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Flocks of ibis also arrived but they stayed perched on the outer branches until there were too many to count. They were like bright crimson flowers on the green tree. They are amazing birds to see, so red with specks of black in the wing tips, and their long curved beaks. The young are born black and they turn red with their diet of shellfish.
Return to Tobago
As we finally left Chaguramas on 17th October, we cleared out with Customs and Immigration and made our way towards the island of Chacachacare in the northwest, not far from Venezuela. On the way, the engine overheated and we sailed back to the anchorage. Fortunately it was nothing more serious than having lost the fresh water from a pipe loosely connected to the heat exchanger. Tightened up and refilled with water we continued. The island of Chacachacare used to be a leper colony until around 35 years ago with a village and road, and two large wards for patients. It was difficult to spot the buildings amongst the trees and undergrowth. Only one or two roofs can be seen from the water. Not much of the road can be seen now and sometimes even a track is difficult to find. The wooden floors of many of the houses were rotten and dangerous but nevertheless it was interesting exploring the village. Apart from one or two of the larger houses on the shoreline with squatters, the village was completely abandoned in 1984 when the remaining patients were taken to a hospital on the mainland. The anchorage was a lovely peaceful place for a swim or two.
The next morning we motored along the entire north coast to Grand Riviere bay to anchor for the night and another swim. In the morning we motored again into the wind and adverse currents to Scarborough, Tobago, to check into the island. Immigration found that we had not checked into Trinidad after returning from England. Not only should we have seen Immigration and Customs at the airport when we returned , but should also have checked in with them again at the port in Chaguramas as the airport immigration stamp only gave us two days to rejoin our yacht. But Immigration did not tell us this, so we had only visited Customs at the port because we had the imported goods and had been told to go there. After quite a wait, it was decided that we had to pay a fine of seven pounds each and we were stamped into Tobago for three months. We sorted a few things in the small town of Scarborough and then sailed round to the anchorage in Store Bay just as the sun set.
Our first night was not a good one. Just as I went to bed, I could hear a peculiar noise. First I found an empty water container banging on the side of the boat and found it attached to a cord going under the boat and had to cut it to lose the container. The peculiar noise continued and this time I took the torch up on deck and found a seine net, with its row of small red floats, stretching out from somewhere near the shore, right across our anchor chain, down one side of the yacht, and out to the anchor chain of the yacht behind us and beyond. Since anchoring we had turned around the anchor, but do not believe the fishing net was there when we arrived. It was not there when we were up in the morning either. The net must have drifted towards us and at first was caught somewhere under the stern of the yacht. We pulled up our anchor but the windlass refused to work and we had to find the handle to turn it by hand, freeing the net from the chain as it came up. Finding the bottom edge of the net and taking it along the side of the boat we somehow freed the net from under the boat so now we were just lying along side it. Andrew's watchstrap decided to break and drop overboard doing this. To get away from the net, Andrew got another anchor out of our lazarette with a piece of chain and a long rope he rowed it away from the net and we pulled the yacht towards the anchor and free. Pulling up this anchor though, we had got someone else's anchor chain around the flukes and it was hard work getting it up and freed. After re-anchoring with our main anchor and clearing everything up, it was early hours of the morning and three hours since I began to go to bed.
Saturday evening we met Ruth and her son Simon at the airport and took them the short walk to the apartment they had rented. We had an excellent meal in the Iguana restaurant nearby and then left them to a good night's sleep. The next morning we picked them up from the beach and we motored up the island to Parlatuvier beach where we cooled off in the sea and then made the short walk to the waterfall we had found previously. There was more water than before and a little brown, but we had a lot of fun there. Back in the village the rain fell down for quite a while. We soon made it to a bar for a drink while we waited for it to stop and then made our way back to the yacht when it rained hard again. It did not seem worth trying to get ashore again for a meal so we made a meal from tins. We then put on a video but Ruth and Simon just fell asleep. The next morning we motored round the headland and into Englishman's Bay. Here we snorkeled around the rocks at the side of the bay seeing some wonderful hard and soft corals and several types of fish, and then swam and rowed to the tree-lined sandy beach, which had quite a nasty shore break. Sarongs and local jewelry were bought and a sand crab encouraged out of his hole. The poor crab scuttled down to the sea's edge where he kept being dragged down the beach by the pull of the waves. Every so often we would see his two eyes stick up and he would scuttle a little further up the sand, obviously waiting for Andrew to leave his hole so that he could return. We had a tasty Roti here for lunch and then sailed back to Store Bay through a fair amount of light rain. It was not cold and we did not get very wet. That night we ate a good meal in a seafood restaurant and, leaving Ruth and Simon to return to their apartment, Andrew and I attempted to get our dinghy back to the yacht. The side of the beach we were on had a big wave break every third or fourth wave and at night it was very difficult to judge the waves. We got the dinghy full of water and both of us thoroughly soaked before we succeeded in getting back to the yacht. Trying to retrieve the dinghy back on board, the boat hook got tangled and the end came off and a small hole was made in the side of the dinghy.
The next day we went on a jungle hike and waterfall trip. It was an excellent hike even though it was unbelievable muddy. There were welly boots for hire and a few sticks we could use. The guide pointed out several birds, a snake, fish, a squirrel and spiders. The waterfall was a little disappointing as we had expected one with a pool. This was vaguely silver and gold against the rocks and it went under a wooden platform at the end or our track with no pool. We returned to Store Bay early afternoon and so took a walk up to Pigeon Point along the sandy beach under the palm trees.
