Northbound…Slowly
On our way south, we had to hurry. Our insurance required that we be south of 12 degrees, 40 minutes north latitude by the beginning of August. As such, we had to skip large swaths of islands that we wanted to visit. Now, as we head north, and will most likely not be going back to Grenada for next hurricane season, we are going much slower.
Right out of the gate, we were having issues with our auto pilot. As such, we’ve been hand-steering so far, which Grete certainly doesn’t seem to mind here.
Union
Our first island in the Grenadines was Union Island, and it’s less than ten miles from Carriacou, where we checked out of Grenada. The distance in general from one island to the next is really short, a huge part of what we didn’t get to enjoy when we were southbound since we sailed past entire countries, mostly on much longer, overnight passages. We stopped first on the west coast of Union, then moved for another few days to the south coast.
Chatham Bay
Chatham is a really relaxed beach with a few beach bars and one high-end resort. Guess where we ate and drank, haha :) The beach dive bar at one end is owned by a guy named Ken who is a retired air traffic controller. Now, he runs a bar on the west coast, another restaurant on the east coast, works as a taxi driver, and does customs and immigration check-ins for cruisers. Dude has four jobs now that he’s retired…sounds like somebody I know.
The beach here was very pretty and not a lot of people come here so we loved it. We tried to hike a nearby peak but gave up after bushwhacking straight up a cliff for far too long. We then had Ken give us a ride into town to get some groceries. He gave us a tour of the beautiful island since we pretty much had to drive the whole thing and it’s pretty small.
He got us back to the top of the hill to hike back to the anchorage right at sunset.
The best thing about Chatham was that we caught back up to our friends on Low Expectations. Our first evening there we had lobster that we would have had to eat in the water for it to be any fresher. Ryan nailed it on the cooking and prep and everybody loved it.
Then, we stayed and drank and talked until ‘tomorrow’, which Fira was the only kid awake for and thought was the coolest thing.
We were also in Chatham for Thanksgiving, which Low Expectations hosted us for on their boat. It was another great meal, of lamb since turkey is virutally non-existent here, and another long evening with fantastic company.
The worst thing about Chatham was the williwaws that poured down on us all night making sleep a bit of a challenge. It was a well protected anchorage otherwise though and after three months of violent waves in Grenada it wasn’t too bad at all.
Frigate Island
After a few days in Chatham we went a few miles around the south side and anchored right next to Frigate Island. The wind here was far more consistent and thus the sleep was even better. We were also a short dinghy ride from Ashton where some supplies could be found. We also managed to hike up the tallest peak on Union from our anchorage there. It would have been a much better hike with a machete since the ‘trail’ was overgrown to the point of not existing any more. We nearly gave up just short of the peak but pressed on and were rewarded with beautiful 360 views.
The next day, we walked around from Ashton to a really well run nature park trail that connects Union Island to Frigate Island. The trail and bridges were some of the most well-maintained things in the Caribbean, which isn’t saying much but still, our bar has gotten pretty low.
After the bridges, we finally caught up with Low E and walked the rest of the way out to Frigate Island with them. We tried scurrying up to the highest spot but there were too many cacti and too many flip-flops for it to be possible at all.
The entire time we were in Grenada, we managed to not get impetigo. Well, Dublin finally started showing symptoms while we were in Union. So first thing in the morning before we pulled up anchor, Dublin and I dinghied into Clifton to go get antibiotics from the hospital. We were not impressed with any part of it, including the fact that we paid 200EC to the doctor who simply put the money in her pocket and had given far too weak of a prescription to actually kill it (more later).
The dinghy ride in was a few miles in open water and it was rough. It was the worst dinghy ride we’ve had yet (with the exception of our botched shore landing in Crooked Island, Bahamas). But we made it and pulled anchor to head to nearby Petit St. Vincent.
Petit St. Vincent
We made the short passage over to Petit St. Vincent for a couple of nights. The island is a private resort so we couldn’t go ashore but we had the same views and didn’t have to pay the $2k per night. Also, we got to see the resort lights, etc. so our view was somewhat better :)
There was a really strong current and we tried to snorkel, but there wasn’t much to see. When we snorkel in conditions like that, I tie the dinghy painter around my waist and everyone stays near me. Then, we just snorkel along and when we’re done we just climb back in the dinghy to motor on back to the big boat. SCUBA folks call it “drift diving”, I call it “not dying by drifting out to sea”.
Mayreau (pronounced My-row)
Our next stop was Saline Bay on Mayreau. This has been one of the best places so far. The island was really relaxed, the beach was amazing and the locals were very friendly and inviting.
The first day we walked across to the east coast and hung out at a very cool beach bar called the Ranch Escapade. There were several seating nooks nestled in among groves of palm trees, but since we had the place to ourselves, we took the little dock patio out over the water.
There were swings for the kids, rum punches for the adults, and countless coconuts that obviously needed to be piled up.
We hit the beach every day for swimming and drinks and food at Lolo’s. This little dive was right in the anchorage and was run by the guy who is the local Coast Guard and police officer. He was really cool and the place was well situated and priced. Take away the no-see-ums at sunset and the place is perfect.
One night, Fira started making balls out of the sand. She got kind of obsessed with it and ended up making 300 of them and recruiting other kids to make another 100. This is what 400 sand balls look like in really poor lighting.
