As you may have noticed we have left Mayreau. Mayreau is quite a small island shaped like the letter "P" it is about one and a half miles north to south and about three quarters of a mile east to west at its widest point. On our second day there we went ashore for a hike to a beach on the windward side. But before we could go there we had trash to get rid of. With directions that we had gotten from friends we found our way to the landfill. After that we were off for our hike to the windward side of the island. As we walked along the road towards the windward side we passed what is called Salt Pond. Unfortunately, it appears that either something is leeching into the pond from the landfill or petroleum products have been dumped in the pond. On the west side of the pond the water was rust colored. There was also an odor that I can't describe being emitted from either the landfill or the pond, I'm not sure which one it is from since they are so close to each other. This same odor can be smelled in the anchorage which is downwind in the prevailing easterlies. The landfill's dirt road ran north/south and it took us to an east/west running dirt road which we walked along to get to a path thru the brush to the windward beach. Strangely enough the beach is called Windward Beach and it is on Windward Bay. The beach is your typical palm and mangrove lined tropical beach. We walked north along the beach in search of a path that we had read would take us to Salt Whistle Bay on the northwest corner of the island. As we walked we figured that the tide was coming in because the beach was getting progressively smaller forcing us to walk mostly in the water if we continued north. So, we decided to abandon our hike to Salt Whistle turn around to visit the village. After walking back to the western side of the island we turned right and walked on a concrete road up a very steep hill towards the village. We tried to make it to the top for a photo op, but ended up pulling into "Denny's Hide Away" for lunch instead. At Denny's we met a very nice waitress who has lived on Mayreau all of her life. From her we found out that the population of Mayreau is about 300 and that this year the tourist season was an abnormally short two months. So looks like the bad economy is hitting everywhere. On the way up the hill to the village we saw a sign for a development called Tribo. Looks like they are trying to sell vacation homes to people from other parts of the world. Our waitress told us that the development has allowed some of the men on the island to get work and with out it about the only other source of income for males was fishing and without a lot of tourists the market for fish is not that great. She said that many of there boys have left the country to join either the British or the American military. From her we found out that there is no formal education for the children until the age of ten when they take an aptitude test to see if they qualify to go to high school. When they go to high school they have to leave the island and go to Kingstown on St. Vincent where they stay for three months at a time only coming home for holidays. Kingstown is about 32 miles north of Mayreau which is too far to commute by ferry. After visiting with our waitress we both were glad that we grew up where we did, that first three months away from home must be tough for some of the island's ten year old children. The rest of our stay in Mayreau was used to catch up on a bunch of small projects and do some snorkeling. We snorkeled a reef on the south side of Saline Bay and found it to be an average Caribbean snorkeling experience. The water is clear since we were able to see down to about twenty feet quite easily but there wasn't a whole lot of sea life to be seen. Other than that when our projects were done we decided that if the rolling didn't subside we would leave soon. When I say rolly I mean the boat continuously rolls from side to side. All anchorages cause the boat to roll somewhat and in Saline bay some days were better than others. But we had hung in there because we had free wifi aboard the boat that allowed us to get weather info and catch up on our email. Two days ago, before we decided to leave, we had a nasty squall pass over the anchorage in which we saw forty knots of wind with a heavy downpour. We were glad that our anchor and the anchors of the boats around us held. The black sky and high winds were intimidating for a bit but the end result was that we caught a whole bunch of water that will come handy for our showers. After that episode, the rolling got worse last night so we had had enough and decided to leave Saline Bay this morning.

The sail from Saline Bay to Clifton Harbour on Union Island is all of about four miles due south. We weighed anchor and only set the jib for the sail over as the wind was fifteen to eighteen knots out of the east. Our leisurely sail, at four to five knots, brought us to Clifton Harbour where we found a spot to anchor about an hour after we had weighed anchor in Saline Bay. Clifton is the southern most port of entry for St. Vincent and the Grenadines so this is the place where we will check out of the country when we decide to move further south. We haven't decided when that will be yet as we are waiting to see how bad the next tropical wave will be. The tough decision here is do we stay here in Clifton for the wave passage or move on to Carriacou. Here in Clifton the only protection that we have is behind a reef to our east which should break up the seas. But there is no shelter from the wind. The prediction right now is that the wave is not expected to be too strong when it passes over here during the upcoming weekend, so we might just stay here for the weekend and leave for Carriacou early next week. If the wave sounds like it is going to be stronger than predicted this morning the more conservative play would be to leave here and head for a more sheltered harbor in Carriacou. Stay tuned to find out what we decide.