Wednesday we went back up to Pigeon Point's beautiful park and beach where we organized some water sports and a trip on the glass bottomed boat over the Buccoo Reef. The boat trip gave us a good view of the coral gardens and then allowed us to snorkel over the coral for a while and see some of the fish better. Then we were taken to the 'Nylon Pool' which is a very shallow sandy area some way from the land where one is supposed to loose 5 - 10 years in the water. Next I was to go on a parasail, but various things went wrong, and although I got into the air, the guy in charge was not happy with the way the parachute set and brought me down, refusing to take any money. I shall try again on Saturday. Then three of us went for a spin on some jetskis and the day was nearly over. We found another good restaurant that night and this time we returned dry in our dinghy from the other, more sheltered beach.
For Ruth and Simon's last day we hired a car and went to the Rainbow falls. We found a lady in an old plantation house making drinks for a group of friends also wishing to see the falls. After they left, the lady took a small fee and gave out bamboo sticks for Ruth and me, and Simon borrowed some wellies. We set off on our own following the track which got extremely muddy again, but crossed the river several times. This waterfall was the highest we had seen in Tobago and had a lovely pool to swim in and get right under the falling water. We had a great time and cleaned off all the mud in the last river crossing just before returning to the house, where we enjoyed glasses of freshly juiced, freshly picked, oranges. A last local lunch back at the beach and it was time for Ruth and Simon to take their final showers and pack and we saw them off at the airport again. It was then that it seemed like they had only just arrived, but at others as if it had been much longer, considering how much we had done together.
Just the two of us again and it was back to the mundane, getting diesel, food and the washing done, and also visit the dentist again. We shall soon be off to the Grenadines.
Grenada
We left Tobago early evening on 31st October and arrived off Grenada mid morning the following day. With a ten year old pilot book and an ancient chart (survey dated 1859!), which had a longitude discrepancy of a third of a mile with GPS, being tired after an overnight passage we had to be extra sure of identifying the coast correctly. On the south side of Granada there are many rocky points separating long inlets. A little way off shore, coral reefs, exposed rocks and sandy patches, can only be spotted by eye in daylight. Andrew asked me to follow a depth of 20 metres, but every so often it suddenly rose to less than 10 and we found ourselves heading for breaking water. Once we got they hang of it we found that the main channels into these inlets had been buoyed, but night-time sailing would still not be easy. We made our way into Prickly Bay and registered with Customs and Immigration right by the pontoon.
My first impression of Grenada was that it was comfortable. I did not feel like a stranger. There were no boat boys, no hassling, just friendly people. The minivan buses operated much as they did in Trinidad and we quickly found our way around.
We found several good anchorages in Prickly Bay, nearby Hog Island and Clarke Court Bay. Right at the inner end of this was Clarke Court Bay Marina, like much of Grenada, recovering from the hurricane. This was a pleasant small marina that Bob seemed to manage single handedly. There was power and water on the pontoons, a bar with wi-fi and a pool table, and washrooms. A short row across the water took us to the road where we could catch a bus to St George’s, the capital, about five miles away on the west coast.
One night we went to a hog roast and met some other interesting yachties who gave us some more information about the Great Lakes in Canada. The hog was stuffed and spit roasted over a pit and fortunately the rain held off until it was cooked. It was an enjoyable evening eating, drinking and chatting. We met some of the Canadians again at a beach barbeque on Hog Island, and then again when we went on a day tour of the island.
The tour went to an old fort overlooking St George’s, then through the forest to Annadale waterfalls. Here we stopped for a swim in the pool and shower under the fall itself. We’ve now done this many times, but still really enjoy the fresh-water dip. Next we stopped in Grand Etang national forest, where a Mona monkey came up to us and begged for bananas, and we could see an old crater lake. Then on to lunch in Grenada’s second town of Granville on the east coast. From here we went north to a rum factory. The rum was made from sugar cane and at the end of the tour we were given a taste of the strong clear liquid. It was suggested that we swallow it down and follow with a cup of water. It was like fire water and not to my taste at all! The following visit to the chocolate factory was excellent. The dark chocolate was very smooth and strong, though the one with more coco-butter added was preferable. We bought some coco powder.
On our way to the factories we passed through the little village of Pearls where we saw ‘Janet’ homes. These were small wooden huts built from donations after hurricane Janet had swept through, and were still inhabited. They had been sturdy enough not to be destroyed by hurricane Ivan. We saw some ‘Ivan’ homes later which were somewhat larger wooden homes and hopefully as strong.
As the afternoon wore on, our return took us via La Sagresse, a paradisiacal beach backed with palm trees hiding a hotel and bar looking out over the pale blue shallow waters. One of our group rightly recommended the excellent lime punch. A little later we stopped at a small bar at a road junction, which was our driver’s local ‘liming’ spot. Eventually, after a beer or two, the sun was setting and it was the mosquitoes’ dinnertime, we were taken back to the bays from which we had been collected.
Sunday 12th November we began our departure from Granada. It had poured with rain most of the night and still looked threatening during the morning, so we were late getting started and made our way up the west coast to Halifax Bay. We anchored here but it was close to the municipal rubbish dump and we were swamped with flies. So we moved on to Gouyave just before dark. This was a pretty village on gentle slopes down to the beach. In the morning we continued to Tyrell Bay, Carriacou.
Tyrrel Bay was another beautiful bay but stuffed full of yachts. We had some rum punches and a meal in a bar/restaurant across the road from the beach. The next morning we took the bus to Hillsborough to check out of Grenada. The procedure did not take long and we bought a little food. Back in Tyrrel Bay we found there was not any diesel on the boatyard pontoon so we made our way round to the tiny islands of Petit St Vincent and Petit Martinique to the north east of Carriacou. Our guide stated that Petit St Vincent had a hotel pier where one could get diesel and water, but when we arrived we were told to go to Petit Martinique. The two islands are so close together that there was no problem, though oddly the national boundary between Grenada and St Vincent lies between them.
