We debated for about thirty seconds whether go over and disturb the Welsh visitors at the unearthly hour of 8.30 pm (which is very late for the Caribbean!) before deciding that anybody flying a Welsh flag was fair game.

Ann and John enjoying their holiday.

We hadn't been to Mayreau before and staggered up the steep hill to see the sights, which consisted mainly of a picturesque church and stunning views of the Grenadines.     One day we had to share the anchorage with a visiting cruise ship, which annoyed the locals by renting the whole beach from its French owner and bringing all their own food and drinks ashore from the ship, creating no income at all for the island's inhabitants.    Another new arrival in the anchorage at 8 pm one dark night was a charter boat, surrounded by a crowd of half a dozen local fishing boats.   They'd run aground on the windward side of the island and had to be rescued, a feat which seemed to involve every boat from Mayreau and Union Island.   The discussions about who was to be paid how much for their services went on late into the night.   We got the feeling it was much more profitable for the locals than the cruise ship's visit!

We visited Chatham Bay on Union island with Ann and John, before they left the Grenadines.  They very generously treated us to a delicious lobster dinner, served on the beach after dark by enterprising locals.  They only seemed to own one lamp and the darkness made trying to eat lobster with only a fork very entertaining!

Margo and Phil off up the hill to see the sights of Mayreau.

                                                              Mayreau's church.

Main Street, Petite Martinique.

Our last stop in the Grenadines before heading back to Grenada was a visit to Petit Saint Vincent (PSV) and Petite Martinique (PM), two adjacent islands with a mile wide channel between.   PSV belongs to St. Vincent and the Grenadines and PM to Grenada.   There was quite a contrast between the two, which we visited after a brief delay to take apart our windlass and rebuild it.   PSV was a private resort island whereas PM was definitely a working island.    A major attraction of Petite Martinique is its supply of cheap booze.   If you don't ask too many questions, your favourite drinks can be bought in the supermarket for half the standard Grenada price!   The ice cream was good too, when we finally tracked it down.

A little later we caught a small barracuda and then with bad weather rapidly approaching from the east, a 20 lb wahoo. It was hard to get the wahoo aboard with no gaff and our fishing net was broken so the end just spun around in the water but we finally succeeded. We just had time to lash in on deck before the nasty squall hit.  We managed to reef the genoa and put up the spray hood just in time but hadn't had time to reef the main or mizzen sails. Really they should have been reefed too, as we ended up doing 8 knots in 30 knots of wind, even spilling wind from both the main and mizzen. We debated going outside to reef in the bad weather but thought the squall would soon pass and luckily had enough sea room to bear away from the wind.  The Caribbean squall clouds are so hard to predict, some kill the wind off completely and the majority bring gusty winds and heavy rain for fifteen or twenty minutes while they pass overhead.  This one decided to bring heavy rain and strong winds for about an hour and a half.   Visibility was down to nothing, it reminded us of the Bristol Channel. Once the weather moved off, we managed to dodge the other squalls on the rest of the trip past St. David's along Grenada's south coast to Mount Hartman Bay.

The approach to Hartman Bay was quite stressful.   The entrance has many treacherous reefs and although we'd entered several times before, we were approaching from the opposite direction and several of the marker buoys were missing.  Finally we found our way safely in and anchored near Night Owl behind the reef at the entrance. Just after we'd anchored another boat went hard aground on the reef and was lucky to get off at all, later another boat was heading for the reef too, so our concern was entirely justified.

Phil's prize Wahoo - doesn't the weather look nice now?

We spent the next week or so preparing Anju for our absence.  We were going to visit family and friends in the UK for a month over Christmas and left Anju in the capable hands of George Cumberbatch, who did an excellent caretaking job for us again.