The Grenadines… catching up with ourselves in paradise…

We looked expectantly down the first isle of the jam packed little supermarket in Bequia, the Grenadines. Our eyes pop as we take in the biggest selection of Lindt chocolate outside of Switzerland! Very exciting. We love dark chocolate and they had 99% cocoa Lindt. Never even seen that before. Pretty much a health food

This smiley, evil, Indian shop-owner had obviously carried out wicked and extensive market research and her shop was selectively stocked with items shamelessly hand picked to make yachties drool.  We happily succumbed to her cunning plan to extract us of large amounts of Eastern Caribbean dollars. After a rapid-fire run down the island chain and being sleep deprived from overnight passages, a re-provision of luxury items was just what we needed…

English breakfast and Earl Grey teabags were almost as exciting as the French cheeses, fresh pastries, and crusty baguettes.

The fruit and veggie selection was also good at the markets where charming locals with the coolest dreadlocks became our best friends in return for our patronage at their stalls.  Four very happy sailors with copious amounts of shopping bags could be seen heading back to Tika!

We were all tired and keen to keep moving further south to the famed, blue, celadon glazed waters of The Tobago Cays….

20 miles downwind and we finally arrived in the sanctuary of Tobago Cays and let out a collective, team-Tika sigh of relief. We were exhausted and Tika looked like she had been tipped upside down, shaken a few times and plonked back upright… Since the B.V.I’s we’ve visited/cruised 6 Eastern Caribbean countries in 10 days. School, boat work and sleep all required a catch up!

What a perfect place to chill….and we made it just in time for Greer’s birthday…

In the Cays we swam with turtles, windsurfed and caught up with some old friends;  Ned and Carol (above right) on ‘Frannie .B.’ Russel first met these two intrepid sailors while sailing with his parents in his early 20’s. Ned and Carol on Plain Jane and the Morris clan on Pipedream sailed together in convoy across the Indian Ocean and up the red sea to Cyprus. Back then, Ned and Carol were sailing with their two children and had inadvertently planted a seed in Russel’s mind about the possibility of cruising with kids…

In Tobago Cays, Ned and Carol got to meet Kai and Jaiya and we got to show off our very own boat and share sailing stories…they have just returned from a trip all the way down to Chile and back so had a few new and salty tales to tell   

After a couple of days of chillaxing Tobago Cays style, the laundry at nearby Union Island beckoned. We took off with our massive black sack of dirty clothes. Of course the anchorage was crowded as hell when our gear lever broke just as we were navigating our way around the cluster of anchored yachts to try to find a space… this left us with only one engine, which, when there is some wind around (there was) in a tight anchorage, is scary. We zigzagged around the fry and finally got the pick down (sailor talk for anchored ) Next, we pulled apart the lever (a cable grip had let go and required reconnecting)

The macerator in the starboard heads had also packed in so, we (o.k, Russ) also had the toilet apart (not a pleasant job) For a relatively new, well maintained boat, we seem to be constantly working on Tika.. What was that definition of cruising again? Fixing things in exotic locations!

Union Island is a kite surfing hangout and we found quaint cafes and urber cool restaurants with surprisingly good wine lists…

Below; Russ, due to his innate fear of running out of food, has a nose for sniffing out the best stores- and when he finds them he doesn’t hold back   Union Island had some good fruit and veggie shacks so we stocked up (again) Yachties like us spend their lives searching for fresh produce- it’s a fulltime job…

Below; Approaching Union Island anchorage- avoid the reef and head for the cluster of masts!

We said goodbye to Union and headed to Mayreau where we found one of our favourite anchorages of the trip so far…beautiful Salt Whistle Bay. Salt Whistle had it all- a calm white sandy beach on the bay side, a windy, wavy side that satisfied windsurfing fetishes; and beachfront restaurant shacks that played catchy, reggae music. They enticed us with fresh fish, lobster, chicken and wonderfully seasoned fried rice, all cooked on open barbecues and served to you at rickety tables plonked straight onto the sand…

We jagged a front row position in this lovely little bay – at the skinniest part of the isthmus so the wind funnelled trough, cooling us down and generating glorious amounts of wind-generated power.

On arrival at Saltwhistle we took advantage of Tika’s low draft (we draw just 800mm and so are lucky enough to be able to get in closer to the shore than most boats (particularly deep-keeled monohulls) We nosed our way in through the anchored yachts to have a look for a prime spot at the front row (closest to the sandy beach)

Often, we notice that boats come in and park further and further out from the parked vessels leaving lots of space at the front. I guess there is a fear of appearing rude when parking in front of someone who had arrived before you- reminiscent of arriving late to an outdoor concert and flopping your picnic blanket right in front of the organised people who arrived 3 hours early with a picnic hamper.

On this occasion the front was tight. We saw a gap between the many large, chartered catamarans and went over to have a look. As we approached the crew on one of the anchored boats came out onto their deck and assumed a hands on hips stance.

