St Lucia to Grenada (14906 miles to date)

Where's me coat... This chap is about 18 inches long. When grown they have magnificent colouring, combs and spiky bits

After Ian and Francis fly home I move on down the coast of St Lucia to the Pitons - a couple of impressive lumps of rock, the waters around these are a national park, anchoring is forbidden and you must take a national park mooring buoy - for 20 USD. I get visits from a couple of boat boys and the second one says, "hurry there is only one buoy left, follow me" he cries, he will take me to the buoy and help tie me up. I see an approaching catamaran and race to the buoy. I tip the  (50 year old) "boy" 7 USD and am much relieved to get safely tied up. I then use the binoculars to note there are 4 or 5 other buoys but I suppose it was a good hussle.

I think watching the sunset when you are single handed is an emotional event. I think of home.

Next day I leave at first light to get to Bequia choosing to bypass St Vincent. St Vincent is the main island in the group "St Vincent and the Grenadines"  - sounds like a pop group. SVG is a very scenic collection of Islands and I really enjoy Bequia. The main town is a narrow sheltered bay and has buoys owned by the boat buoys, again I take one near a dinghy dock run by the whalebone cafe

2 dollar beers, I always try and drink local beers and the Caribbean has beer called Carib (as well as Kalik and Presidente(exported from the Dominic Republic)) So the price for parking your dinghy is 2 USD and they give you a beer and free Wifi. What's not to like!

The place is occasionally blighted by cruiseships but the locals have not had their head turned by the commercial possibilities of exploitation. I am please to report, I am most pleased to report that the stands above are where the locals sell coloured beads to the cruiseship passengers. I think we have come a long way and I find this uproariously funny (I do appreciate not everyone has my sense of humour but surely this is ironic)

Actually the numbers of visitors here are quite small as only the smaller ships call here - unlike later when I am in Bonaire when 7,500 people hit the town at once.  (200,000 called here in 2010 - and there are only 18,000 locals). There are only 314 cruise ships in the world (2018) I suppose the Caribbean gets a lot of them and they have to go somewhere and the 26 million people (days) want to go ashore somewhere... <sigh>

Bequia, Port Elizabeth has a lovely shore front - a walking dock with nice wee cafes and restaurants (and dive centres), I stay for 4 days to try and get my US gas fixed. Fridge also goes on the blink. I should have kept a list of everything that has broken on Shadowmere - it would be a long list. Eventually I get a new regulator and am on my way. I travel 40 miles to Union Island to Chatham bay (CH below) and leave the next morning to go around the corner to Clifton bay (CL) where I can check out of the SVGs. Clifton is exposed to the swell from the East but is behind reefs which help break it up a bit

The dinghy dock is well sheltered

And Clifton is a pretty wee town. It has boat boys/water taxis but no real hassle to deal with - mine is called Buddha (amazing resemblance but I chose not to photograph him). He sells me good banana bread as well as helping me take a mooring buoy (free) and running me into town and back for 7 USD (20 ECD)

While waiting for the taxt, I have an iced tea - served in an old jam jar with a hollow bamboo for a straw - works perfectly and very sustainable. Who needs plastic cups and straws!

Getting through the reef is tight, the wind is high and avoiding kite surfers is good sport. He missed...

After Union I approach a few islands just North of Grenada after passing Carriacou - which looked nice - I have problems getting the speeling and pronunciation of these places right - I will eventually head for Curacao in the ABC islands. I finally thing of cured ham and female pigs to get cura cao (cure a sow) for the ABC islands - not quite right but very close - the sow needs a slightly harder 'C', By the way - my mnemonic for Carriacou is "Carry a cow" said in Scottish.

I divert a bit East to avoid an underwater volcano known as Kick'em Jenny - the chart shows a forbidden exclusion zone when yellow or red warnings are in effect. I just keep clear. The back of these rocks have jobbly seas - tide over plateaus - a hundred feet deep as opposed to the 5000 feet on the other side.

The marina has chickens - both male and female. The male rooster here is looking pleased with himself for reasons I need not go into on this blog that might be read by children.