So, topped up with diesel, we continued on our way to the village of Clifton on Union Island and checked into St Vincent.
The Northern Grenadines
The difference was remarkable. First we were approached by boat boys as we came in to anchor. Well, actually, during the last ten years the boat boys seem to have grown up. They are now young men with well kept wooden pirogues and powerful outboards on the back, rather than youths paddling old surf-boards. How do they afford the fuel? By charging the earth for the fish, bread, ice, water-taxi, mooring buoy etc they get for you. We declined. Although persistent, they do eventually give in on a friendly note. Next, the Customs officer was off hand, charging us 72 dollars for whatever and waiving us off somewhere up the road to find Immigration at the airstrip. After Immigration we found fruit and vegetable stalls and bought some for far too much. Yes, sometimes we are suckers, but there was none to be found elsewhere. Then we had a warm beer in the local bar, which cost twice as much as we had been paying previously. The scenery was nice though.
The next morning we motored north to the island of Mayreau and found our way to an anchorage on the windward side, inside a reef. There was one other yacht there. We lunched and each took the dinghy to the beach from where we could snorkel over some reef. There were pretty fish and some interesting coral. Andrew broke open a sea urchin and lots of fish came to have a feast. He then brought one back to the yachts, discarded its innards and ate the orange roe. I was surprised to find it quite tasty. In the afternoon we motored round the west side of the island and anchored in Saltwhistle Bay. This was a well-sheltered small bay with a shallow spit of sand and palm trees at the end separating it from the windward side of the island. It was full of yachts with many skippered charter catamarans only staying for a short while. It was an ideal place to snorkel round the rocks and reefs edging the bay or stroll along the sand under the palm trees. There was an eight-roomed chalet hotel with a beach bar/restaurant beautifully laid out but with no custom, unlike the beach bars in Grenada that had always been thronged with yachties in the early evening. Perhaps the price of £1.60 for a small beer might have had something to do with it. After I had gone to bed, Andrew was still up and becoming worried about the anchor slipping in the strengthening wind. We had a poor holding on rock at the edge of the bay. At times, as we swung with the gusting squalls, we only had 30 cms under our keel. So in the pitch black at 11.30 we pulled up the anchor, and for my part rather nervously, drifted back, anchoring further over in the bay on sand behind the other yachts. There was more swell but we then had 4 metres under us and good holding.
The following morning which we decided must be Wednesday, we took the one and only road across the island from Saltwhistle Bay, through the town and down to Saline Bay. The whole island was just a mile across but it was exhausting climb in the heat up the steep road over the hill. At the top was a church and the school. Down the other side were bars and restaurants. We saw two tiny general stores, both shut and apparently empty, but then found a bar that sold fresh bread. A small loaf cost £1.60. So one loaf was all we bought and we made our way back and motored over to the Tobago Cays. Here there was a group of four small islands surrounded by submerged coral reefs. It was not too difficult getting in to join the merry throng, and enough room for everyone to anchor. The white sandy beaches and different shades of blue, crystal clear water make this a popular resting place. Everyone went in the water to snorkel over the sea grass and coral, though much of the coral was dead. There were however many different types of fish to see. After a while a black cloud and a squall came through and we soon returned to Saltwhistle Bay for the night.
We were slow to get going in the morning, trying in vain to find weather forecasts on the SSB radio and wondering which bay to make for on Canouan. We motored the five miles into the wind and anchored in South Glossy Bay. The sea quickly went from dark blue and twenty plus metres deep, to pale blue and 4-5 metres infront of a wide sandy beach. The bottom was sand over rock but around a broken down concrete jetty there were some coral covered rocks and many interesting fish, including some puffer fish and a spotted eel. I had a read and a snooze in the hammock slung under the boom under the sun canopy while Andrew had an exploratory swim around to find anything interesting to snorkel over. After lunch we rowed ashore and snorkeled around the jetty, and then back on board, we motored around the southwest point and into the main anchorage. Here there were a lot of Moorings catamarans, unoccupied, and a couple of other yachts. We rowed over to the hotel bar, making use of their rather posh landing stage, and paid a fortune for a couple of rum punches and three beers, £13! We had an interesting conversation with a young English lady who was just one week into a new job with the diving school, and established that it was Friday and we had lost a day somewhere. The day we thought was Wednesday was actually Thursday, but what’s a day here or there?
In the morning we walked along the main street and found a few basic supplies. The Moorings notice board had a three-day weather forecast that indicated worse weather on Monday. Andrew dived under the yacht to look at the rudder bolts as the rudder was a bit loose again. With pins through the bolts the nuts could not move much and it was probably putting pressure on the rudder when reversing the previous day that had somehow loosened things. The holes that the bolts go through are gradually getting larger. There seems little Andrew can do until we can either dry out or have the boat lifted again. So in the afternoon we had a wonderful sail, fast and comfortable, to Friendship Bay, Bequia. The beach bar was still there but considerably posher than ten years ago. It was now part of the hotel and was a beautifully set out restaurant bar with very attentive waiters. We enjoyed a few rum punches and cocktails and some lobster bites, and parted with around £30, before returning to our yacht for home-cooked savoury mince.
We did a bit of washing in the morning and then Andrew spent a long time snorkeling out to one of the reefs and then around the shoreline. I snorkeled out towards the shore and only saw lots of sea grass and one fish before deciding I had gone far enough. My new flippers had rubbed an open blister on top of a toe so I was not using them. Andrew saw some fish but said that most of the coral was dead, perhaps because many of the new houses or hotels now had sewers leading out to the sea. After lunch we had another wonderful short sail around the southwest point and into Admiralty Bay, which would be very secure if the bad weather set in. The head of the bay was directly into the wind but we beat right the way in just for fun. A rib appeared from somewhere and took photos of us and another yacht doing the same thing.