There is a curious set of behaviour that accompanies the yacht anchoring process in crowded spots and it intrigues me. Like an ancient ritual is seems to be adhered to by most sailors- both the ones in the throws of anchoring, and the ones sitting in their cockpits, cold bevvy in hand, watching with a sometimes critical eye. Here is how it usually plays out….

The anchorer slides in looking for the right position. The spectator watches warily and if feeling particularly territorial (and if space is tight) stands up on the deck facing the direction of the anchorer and watching every move. There may be a smile and a wave but the body language can be clearly read as “don’t get too close! don’t park in MY cockpit, I was here first you know…..” Once the anchorer has anchored and has settled into what is considered by the spectator as an acceptable position, all tension is released and everybody gets on with being good neighbours. If a new boat arrives, the anchorer becomes the spectator and the ritual starts anew…”Hi, welcome…just don’t park in my cockpit!’

I have to say, there is a valid reason for the spectators behaviour. Apart from protecting privacy, wind can pop up, change direction and swirl boats at anchor. Currents change, chains get stretched out, anchors drag and boats that were 1-3 boat lengths away when the anchor was dropped, can get way too close when any/all of the above conditions change.

Back to Saltwhistle Bay, and here we are looking at a crowded locale with a tempting but marginal space in between two other catamarans. There were now up to 6 people all on the foredeck of the closest boat. The demeanour was very territorial and to be honest, they were taking the ritual a little too far. Without the pressure and the “oh, I don’t think so’ body language from our neighbours, I am confident that Russ and I could have anchored here and still given ourselves the required scope and swinging room. But it was a crowded area and we buckled under the spectator’s stare. “It’s too tight Russ” I said through gritted teeth as I smiled and waved at the grumpy crew. We took a position further back and relaxed in the cockpit, happy for our turn to assume the persona of the spectator.

It wasn’t long before, to our surprise and amusement, we watched a huge charter cat cruise in at full speed and, without any hesitation and seemingly, without noticing the hands-on-hipster spectators, plonked their anchor smack bang in the spot. As the afternoon morphed into dusk, we watched in amazement as no fewer that SIX more large, skippered, catamarans whizzed into the bay, pushed themselves into the prime positions and dropped anchor. We took a walk along the beach later that evening to see how they managed it and saw that the front row boats were basically rafted up to each other. It set a new standard for a cheeky park in a crowded anchorage. God only knows what they would do if the wind/currents did increase and change direction!

Very early the next morning a boat in the far front of us left- so we silently slipped forward before anyone else in the anchorage even thought about emerging from their saloons. It was THE perfect spot- away from the fray of cramped catamarans and too close to the headland for anyone to squeeze between us and it. We stayed put for a luxe 8 days.

Below: the Last Bar Before the Jungle Became our fave…

It was at Salt whistle bay on Mayraeu Island that it happened. …

I had been enticed into making a sandcastle with the kids and was totally engrossed by their grand plans that included a thick, protective wall and moat to stop the waves damaging the grand city that was to dwell inside the fortress walls. We were all working hard and Kai and Jaiya cracked me up by launching themselves to lay in front of the incomplete wall to protect them with their bodies when a large wave arrived. After a good couple of hours I had lost track of time and that’s when it happened; I suddenly realised that I was and had been for quite some time, 100% in the present moment. Woah. I felt like an enlightened Buddha meditatively manifesting the perfect mandala in the shape of a sandy city. I realised that this has not happened to me for the longest time. I wasn’t thinking about anything. I was just being. It was one of those moments I shall always remember. Sandcastle Bliss.

Kai got to windsurf in the waves on the other side of Salt Whistle bay… not bad for an 11yr old (at the time)!

One of the things we love is hearing the stories of some of the sailors we meet out here, There are so many cool stories! Italia is an old wooden gaff rigged cutter (no winches!) owned by 9 young Danish people who bought the shell of a boat and, as a team project, built it themselves. The boat is going around the world and the Danes fly in and out of the adventure when they can and either join or tag their friends. When we met them there were 6 aboard. They only had a 80L water tank and were buying expensive drinking water by the bottle from the chemist on Union Island. We gave them 100L. It was so easy to be generous with our water as we had so much power from the constant sun and wind and our water maker churns out 80L of water per hour so it was not a big deal to us. Nice to be able to pay forward some of the help and generosity we have received these past 7 months…

We hiked up to the village at the top of the hill where we met a family of volunteers building a retreat centre for people who work in war zones. The view was amazing.

Petit St Vincent had a fabulous beachfront restaurant bar that welcomed visiting sailors. It was a little shinier than the locally run beach shacks of Salt Whistle Bay but the food, beverages and view was to die for…

Below; Swimming with turtles at the turtle sanctuary…

Next post: The fabulous, underwater sculptures of Jason DeCaires

 

This entry was posted in The Sail.