The island is very small and we walked it a couple of times. We also dinghied up to the north end to Salt Whistle Bay and spent the afternoon swimming and snorkeling there as well. All in all, the island had beautiful views, a picturesque old church, the friendliest locals, and the sweetest, healthiest looking stray dogs we’ve encountered yet.
Canouan
Canouan is strange. Obviously, it’s a beautiful place but it is quite segregated. The southwest part of the island is a six-year-old megayacht marina that is very fancy. Their logo is a seahorse, so we got some namesake pictures of the Sea Hoss crew.
The entire northern half of the island is a private resort where the billionaires supposedly go to get away from the millionaires. Many, many celebrities have stayed at this resort that we got to glimpse from the water. The entire coastline was quite beautiful. One evening Ryan from Low Expectations took Fira and me fishing with him and Sean. Fira caught her first fish, a grouper and he was delicious. I didn’t take any pictures because she was a little distraught at having killed the fish, but the next evening we dinghied back to the spot on the coast where she caught the fish to show Dublin and Grete the views.
The sunsets rarely disappoint.
After a few days in town, we rented a golf cart with our friends from Low Expectations and toured the parts of the island that aren’t too fancy to keep trash like us out.
This included going back to the fancy marina in the southwest, looking all over for an open restaurant, and going out to the windward coast for some scenic overlooks and short hikes. There are tons of tortoises on these islands, and we even found a couple of babies down near the beach.
Canouan was a great stop and next we left the remote Grenadine islands for the largest and most populated of the chain, Bequia. The longer we are out cruising, the better we get at handling certain parts of this rather challenging life. And sometimes, we do things so right that even our kids get along.
Oh yeah, and Dublin’s (and mine although not nearly as bad) impetigo came back even worse. We went to a clinic in Canouan that was much better than the hospital in Union. This doctor calculated Dublin’s dosage based on his weight and actually gave the correct medication to knock it out. After just 1-2 days, his face looked soooooo much better and now a couple of weeks on, it is completely gone and healed up.
Bequia (pronounced Beck-way)
This place was very, very different from the other islands. It still felt a bit like ‘vacation’, but much more populated and developed. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of Lahaina in Maui, with cute touristy shops and a rather bustling main street. We were able to load up on some groceries (not too many since it’s still Grenadine pricing) and check out a few restaurants and bars around town.
There are several fun things to do on Bequia as well, including a very well developed boardwalk,
with high sweeping views on one section that required a lot of trust in whoever built the damned thing.
One of the more challenging things was the hike to the top of Ma Peggy, the second highest peak on the island. The “trail” was basically a small creek that is dry except during rainfall. It was rocky, steep, and since it had just rained a ton for the couple of days before we hiked it, it was extremely slippery.
At the top, we got a nice view of the anchorage and main part of the town, before heading down the back side of the mountain and around the south shore.
The wildlife included hermit crabs, as most of the Caribbean does, but also the first sheep we’ve seen down here.
They look just like goats, but have the strange limp dog-like tails.
The south coast didn’t look as well protected as Elizabeth Harbor, where we were, which explains why there were only a few boats there in comparison to the couple hundred or so near us. There also didn’t seem to be anything down there for visitors, all of the shops and restaurants seemed like they have been shuttered. I think COVID really hurt these small economies in the Carribean and caused a lot of the off-the-beaten-path kind of places to crumble. That said, the little village on the south was still rather picturesque.
We’ve continued spending a lot of time with our friends from Low Expectations. The adults and children alike get along very well and we’re very much not looking forward to parting ways after Martinique.
We all walked up to Fort Hamilton and stopped at a few bars along the way for refreshments.
Elizabeth Harbor was quite rolly due to a swell from the north. We were rather uncomfortable for a few days. I dinghied over to the north side of the bay and noticed that, although small and crowded, it seemed much gentler over there. So, after one really terrible night of sleep we pulled up anchor and moved a half mile away; we never regretted that decision and slept like babies.
The last thing we did in Bequia was to go to the Firefly Estate. It was a pleasant walk, maybe a mile or so, and the estate was very well kept. Grete and the kids went with the other moms and kids and the dads all played a 9-hole round of golf. The clubs were too short for me, but it was fun to swing a club for the first time in 15-20 years.
The golf was a bit strange. The holes were really short, all under 100 yards, and even a pitching wedge was too much club. I put a few into the woods and one onto the roof of the house past the hole; whoops. It was also strange because there are no actual holes. There is a post in the ground and if you hit the post with the ball, it is considered ‘in’. Otherwise, getting within one club-length of the post was ‘in’.
Pretty sure I shot quadruple bogies on every hole, but the rum punch was good. Also, I basically got to do the fruit tour that the moms and kids did since Dublin kept running from the tour to me to give me samples of each fruit and tell me a little about them.
The weather looked decent for a three-day stretch and after much deliberating about the safety of St. Vincent and St. Lucia, we decided to bypass both and go straight to Martinique. This meant a 100 NM overnight trip so we took the weather window and headed north at the same time as our friends from Low Expectations. Near the south coast of St. Lucia at night, we were again greeted by a very large drone that came out to see what we were up to. I still have no clue what they were up to, but just as on our way south, after a minute or so it headed back to shore and left us alone.
Now, back to wine and stinky cheese!!!