Admiralty Bay was similar to how we remembered it. The bar on the rock where we had drunk too many lethal rum punches during happy hour ten years ago, was now partly a marina and partly a new bar/restaurant with a rather expensive menu. The fruit market was still by the beach, but now under cover and surrounded by T-shirt and batik stalls. There was an impressive new building housing the Customs, Immigration, Inland Revenue and Post Office. There were a variety of small supermarkets, many with a freezer full of odd pieces of frozen chicken. We found a restaurant with a reasonably priced menu and enjoyed a meal out. All the bars and restaurants have an extensive, reasonably cheap, cocktail menu, including non-alcoholic drinks, which I sampled with enthusiasm.
The first night in Admiralty Bay was very gusty and although we re-anchored after dark, our anchor still slipped several metres by morning. We anchored again much nearer the beach and got a good hold. Perhaps it was because when lifting it again we were trapped under another large chain! The photographer found us to deliver one of his pictures we ordered on cd and a leaflet was handed to us advertising the facilities of the small marina.
Bequia to Martinique
Believing that we would have the usual easterly force four with seas of 5-7 feet, we set off towards Martinique on Tuesday 21st November after checking out of the Grenadines. The beat to St Vincent was quite exhilarating but the clouds were collecting and we sailed through four squally downpours before anchoring in Chateaubelair Bay at the northern end of St Vincent as it got dark.
For forecasts, we relied on "Metal Mickey" the automated voice from the US Coastguard on the SSB radio. For an hour twice daily, he painstakingly gives the wind direction and speed, height of waves, direction of swell, precipitation etc, for each of the many areas of the wetern Atlantic and Caribbean seas. Unfortunately his promises of gentle breezes, calm seas and isolated showers was not actually happening in our area. It rained many times during the night but at 5.30, after another squall, we raised the anchor and continued northwards. The seas were up to 10 feet and kept slowing Sentinel as she ploughed into them. I caught up a bit on my lack of sleep during the short night.
The Pitons of St Lucia came into view but again the clouds had gathered and it was an extremely gusty and wet sail up the western side of the island. We anchored at dusk in Rodney Bay under the fort on Pigeon Island, where we had anchored before Now there was a posh hotel complex on this beach. Again it rained much of the night and next morning, it was blowing half a gale and the clouds were spread in a layer over most of the sky which was unusual for the Caribbean. Metal Mickey was still predicting 15kts of wind, though had we but known it, the local forecast was for squalls of up to 40kts! The rain eased a little around 11 o’clock and we set off on the 20 miles to Martinique. As soon as we came out of the shelter of Pigeon Island, the seas were really high and the wind a force 6. On a course just off the wind we made good speed even though Sentinel was kicking solid water over the decks. Lunch was just going to have to wait till we arrived, which was at nearly four o'clock. We found Cul-du-Sac du Marin and with the weather improving, motored the long way in around the corals to the anchorage. Customs, in the marina, was closed till morning, the bar produced a very fine ‘cocktail of the day’ and we bought some fresh food for dinner so as to relax on board with a bottle of wine. Welcome to a little piece of France in the Caribbean!
Martinique
Last time we came to Martinique we explored the windward east coast in among the reefs, which Andrew had particularly enjoyed. So this time we went to the West coast, and also hired a car for a day to explore more of the inside of the country. The island is much like a piece of southern France with the economy and prices to match. We are now paying £2 or more for a beer and more than £1 for a fruit juice. The huge marina at Le Marin, right in the south, is quite cheap at €10 a night and a matter of cents for the water, but a lift and hold in the travel hoist would be €300, or €200 after some hard bargaining. We thought we might need this service in order to tighten the bolts holding the rudder, but fortunately Andrew managed to do this job by diving under the yacht.
For each of the four bolts to tighten, he had to remove a split pin through the bolt with a pair of pliers, tighten the castellated nut with a spanner, relocate the hole in the bolt between the castellations of the nut with a large needle and keep turning the nut with the spanner until successful, then replace the split pin and splay the ends. Each tool had a line attached and was handed to Andrew as required and I had to try to stop his snorkel or arm from getting too tangled in the lines when he surfaced. With new stick-on lenses in his goggles he had quite good vision underwater, but with the current he kept being swept away from the job. Each bolt took around half an hour.
We stayed in Martinique much longer than expected, for several reasons. One was the need to move out to St. Anne’s Bay in clean water in order to dive under the boat. Another was to spend a couple of days exploring the country. A third reason was the deteriorating weather. We spent a week in the marina in Marin where we had power to have the fridge working, the fan heater running on cold, run the computer and as many lights as we wanted. The water was cheap enough not to worry how much we used and we would fill the tanks just before departing. Every day we went to the bar/restaurant to use the free wi-fi facility. It was particularly useful to be able to use Skype as our mobile phone was unable to connect to a network. We posted our Christmas cards, did our laundry and put a little more fiberglass on the underside of the dinghy where the wooden strips were looking cracked. On our last day we replaced the diaphragm in the bilge pump and bought a new spare.