And into Grenada - I anchor for a couple of nights and then go into the Marina on the day Kieran and Eamon arrive. The anchorage is spacious but I drag three times - always a hassle for a singlehander - thank God for Anchor winches. I also have an adventure going into the Marina - I had cased the joint the night before and knew that there were stern buoys. I had been told to ready 2 long stern lines and 2 short bow lines which I did and when I arrived they told me to hang around for 15 minutes which meant engaging forward and astern gear every couple of minutes - it was quite windy.  They would send a boat to me when they were ready to "dock" me. No DIY efforts in this marina!.  Unfortunately one of the stern lines fell over and caught the prop. I knew immediately and put the boat out of gear and radioed the staff - "Please come and tow me to a buoy" I asked - I was 20 feet from them. I radioed again a few minutes later "Urgent, please come and tow me to a buoy" A few minutes later I said - "I will anchor in 2 minutes if you do not come and tow me to a buoy". 2 seconds later I heard their rib and they came and sorted me out. I still had to dive to clear the rope - solid plastic that took 15 minutes of breadknife hacksawing. Good job I have a pony diving bottle on board.

The weird thing is that I had been thinking to myself just last week that I have travelled nearly 20,000 miles in Shadowmere (this trip plus 4,000 miles in the Baltic) and I have never picked up a lobster pot... sigh

St George's Grenada is a pleasant town. In fact all Grenada is nice - a few poor places, a few people begging but there is a lot going on in this island, lots of good houses, shops are good and the chickens are fat...

If the locals like Cruise ships so much why do they point their cannons at them?

We have some local sloup in a market

and that night try pina colada and fruit punches - a good way to get your vitamins!

Now Mackeson stout rings a bell - nice, made in trinidad! (and the UK)

we take a tour around the Island - "free lunch" and entry into various places. We pass a well decorated road side - the Grenada colours. There are competitions every year for best dressed town - they task the kids with collecting litter and the prizes are used for children's facilities. So if you drop litter in a town most kids will ask you to pick it up. The really smart kids tell you to pick it up... and drop it in the next town.

Yes we have bananas

The ground is so hilly it is typical to build houses on stilts - but the practice is perpetuated on to the (little) flat land as a matter of style/fashion. In fact it is quite typical to build a staircase and build the first floor - when you gather more money together then you build up the ground floor or second floor. Our driver is a font of knowledge - locals don't use mortgages - you save a few grand and put up the stilts, you save a few more (10,000 US) and put up the first storey and so piecemeal construction is normal.

We also visit a waterfall and a man jumps down - you can just see him at the top of the photo. He is looking for tips. My tip would be don't do dangerous things...

Grenada does spices. The nutmeg is particularly interesting - did you know that the first layer of the nutmeg has red coloured bits that are the Mace spice. You grate the inner bit to get actual nutmeg - two spices from one plant!

The driver introduced this as a world famous eggplant. Yes, those are eggshells stuck on the tips of the bush - apparently this makes drying clothes on these bushes much easier - how clever.

We also visit a chocolate factory - here is the cocoa fruit

Which has funny fluffy white bits inside - nice to suck but not to chew

We also buy a couple of bars and then move on to a rum distillery, whose rum is so potent it cannot be put on an airplane  - Rivers Rum is made mainly by hand in a very traditional way (the machinery is very old) It has been running continuously since 1875. Makes 30 gallons in 2 hours. Emplopys 75 people.

They burn both cane sugar and wood depending how hot they want the ovens

The water wheel (from the rivers) crushes the sugar cane

Their chain drive is well greased (and very very old)

The humans feeding the cane through the rollers (twice) do not have any safety guards which makes me cringe a bit

Puts a smile on your face - 75 degrees proof (normal spirits are 40 - 42 degrees proof) It tastes like lightly flavoured neat ethanol (I remember tasting neat ethanol in chemistry class in school)

And then back to the Marina - below is the biggest boat in the marina

Here is a line of boats  - Shadowmere is towards the end. We leave for a four day passage to get to Bonaire - passing within 80 miles of the Venezuelan coast (within 20 miles of its islands) and we elect to switch off our navigation lights and not transmit AIS. Pirates and violent crime are a real possibility, though we have boisterous winds that should dissuade people motoring out on spec (we hope).

