Grenadines & St. Vincent (I)
Cruising Log: Grenadines, St. Vincent
Contributed By: Hervé Liegeois
We had 3 objectives on this trip.
- Take the 1st vacation by ourselves in 9 years and try to enjoy complete relaxation.
- Test our ability to sail shorthanded the Lagoon 410 since we are thinking of buying one.
- Check out the Grenadines as a potential spot to leave our future boat in charter.
See the Current Cruise Permits Fees in Grenada.
Monday
Flight to Barbados nice and smooth nice staff and meal... Dorothy doesn't fly well... LIAT hop to St. Vincent.
Arrive 8:05 takes 20 minutes to clear customs... Phyllis drives us in 5 minutes to Beachcombers. Cute and romantic dinner area, room so-so.
Tuesday
Get a Suzuki from Phyllis, drive around St Vincent. Visit to the botanical gardens, good guide interesting stuff. Lunch at Blue Lagoon watching the boats and drooling, dinner at the French... .only ones in the restaurant both times...
Wednesday
The boat... get a quick chart briefing and off we are with a captain for the shake down... last about 1 ½ minute and the guy jumps off the boat...
Get out of the lagoon, big rollers and some breakers... winds steady 25k... Dorothy is not too sure about the whole thing anymore. Still under reefed main and motor reach the north end of Bequia on windward side... OOUCH!
Winds at 30k, waves 12ft, some breakers in the cockpit. Dorothy wants to fly back home... Finally reach Mustique. Anchorage is very rolly and uncomfortable Basil's empty and waiters not too friendly.
Thursday
The tropical wave is gone and we finally have "normal" conditions... lovely passage to Admiralty Bay in 8ft seas with 20kts. wind boat cruising at 9kts. Get a mooring across from the Mac's pizza from African Pride, not a wave in the harbor, blue sky, nice people. There is hope.
Dinner at Frangipani for the BBQ and jump up. Too much food, still tired, crash at 10pm. We decide to stay for another day.
Friday
Stroll through town buy some stuff at Doris'... Dinner at Gingerbread, great curry... French people all around us.
Hear about the start of the carnival and decide to check it out... scary walk in the back streets of Bequia with lots of men just hanging around looking at you... we finally make it to the park with the help and safety of 3 other couples, the whole thing is a big joke with a dozen kids dancing on stage and the usual pompous announcements. The party seemed to have started after we went to bed... Steel drums until the wee hours.
Saturday
Great sail to Mayreau, 15kts calm seas the boat is doing 8-9 kts.
The anchorage at Salt whistle is too crowed for a first time anchoring for this crew so we decide to push on to Saline Bay. Anchor smoothly, nice beach. We make the climb up to the village and have lunch at Dennis, great fish and chips. We get to meet Nicola, Dennis new friend. We promise to come back for dinner. Weather is perfect and I get to see my 1st"Green Flash" at sunset.
Going to dinner at Dennis; I decline the offer from Charlie, his boat boy, to get us to the dock... mistake.
We have to tie the dinghy on the west side of the dock and throw the stern anchor to prevent it from going under, then I have to "climb" on the dock 6ft above. I am way too old for this stuff.
Dennis is empty again since some guy from Fort Lauderdale on a trawler organized a party at Paradise and got most of the cruisers anchored in the bay to go. Dennis and Nicola tell us the big news... they are engaged. We buy them drinks and invite them to join us for dinner... great night of drinking, Dennis and I are trying all sort of rummer recipes, and telling tall tales... Slightly drunk I now have to untie the dinghy and jump from the dock.
Sunday
20 minutes motor over to Union. Try to anchor in the lee of the outside reef but anchor is dragging badly, we succeed on the 2nd try but and just in case get the Delta out with the dinghy and put the 2nd anchor down. Lunch at the Yacht club. French people everywhere again plus some people we helped in Mustique with parts for their 46'FP from TMM. We have dinner at the yacht club and feed the sharks while the bulls are running past the pool, quite a sight... Spend the night at anchor in front of a little sandy island. Winds blowing pretty hard... in the morning find out that the Delta saved us from drifting.
Monday
Motor to Petit St. Vincent with the wind at 20kts dead ahead. Anchorage is crowed and very windy with gusts in the 25-30kts range. Find a good patch of sand and settle. Dinghy over to Petite Martinique to get fuel for the Dinghy and food and booze. Meet again with the people from Scotland on the 46'FP. Later on we go for a walk on the beach, it is really beautiful. Decide to dinghy over to Mopion and spend some time playing in the shallow pools. Wonderful evening and dinner at the resort.
Tuesday
Great sail towards the south side of Union. Winds at 20kts. The boat is going 12kts. We had planned to stop at Chatham Bay but the weather is turning nasty again and the anchorage really busy, so we motor up to Saline Bay one more time. Great hike to the top of the island and visit of the church. It is very hot, stop for a beer on the way down at DeYouths, Robert is reading a book about Bob Marley.
7:30 This time we have Charlie pick us up and we make the climb again in the dark... Dinner again that night with Dennis and Nicola, share some story with Sunsail charterers from England who are also here for happy hour. Never did find out exactly why monohulls are better than cats like they claimed and did not really cared after the 4th rummer.
Wednesday
Motor over to the Tobago Keys. It is pretty crowded with a couple small cruise boats and a whole lot of charter boats. Anchor right off the beach at Baradel and dinghy around to get our bearings and look for good spots for the next day. Order bread from one of the boat boys who never came back... Dinner on board feels nice, we are starting to really feel at home on the 410.
Night from Hell... winds howling in the rigging all night, rain coming down hard and another boat's anchor alarm going off very loudly 3 times during the night. We did not drift...
Thursday
We were supposed to stay but the skies are gray and the wind is still blowing pretty hard, so we decide to move on and stop at Canouan. Once we have all sails up the boat is really going again at 10 kts. Dorothy decides to pass on Canouan which looks so-so under gray skies and asks me to go on to Bequia.
Just for fun I decide to chase a sail on the horizon to pass the time and try to get the most out of the boat. It works and we pass the 40ft monohull just before entering Port Elizabeth. Blue skies again, the storm is south of us. As we enter the harbor we spot a small model boat made of a coconut and rags heading south. After 5 minutes we manage to pick it up... we'll bring it back home as a souvenir.
We pick a nice spot right of the beach and anchor perfectly... really getting good at that stuff... 15 minutes later some Moorings charterers show up and decide to anchor right on top of us... they leave the next morning... I would have moved.
Nice walk on the beach and grand tour of the harbor in the dinghy, the 15hp. is really great for zipping around. Dinner at Gingerbread again and after dinner drinks at Frangipani with the steel band.
Friday
Walks on the beach and snorkel around the point. Walk to town buy some tee-shirts and lunch. Dinner at L'auberge des Grenadines wonderful food but once again we are the only ones there.
Saturday
Nice motor sail up the coast of Bequia and then fast shoot across under sail only to the base... It's over... We pack all our bags in John West's Jeep and back to the hotel. After lounging around the pool for a while we get dressed up and ferry over to Young Island. Wonderful BBQ dinner on the beach with steel band playing... don't want it to end.
Sunday
Wake up at 5 am to get to the airport... this time it is really over. Goodbye St. Vincent.