The day we hired the car it rained a lot. I saw a lot of very winding narrow roads and green covered sheer drops as I drove. We took a road along the top of a mountain ridge and stopped at the Balata gardens. These were landscaped gardens on the hillside with a path winding unobtrusively all around it, and were different from anything we had seen before. We took lots of photographs and although it rained a lot we could shelter under the greenery or in one of the many shelters scattered about. Particularly memorable were the many bromeliads and ginger lilies. After the gardens, we took a minor road towards St Pierre and stopped at a waterfall. Again it was pouring with rain but Andrew was brave enough to take a dip in the pool. It was not very deep and rather muddy and someone (moi?) did have to look after the camera. Then we took a turning supposedly to an observation point, but after driving up a very steep incline and around a bend, the concrete road suddenly ended with workmen clearing the ground for the next section! Next we found a restaurant that just happened to serve Creole style dinner. One of the vegetables served was cut in thin rectangles, was grey with bluish veins and had a texture rather like blotting paper. The waitress brought out one of the vegetables to show us what it was. It was a brown, roundish root, possibly Dasheen. |
On our return to Le Marin we came across a fallen bamboo tree across the road. I thought I could drive under the leafy branches but not until Andrew got out and held them away from the wheels. A car coming the other way did the same as us but the next car did not have a passenger and got stuck.
On another day we took the collective taxi, to Fort de France. Since the destruction of St Pierre this has been the capital and the only place to do decent shopping. There were good roads but full of traffic and the 35 kilometres took over an hour. Here we did some Christmas shopping for each other. There were one or two small department stores but mostly boutiques. It was not as good as in Port-of Spain in Trinidad.
It is noticeably cooler and more comfortable here than it was in Trinidad, 250 miles further south, and I no longer feel as if I'm having a continuous hot flush all night long. This has much improved our love-life. (Andrew says I should write more about this in my web-log, as he thinks it would make for more interesting reading than an afternoon spent tightening the rudder bolts.)
Passage to Guadeloupe
Eventually the clouds thinned out, the gusty winds lessened, and it was time to leave. On Monday 4th December we cleared out at Customs and spent the afternoon sailing up the coast with a strong but comfortable breeze. Part way up the coast we were intercepted by a customs launch. As we tend to be rather informally dressed on tropical sea passages away from other people, it meant rushing down below to get some clothes on. We were afraid this might be interpreted as a hurried attempt to conceal our stash, but in the event after a few routine questions they went away.
We anchored overnight at the north end of Martinique, and started at dawn after rather a wet night, finding we could just hold a course towards the western side of Dominica. The nearer we got to Dominica the stronger the winds, darker the clouds, heavier the rain, and greater the volume of seawater over the deck. We reefed and reefed again and by lunchtime were in the lee of the land. This took away the steep seas and most of the rain, but the gusty winds were terrible. One minute we could barely make 2 knots and the next we were careering along at 6. Eventually we gave up and motored the final ten miles to Rupert Bay at the northwest end of Dominica for the night.
It was dark by the time we dropped the anchor behind all the other yachts, and we reversed to dig the anchor in. By now the wind had picked up to a good force 7, and after a while the anchor broke out, moving several metres before holding again. The anchor chain then kept rumbling over rocks as the gusts screamed through the wind generator giving us the power to run the fridge and write up my blog on the computer. It eventually calmed down in the early hours.
A couple of boat boys in their high-speed motorboats came out of the gloom to greet us with a ‘welcome to Dominica’ as we came into the bay, but in the bad conditions they could not linger. But then they woke us in the morning at 7.30 with a ‘good morning’ and knock on the hull, which we ignored, having been awake half the night on anchor watch. We found a tin of ‘all day breakfast’ to eat as we had no bread, and had our coffee, and then found that the loo pump, identical to the bilge pump, sounded like it too needed its diaphragm replacing. It was a good job we had just bought a new one. We left the bay at 8 and had a satisfying fast beam reach to the Iles des Saintes, just south of Guadeloupe and 20 miles from Dominica, arriving at lunchtime.
St Kitts & Nevis
We arrived off Charlestown, Nevis, in the afternoon and anchored as close to the shore and pontoons as we could with small mooring buoys, fishing pots and local craft all around. The wind continued to be gusting so we stayed on board till morning and confirmed that the anchor was holding. We found Customs quite early in the morning, at the end of the cruise-ship pier. This pier had a lower level making it possible for people like us in small dinghies to land, whereas the local small motorboats, much bigger than our dinghy, were along the other side of the pier. We lifted the dinghy onto the pier placing it out of the way, next to another dinghy. The cruise ship was anchored way out at the back of the bay.
We visited Immigration in the police station, got a map from the tourist office, and walked out of town looking for the hot spring baths. We passed the Bath Hotel and then found the Nelson Museum. After reading all about Nelson and his connection with Nevis, such as where he obtained his spring water for his ships and his marriage to a local widow called Fanny, we then found the hot spring baths behind the hotel grounds. One had recently been renovated, courtesy of a few local companies, with a roof over the top and clean steps into a small tiled square pool. It was the first hot bath I had had in several months. I sat on the steps with the water up to my neck for the ‘restorative’ waters to work on my body. There was no charge and no one around to worry about whilst getting changed and dry again. The other pool that had not yet been renovated had green slimy patches on the tiles and did not look so inviting. We did a little food shopping on the way back through town and returned to the pier to have lunch back on board.
The end of the pier was fenced off and guarded by security, as now the cruise ship passengers were being ferried to and from the pier. We were allowed to proceed and found that the small dinghies had been put in the water and tied further along the pier away from the lower level as this was now being used by the cruise ship tenders. Also a ladder had been placed down into the water on the end of the lower pier. Andrew untied the dinghy and brought it carefully along to the new ladder whilst holding onto the outside of the railings along the pier. Then a cruise ship guy held it while we loaded our bags and got in. Rowing out to the yacht, we became aware that it was further away than when we had left it. During one of the strong gusts in the morning, it had slid back so that the unused mooring buoy that had been well clear of our stern was now at our bows. Fortunately we had not hit or fouled anything. (And our worst nightmare of losing our yacht over the horizon had not come true!)