Grenada is a fully functioning island. lots of jobs, agriculture, good housing stock and fat hens...
The marina is full of yachts and people, a lot of charters are based from here. The marina is quite upmarket - we enjoy its pool! We also enjoy meals out in the real town. with Real People.

Saba to St Lucia, the voyage South (14,756 Miles to date)

A sea horse, not for riding  - it's about 3 inches long

After the last breakneck blog when we roared through the Virgin Islands, with poor and time limited Wifi I finally have a bit more time. Though still not many photographs. Ian Stevenson and Frances McArthur had been on board for 5 weeks and I really enjoyed their company and help. They arrived into Puerto Rico and departed from St Lucia. After wending our way through the Virgin islands (Spanish, US and British) we set out for an overnight passage to Saba. As usual the East winds were blowing from the East and the best we could manage was motorsailing with the number two genoa out. Sometimes we just had to motor straight into the wind - at about 3 knots. The further I go down the Caribbean chain the more they curl around to give better sailing. From St Lucia south I should be beam reaching - the best point of sailing. Here is a map to orientate yourself. From the BVI there are two chains of islands. The NE one is Anguilla, St Martin, St Bart and Antigua - I had travelled up this  route last year - at least visiting Antigua and St Martins. This time I resolved to follow the alternative route of Saba, Statia (St Eustatius) St Kitts& Nevis and then onward to Guadaloupe via Montserrat.

The red arrows are Saba (where we didn't land) then Statia/St Eustatius where we anchored off and had a couple of dives with a dive school. We also used a dive school at St Kitts/Saint Christopher. 

Approaching Saba, a tall volcanic plug (think Ailsa Criag on Steroids.)

No easy access, there is a tiny beach with a staircase of something like 461 steps, the beach was untenable in the swell though, very steep pebbles.

There is a "port" but we had too much swell on the mooring buoys here to risk dropping the outboard onto the rubber boat, Once ashore the "town" is away up the hill.

And so we decide to cut our losses and head for Statia. There is a better sheltered anchorage there and although it was a bit rolly, we found that Shadowmere is better than some in swells - a long keel and 15 tons of weight, a lot of which is low down in the keel probably helps over fin keelers with lower ballast ratio. Grand old lady.

Statia is interesting - it has a pretty interesting volcano, a long hike which we refrain from on this occasion. The main town of Oranjestad reveals its Dutch origins, Also a British influence as has most of the Caribbean. In fact the island changed hands 22 times in 20 years between the French and the British before ending up definitely Dutch. The anchorage in the South was once the biggest anchorage in the Caribbean with over 400 ships here at a time. It was a staging post for goods (including slaves) and the Island had some tobacco and sugar planted too. The dockside has now a couple of dive centres, a couple of hotels and a couple of restaurants/cafes spread along the shore. 

Then there is a 200 yard steep slope to the town proper which has supermarkets, churches and more restaurants. People are happy and busy. It passes my test of having somewhere to buy bread and somewhere with a decent church. I am also learning that it is common on many islands to have hens running around all over the place - It is interesting to note that the hens here are not scrawny but well fed - another indicator of the state of an island perhaps?,  how skinny are the hens?

The climb up the hill is through a gate. The only old goats climbing up are human ones...

The dive centre here is well run with brilliant staff, thanks Mike, Alex, Kirsty and Mitch. Mike has also published books on Padi signals; there are scores of these including how to ask someone to marry you underwater so I think his tongue is in his cheek but his underwater fish Identification book is an excellent tome. The BSAC who trained me use 5 or 6 signals so there is a big difference between these two organisations.

His staff give really good fish briefings (to the humans) before we hit the water too - and are good pointing out the life as we dive with them. The visibility underwater is startling with a gorgeous Deep Blue in the distance. The coral is buzzing with life too.  I would happily come back here for a weeks diving and stay in a local hotel perhaps Shirley and I can visit in a year or so.

Mike explaining the logo of the dive centre. The Dutch West India company used blue beads to trade with. You can find these stones underwater so Mike created a logo of the pentagons with ripples emanating outwards. Mind you he also tried to say the Pentagon in the states has a similar heritage. There is a curious link between Statia and the US. Statia fired a cannon in welcome when a US ship anchored here, much to the annoyance of the British as the US wasn't an official country yet.  The first Caribbean island to officially recognise America. Wonder if it was a mistake?

