Moving North

We ended up spending two weeks in Grenada and enjoyed just doing very little other than going for a walk and going for swims. We did enjoy a number of dinners out with friends and did some site seeing in town and also doing a drive around the island. Grenada is very friendly.

After a couple of weeks we left and sailed up to the island of Canouan which is St Vincent and the Grenadines. The sail was ok but the winds were again tight on the bow so lots of spray over the boat and a bumpy ride. Canouan is a small island of which half is private owned by Trump and friends. We did rent some golf carts and drove around the other half of the island which has some very pretty lagoons inside the reefs and the views from up high were beautiful. After clearing in with the customs etc. we sailed over to Tobago Cays.

Tobago Cays when we were last there in 2009 was very quiet with just four boats being in there and the winds were very light. This time what a difference there must have been one hundred boat in there, most of them catamarans of around 50 feet with at least eight to twelve people on board! The wind was blowing at 20k, which is what we have had now for the last month, so not much room to anchor and certainly not much fun to do some snorkeling. We did stay the night but left in the morning to go to Mayreau and Saltwhistle Bay which again was full of very big charter cats. On top of all this there were some cruise ships anchored out and sending in all their quests so just awful. Again when we were here last there were two of us in the bay.

After thinking on this the difference today is that the charter boat business has such big boats that hold ten or twelve people that there is no need of them to associate with any of the other boats and people where ever they are. These people who charter are only here for a week and really have no idea what they are doing. Luckily most of the bigger boats have crew so at least some know how to operate a boat.

So after a couple of nights of this we sailed back over to Canouan which has a big bay and very few boats so a nice place to have a swim and a quiet night. Yesterday we sailed up to Bequia which has a big bay with lots of boats anchored all around but not so close you have to worry. We met up with s/v Imagine which had a couple of mechanical problems that they have had fixed. Their company is leaving later today and we will sail with them on Tuesday up to St Lucia. That will give us three days here to explore the little town and surrounding area.