It was decided that it was time to move sooner rather than later and we re-anchored a little further up the island at Pinney’s Beach before having our lunch. This was a lovely long stretch of sand backed by mangrove and palm trees. At one end was the end of Charlestown and a couple of hotels were at the other end. The afternoon was spent sauntering along the beach, stopping at the ‘Sunshine’ beach bar a couple of times for their great rum punches, paddling along the water’s edge or exploring in the mangroves. In the morning we strolled to the edge of town to see the Hamilton House Museum and use the Internet. Then it was up anchor again and a short sail to Basseterre and the marina in St Kitts. We just had time to check into the marina and borrow a socket for the electricity before it started to get dark.
On Friday night the 15th December it was the opening of the St Kitts Carnival season. We remembered Carnaval in Salvador a year ago when two million people thronged the streets from 6pm to 6am. We hadn’t expected anything like that, but from what we did see we had to conclude that St Kitts hadn’t quite got the idea. This first night, a stage had been erected near the marina with a number of food stalls around and a band was playing. Then we realised that there was singing, of a sort. We went to investigate and decided it must be the youngsters’ karaoke night. The Michael Jackson wanabees were singing so out of tune that even the band was giving up on them. The adults standing round looked as enthusiastic as parents at a kids school concert. At half past eight this stopped, and we thought “Ah, now things are really going to get started”. But no, it had all finished for the night!
Then, the following afternoon, a band was starting up in Independence Square, with all the hi-fi kit, food stalls etc as if expecting a crowd. We listened for a while and they were really quite good. But there were fewer people in the audience than on the stage, and a couple of hours later they were packing up. That evening was Saturday and we had high hopes. All the equipment was put up again, then a woman speaker addressed the audience on the subject of domestic violence. We gathered that she considered it of paramount importance to tell everyone else about what had happened to her, but after two hours non-stop, we were still none the wiser. (We had little choice but to listen, given the volume.) The whole address was delivered in a singsong voice, with frequent references to “The Lord” and occasional interjections of “Halleluiah” from the audience, like a praise meeting. Again at half past eight it stopped and we thought that at last the partying would start, but once more they were all done for the night. Apart from the Christmas lights decorating the streets, these were the only signs of celebrating we saw. We were told that it is on Boxing Day and New Year when there are all night drunken orgies. As is said of us English, it seems the St Kittians take their pleasures sadly.
St Kitts is the only Caribbean island still to have a railway. There was a narrow-gauge railway track round the island that until recently was used to collect the sugar cane and bring it to one central mill. With the collapse of the sugar industry, more than half the track had been restored and was providing a scenic trip for holidaymakers from the cruise ships. We were too late to take a trip that day, but decided to walk out to the abandoned part of the railway, about a mile or so out of town. We had a lovely walk beside some of the old track and came across a goods yard full of the old rolling stock gradually rusting away. Finally we found the terminus station and the information that the next train would be on Tuesday when the next cruise liner was due. As it would cost nearly £100 for the two of us to travel maybe 18 miles of track and be brought back by road, we weren’t sorry to have missed out.
Saturday night we met Doug. Andrew and Doug had got to know each other through writing on a sailing forum on the Internet. Doug was born and lives on St Kitts, and is the honorary Dutch consul, the reason for which being so complex we could only infer it was a hereditary title. He kindly brought us a bottle of our favourite old Mount Gay rum, which we all spent the rest of the evening guzzling down. We drunkenly agreed to reconvene the next morning for a trip around the island. Greatly to our surprise, at eight o’clock the following morning there he was and hangovers had to be put on hold. Highlight of the tour was his motor boat, anchored precariously among the reefs at the southern end of the island. The only way to reach it was to wade out almost to head height in the breakers. Doug dived down to release the anchor and brought the boat a little closer to the shore in order to refuel it with canisters of petrol, while we ordered lunch from the convenient beach bar. Eventually we were ready to wade out to the boat and we roared off around the southern end of the island exploring all the little bays along the way. It made a nice change for us to go at speed and we both had a go at steering. |
Passage to The Virgin Islands
It did not look like we were going to reach St Maarten before dark so we anchored off the little island of Ile Forche, just north of St Barts, and another of the anchorages we made ten years ago. In the morning we came into Philips Bay on the south, Dutch side of St Maarten. There were four cruise ships huddled at one end of the bay keeping many water taxis busy crossing the bay to the beach or the town quay. There were a couple of other yachts and some local craft anchored in the bay. We had a friendly wave from the solid wooden sailing craft anchored in front of us, so we rowed over to ask where Customs were and found out they were a crew from Dominica, collecting and selling fruit and vegetables across the islands. We were sold a lot of grapefruit, plantains, bananas, oranges, eddoes and yams for the modest amount I offered. Andrew was so pleased we left them some tinned beers for Christmas. When formalities were completed we wandered through the town to find a food shop. The road parallel and nearest to the beach was really just an extension of the usual cruise liner shops, full of jewellers, T-shirts, booze and souvenirs, but this time with several casinos thrown in. St Maarten is a duty-free island. The next road back was more local but we still did not find the supermarket. At the end of the town dock was an information kiosk, closed of course, so I asked a nearby security man where I could find an ordinary supermarket and he was quite happy to give me directions when he realised I was not off a cruise ship. It was on the third street back and not so far from where we had left the dinghy on the beach. As we were not impressed with the town we moved off along the coast a bit to Simpson Bay, where there is a lock into a huge lagoon and marina. We anchored well into the bay, behind a reef. In the morning we had a little explore ashore, but there was little to see or do and a lot of traffic on the road and were not sorry to be leaving around lunchtime. We think the French side of St Martin, which we saw on our previous visit, was much more attractive.