And then we move on to the nearby Islands of St Kitts and Nevis - staying in a cheap marina so we can get water. We dive here too, a lower key affair, nice coral areas with lots of gulleys. We see this again in Dominica which has much better underwater terrain

I had visited St Kitts on the way North a year previous and my comments in that blog still stand - an old authentic poor town with reclaimed land now between it and the sea where they have parachuted in a Disney village of cruise ship shops - Gold. jewellery, handbags, good clothes (and t-shirts, hats and liquor and cigars as well as a plethora of bars and restaurants.) The old town is where you buy loafs of bread and got to church - and visit a bank. I think St Kitts is the banking capitol of the Caribbean - I think I see 8 different banks and the post office has hundreds of numbered mail boxes. I wonder how many companies have registered "offices" with 8 inches square of shopfront.

We leave St Kitts and anchor for the night off Nevis - I had no wish to clear in here and had cleared out of St Kitts so we did not go ashore but left at first light for a passage to Guadaloupe with an option to top at Montserrat. In the end we keep going and arrive in the beautiful town of Deshais (again). This time the bar used in the TV series Death in Paradise is open (and packed)

After a pleasant stop we move down the coast to the Jacque Cousteau Marina park at Pigeon Island. We anchor here and go ashore, slightly North of where I had previously been to a large collection of beach based huts offering diving, snorkelling, boat trips and kayaking. And good coffee.

Frances and I dive from Shadowmere but the buoyage system has changed since Eamon and I dived here (and Doros and Peter) last year. Previously there were blue and white commercial dive buoys and yellow buoys for visiting yachts. Now there is no provision for visiting yachts and the bay between the two pigeon islands is buoyed off for the swimmers and snorkelers. In the end Frances and I dive and Ian takes Shadowmere off a bit with us promising to surface near one of the swimming bouys. We do, although by this time there are a dozen divers and snorkellers in the water near us and it gets a bit busy. Eventually Ian sees us and comes in and drops the dinghy off and retreats. I have practiced taking my gear off in the water, tying it to a rope (the painter). This allows me to clamber into the dinghy, recover my gear (and Frances!) and head out to clear water. What a Palava! But the diver was really good - the SW corner has a dropoff - a nearly vertical cliff dropping to 50m and we go a bit of the way down this to see the bigger fishes moving up and down the cliff. Nice.

Phew, we head on to the Isle le Saints off the bottom corner of Guadaloupe. We had anchored here on the way north but not gone ashore. This time we do.. A lovely French island, a bit like Isle de Yeu

We anchored off the island and used the dinghy to get to the town. It gets visited by hundreds of day trippers from Guadaloupe.

Who hire electric bikes with big tires! or golf buggies

The French so water sports well

Ian Stevenson

And Frances - she is the one on the left - the Pelicans are on the right - they are not afraid of humans!

And then onward to Dominica - I had gone straight from Martinique to Guadaloupe on the way up and passed Dominica in the middle of the night. We stopped off the town of Portsmouth in the North of Dominica (third arrow from the top above) and set off ashore on two missions, I was to check in and F&I were to book a dive for the next morning. It was 4 pm on Saturday. I asked a policeman for directions and he sent me on a mile hike to the far end of the town. The town was very poor, houses in disrepair, skinny hens...

They did have a hurricane pass through a couple of years ago.

Debris dumped on the shore

Hi rise shanty? I am asked twice for money, second time I say "I am on a boat trying to get home, do you have any money to help me." the guy looks a bit discombobulated at this suggestion and doesn't give me any money. Frances has a similar experience at the other end of the town. The beach bar near the dinghy dock, near the boat boy association headquarters feels safe... 

At the far end of the town I met a security guard on a dock and he said, the customs had gone home early - come back tomorrow. I did and they had also gone home early, again, so I am afraid I confess to being an illegal immigrant to Dominica but I did a runner on the Sunday night... Don't tell them.

Frances was more successful and we all got a lovely dive with Don and Frankie - Frankie stayed on the dive boat and supplied us with Banana bread and iced tea with extra added Lime juice between dives. Recommended!