The British Virgin Islands
It was an fast sail to the BVI and we arrived before dawn. Unwilling to risk the reefs through the entrance at Round Island, I hove to outside for an hour, along with a cargo ship, and a couple of hours later anchored in Road Town, Tortola. The wind was strong and gusty and the sea was just too choppy for us to consider rowing ashore, so we lifted the anchor again and resigned ourselves to staying a night in the expensive marina. It was not quite as expensive as we remembered but showers, water and electricity were all extras. We found out that our one unit of electricity priced at forty cents, had a minimum charge of ten dollars! This marina is really for the superyachts, of which there are many. But there was a free wifi with good connection and a chandlers and supermarket within easy walking distance. We emailed a few people a happy Christmas including the couple we met several times between Portugal and the Canaries, and immediately got a reply that they were only five miles away! They had spent the hurricane season in Maine while we were in Trinidad and it was great to meet up with them again the next day. Along the street we took to the supermarket there were many Christmas decorations. There were fairy lights in the shrubs and trees and many inflated plastic Father Christmases, snowmen, and Winnie the Pooh caricatures. There were also several versions of the global snow scenes you can shake and make the snow fall. These were also made of inflated plastic with polystyrene snow permanently falling, powered by a small motor. All these things had to be well tethered to the ground. It all seemed quite strange in this sunny Caribbean island.
We sailed with David and Hazel to Jost Van Dyke and the bay with ‘Foxys’ at one end. We had a great time there Christmas Eve eating at one beach restaurant and then drinking and dancing in the sand under the palms at the famous Foxys until nearly midnight.
Christmas morning we had our presents from each other and cooked our chicken with an orange, followed by Christmas pudding with brandy sauce. The vegetables were not so traditional being eddoes and christophenes (the only veg I had). We drank the local festive drink of sorrel juice, as we had had enough alcohol the previous night. Then, with Dave and Hazel and their guests, Hazel’s sister and her son, we went round to the next palm fringed bay to snorkel around the coral reefs from a white sand beach with crystal clear water. We returned to our yacht for champagne all round and brought out the rum cake that Sandra had given us in Trinidad, to find it was thoroughly mouldy and had to be thrown. What a disappointment. I was told it would keep but there was a lot of moisture around it and there was no way to save any of it. But there was still the shortbread and mincemeat slice I had made. It was a pretty good Christmas.
The next day we sailed to Norman Bay and I snorkelled around the caves. The next day we snorkelled around the Indians, a group of rocks surrounded by fabulous corals and fish, and then sailed to a bay beside the famous Baths off Virgin Gorda. It was an excellent sail and another wonderful day. In the morning we swam to the Baths and walked the trail through the granite boulders and then snorkelled back around the rocks. It was also an excellent place to see some wonderful coral and colourful fish. In the afternoon we sailed over to Trellis Bay at the northern end of Tortola where David and Hazel had anchored and seen their guests off at the airport. The bay was lovely but full of mooring buoys. We were pleased to find one vacant buoy as we appeared to have trouble with our oil pressure. We had a pleasant early evening drinking with Hazel and David in the beach bars and using the free wifi.
The following day was spent changing the oil and the oil filter and looking at the pressure sensor. It took most of the day and a lot of oil had to be cleaned up. Then we tried to phone a power and parts company for their advice. All the seven public phones we found on the beach and at the airport were not working but the kind lady in the information kiosk let us use her mobile phone. The guy advised us that the problem was probably not the inaccessible pressure valve in the oil sump but more likely the sensor or gauge. We arranged to visit their premises the next day, Saturday. In the evening we booked to eat at another well-known restaurant in these islands, The Last Resort. Just as it was time to leave the yacht, another squall came through with a lot of rain. We waited till it abated and rowed to the restaurant’s pontoon, but it rained again before we were tied up and my shorts and Andrew’s trousers were quite wet when we arrived. We were shown our table and had to dry off the chairs which, although inside the building, had still managed to get wet. Soon we had our drink but waited an hour for the starters and another three quarters of an hour for our steaks. Andrew was so uncomfortable and fed up with waiting he almost walked out which was a real shame as the steaks were excellent. The bill came with a couple of minor errors and the service charge included, so we ignored the errors but refused to pay the service charge as the service was so bad.
Saturday we sailed round to Road Town’s marina again and got a collective taxi to the Power & Parts shop. They were very helpful and we went away with a new sensor and a few oil filters. We fitted the new sensor but were not sure that it had solved the problem.
Late Saturday night an extremely loud disco started up beside the marina and continued until one thirty in the morning, despite some strong winds and rain. Somehow I eventually fell asleep but Andrew found he could connect the computer to the wifi and sorted a few things. In the morning we braved the cold water in the marina’s small swimming pool, did a little more emailing, filled our tanks with water and left at lunch time. After Foxy’s, The Last Resort was the best place to go as there would be partying and a fireworks display. We tacked back up the island to Trellis Bay, arriving around three thirty, to find the whole bay already stuffed full of yachts. We managed to speak briefly to David and Hazel again, but after about ten abortive attempts to anchor in enough space, we gave up and had to anchor in another bay around a headland. So the year ended as it began with just the two of us, but there was plenty of choice as what to drink and eat and party poppers to pull. After watching a video we searched for something jolly on the radio but the best we could come up with was Metal Mickey and his weather forecast! We counted down the last seconds to our midnight. The people on another yacht in the bay called out ‘Happy New Year’ and we returned the shout. We heard the bangs of the fireworks over the hill, but saw nothing. The party poppers spread their streamers over the yacht, the New Year kiss was had, the drink drunk, so we went to bed and had a peaceful night.