We met boat boys here but they were well organised and polite,  Martinique to the south is clear of these but they start up again in St Lucie and from there south I think. One had arranged the dive with Frances - he had got the guy on his phone  and handed the phone to FRances. He then appeared at Shadowmere the next morning for his tip $10 I think. Might have been 10 or 20 Eastern Caribbean dollars which is 4 to 8 USD approx

The diving was excellent too, outstanding Vis and really unusual rock coral formations - tunnels that we swam through. Also a nice wreck dive and good life.

Octupii are usually only seen at night.

A wee Barracuda I think, not yet with an evil sneer.

After our dive we move onto the South of Dominca to anchor for the night to reduce our journey time to Martinique. The town of Roseau - we go ashore for a meal and beer at sunset.

Martinique has a tall rock plug on its bottom corner that we had failed to dive last year. HMS diamond is the only island that the British navy christened as a ship, placing cannon and crew upon it to fire on the passing french. This was a while ago - before we joined the EU.

We manage to anchor this time and take the dinghy around to a dive buoy. The dive is excellent, big rock tunnels and arches as well as good fish life - and 2 or 3 hoards of padi dive groups.

After Ian S got Frances back into the inflatable I elected to swim the 4 or 500 yards back to Shadowmere at a depth of 5m. Good exercise. I pass two Padi instructors who are dragging their raw recruits along the seabed. One has both hands on the trainee's bottle and is manhandling the diver along while fins and arms flail about. By God they are giving good value for money, I suppose... In my day trainees had to do 5 snorkel dives and spent months in a pool training before going diving. They could use fins by then... <sigh>

We head for the fleshpots of Martinique - the Port du Marin at the SouthEast end of the Island, we had been here before. Good cheap marina. I was hoping to buy a dive bottle as the Diving compressor has stopped working and 3 bottles would be easier diving when Eamon and Kieran arrive. The dive shop sold its last one the day before we arrived and would not get stock for another 3 weeks. A Pity. I did get a new o-ring for my regulator though. Maybe Grenada will have bottles.  

Next day we head 20 miles to St Lucia 24 hours before Ian and Frances are to fly home. The first port is Rodney's Bay Marina. In a narrow lagoon entrance to a large well appointed marina  - moorings have a charter fleet here and the ARC Atlantic Rally for Cruisers ends here.

In the Gap, there are anchorages outside but we need a marina berth to get Ian and France's luggage safely ashore.

There are beach resorts ashore and two of these ships in the bay  - this one is Club Med 2

A couple of quirky boats come around the boats - this one sells fruit.

This one sells fruit and booze!

Large Marina, swimming pool and 4 restaurants and bars, Laundry manned by humans (womaned actually - I drop off my washing and she gets the stains out of the tablemats!!! major result!!!!)

I go looking for a dive shop, it's shut, it is attached to a nearby hotel

So St Lucia has lots of expensive housing developments around, I walk some distance to get to real housing and shops (I want to buy eggs!)

Why did the Chicken... note this is a "fat" one.

On Ian and Frances's last night they take me for a meal and we get a final "snap". It has been lovely having company and I have really enjoyed having them on board, the 5 weeks have flown and I have only 10 days on my own before Kieran and Eamon join me in Grenada. Thanks for everything F&I 

And the next day I head off on my own. 15 miles down the coast to the "Pitons" famous lumps of rock and a national park. I am met by a boat bou who takes me to a park buoy and ask for 20 ECD to tie me up. It is the last buoy and anchoring is prohibited - we beat a catamaran to the buoy and I am glad to be safe. The park ranger comes and takes 54 ECD for the hire of the buoy (about 20 USD) I sleep soundly and head off at first light for a 50 mile passage to Bequia, bypassing the larger island of St Vincent to reach a safer harbour as winds are rising.

To date the Virgin islands have impressed me, at least Culebra and St Johns and the sailing amongst the BVI. I found Statia lovely as the people seemed happy and the diving was so good. The French islands I adore too, as I love France a lot. The rest is also good so it is hard to pick favourites. In truth I hate picking favourites, I am enjoying all of the journey.