The bay we were in was edged with rocks and some lovely corals. Some other yachts came and anchored in the bay and soon there were quite a few people snorkelling. There was a huge shoal of tiny fish, two to three inches long like sprats, all along the same area that we wanted to swim, so dense we could barely see, but they moved just out of reach as we swam through. Then occasionally we would see a large fish cruising along the outer edge of this shoal. A couple of pelicans were having a great time diving into the fish-full waters.
At lunchtime on New Year's Day we returned to Trellis Bay and Dave and Hazel joined us for lunch. We also met up again for dinner and relax in their hammocks, chatting till well after eleven. We said our farewells then as we were going our separate ways in the next day or two. They were expecting their first baby in three months and were working out whether it would be a good idea to have it in the BVI’s or St Martin. They had no health insurance, so another possibility was to fly back to England. All options could result in spending a lot of money. We wished them well.
Tuesday we left Trellis Bay quite early, sailed down to Road Town Bay and anchored so that Andrew could return to Power & Parts, where he bought a manual gauge which could show the oil pressure directly. Then we moored in the marina for a couple of hours so that we could clear out with Customs and do the laundry. Then we left for the West End of Tortola, Soper’s Hole, and anchored for the night ready to hop across to the US Virgin Islands the next morning.
The US Virgin Islands
We anchored mid morning in Cruz Bay, St John Island and rowed across to the Customs office. The only place to anchor was a small area in very shallow water on the other side of the fairway from Customs. We did our best not to be swamped by the constant of flow of ferries through the fairway. After Customs cleared us in we walked a little around the town to find it was not very different from ten years ago. There were some new development along the coast that looked very out of place but most of the island was National Park land and was kept unspoilt. We were amazed at the number of instructional signs, most being of the ‘Do Not’ kind, but by a church there was a ‘Thou shalt not park here’ and a ‘Thou shalt stop’ at the end of the road!
After a quick lunch on board we retraced our steps to Hawksnest Bay for some snorkelling. Much of the coral had a dusting of sand but there were some magnificent specimens of elkhorn and tube coral. We saw two cuttlefish which seemed to be able to swim both forward and backwards and were quite colourful when the sun shone on them. As I climbed back on board and Andrew was waiting to follow, he told me we had a lot of sharks under the keel and some were quite big. I was glad I was out of the water. I found some eggshell in our bin and threw some over the side. Sure enough the fish came up to investigate if edible. They were rather shark-like but their heads were flat on top, rounded at the front edge where the mouth was, with a sort of ridged pad. Looking in our reef book we identified them as Remora that stick themselves onto other large fish, though they were larger and their dorsal fins were not quite like the picture in the book.
We pulled up the anchor, hoping to leave the fish behind, and motored off to anchor behind Great St James island, which was a beautiful and peaceful anchorage. In the morning Andrew snorkelled around our end of the bay, and then we sailed down to Charlotte Amalie, the main town on St Thomas Island. The marina we had used ten years before had disappeared and a new one, strictly for superyachts, was still under construction. We anchored near the centre of town and rowed ashore to have a look around. It was a slightly upmarket version of what we had seen in St Maarten. Everywhere was selling precious stones, jewellery and watches. There was the odd liquor store and several restaurants. The road was full of slow moving traffic, most of it being open taxis with the drivers touting for extra customers to join their tours. There were six cruise liners around the bay. It took quite a while to find a shop where we could buy a loaf of bread. On the waterfront road we found three banks and enquired in each if they had a foreign exchange. "Yes", they said. "Then can we buy some Euros please?" First if took a little while for the bank assistant to understand we had said ‘Euros’ and then it was "You want Euros??" said in a manner that implied we must be quite mad. "You did say you have a foreign exchange?" "Well of course, but it only deals in US dollars. That is what we use in this country," they condescendingly explained. We resisted the temptation to ask why it was called a 'foreign' exchange. Why should we want anything other than dollars? It is just that we need Euros for Cuba, where we've been told they now refuse to accept US dollars and their own currency is unobtainable outside. Eventually one bank told us they might be obtainable in Puerto Rico, so we shall wait till we get there. After that we took a long while enjoying a snow cone.
We had thought the US Virgin Islands would be the best place to stock up before heading out to Cuba. There should be a big supermarket with reasonable prices. Its easiest to stock up when we are in a marina, so we headed for the only other one at Crown Bay to find they demanded a 50 foot minimum space at $84 a night, so after filling up with diesel we found a mooring buoy vacant off Frenchtown Harbour at $20 and stayed there for the night. This was right by Customs for clearing out the next day, and was less than a mile to the large supermarket. We had a very nice evening dinner and drinks there and did the shopping and Customs in the morning. After lunch we fitted the new oil gauge and found it showed much the same as the electrical gauge. This must mean that the pressure relief valve down in the sump is blocked or damaged. The new oil has helped so it should not be too much of a problem and we shall live with it for the time being.
That afternoon we left the buoy and went to anchor in Honeymoon Bay on Water Island, but were told that we could not stay as people were filming there, apparently a film starring Brad Pitt. The next bay was not so pretty but well sheltered and had just enough room for us. Before long we were welcomed by a ‘resident’ yachtie who was working on the island. He came aboard for a drink or two and then another ex-Brit came over. When our rum had all gone we went over to the other yacht where he had lots of ice and plenty of rum and cranberry juice. We chatted over another couple of drinks and nibbles until after dark. We returned to our yacht and cooked our stew but were not hungry and left it for the next day.
Saturday morning we rowed to shore and snorkelled around the ruined concrete pier and found some brain coral, amongst others, already growing on the concrete. Then we waived goodbye to our friends of the night before, and on 5th January sailed to the Spanish Virgin Island of Culebra where we could check in for Puerto Rico. This brings us to a new phase in our voyage and the beginning of New Year 2007. |
