The Tobago Cays are gorgeous - there is absolutely no doubt about that. We spent two days in the Cays. On the second day we anchored with no land between us and Africa. However, we found it too busy - 50 yachts in an anchorage is just too many for us! We decided to up anchor and go the extra few miles to Union Island, round to Chatham Bay, where tonight there are only 3 yachts and one power boat in this huge bay. It's quiet, it's peaceful and the snorkeling today was fantastic.
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Another few miles south today to the Tobago Cays. The water is clear. The sea is green. The sky is blue - there is some rain in the distance, however. We worked our way around the reefs today and found an anchorage just outside the "rest of the pack". We've never seen so many yachts "in the middle of nowhere"! We went snorkeling this afternoon, but we found the current was just too strong to enjoy the snorkel.
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Yes, it was Anne's birthday today. We decided to eat out tonight to celebrate, then decided we'd rather eat the steak we've got in the fridge. We've chilled a bottle of wine, and we're going to have a nice night in instead. Anne bought herself a couple of bikinis today as a birthday present and is feeling rather pleased with herself.
Bequia is one of our favourite islands, very pretty and very friendly. The fruit market has got to be experienced - we've never seen such huge mangoes.
There's some nice photos of Bequia in Freya's gallery - see the right hand part of this screen.
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We sailed to Bequia in the Grenadines last night. It was a lovely sail and we finally dropped anchor at 6.00 am.
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We're now at the bottom end of Martinique, in a gorgeous sandy bay surrounded by cruisers and holiday complexes. It's 9.00 am and the disco has already started up somewhere ashore. But, it's a French disco with a Caribbean flavour, or should that be a Caribbean disco with a French flavour - not sure! It just puts you in the mood for a dance. We met up with our good friends "Hoyden" last night - Ian and Sue - they're on their way back to Trinidad and have to be back in the UK by mid May, so they left this morning for St Lucia. We probably won't see them again until they return to Trinidad next November. It was great to see them again.
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Before I had time to finish uploading the photos to the blog, we had the anchor up and we were at sea! We had intended sailing straight from Portsmouth to St Pierre in Martinique, but because it was blowing up to 30 knots on the nose and the current and waves against us, we decided to stop overnight in Roseau at the south end of Dominica. We rocked and rolled all Monday night, but otherwise had a good night. On Tuesday we set sail for Martinique. We had a fabulous sail, even if the wind was coming from the direction in which we wanted to go - as usual! Our speed over the ground peaked at nearly 9 knots, We were just passing the headland at Martinique when the wind died, going from around 20 knots to 5 knots in a period of about 2 minutes and we found we were doing 1 knot! We engined the rest of the wind to St Pierre and anchored in the bay. We've been here before and previously we had to announce our arrival at the Police Office in the town, so we launched the dinghy, went ashore and made our way to the police office. Big sign on the door - either go to the museum or the internet cafe to check in!! The museum is just along the road from the police office and the guy in the office managed to put the phone down long enough to give us a piece of paper to fill in. We filled in the bit of paper, gave him our documents and five minutes and a fax later, he returned with our papers duly stamped. No cost, no frills, no uniforms, just a smile! Why can't all the islands be like this?
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We're still in Prince Rupert Bay in Dominica enjoying the sights and sounds of what must be one of the poorest islands in this chain. The island is very green and lush and the Indian River which runs through the jungle is a fascinating experience. Albert picked us up in his own boat, motored to the river and then rowed up for about three quarters of a mile to a jungle bar where you can buy something to drink, and then he rowed us back down. The trees/fauna/birds/insects/crabs etc were just fabulous. There's lots to see here and there are some restaurants, one of which we tried last night - the Blue Bay Restaurant. The food was good, but not as cheap as we thought it might be. There are some shops ashore in Portsmouth and we found a "meat shop" where you can buy chicken, chicken, chicken or for a change, chicken!!! It's worth coming here just for the experience! Some of the vendors come paddling out to see you on old surf boards trying to sell you fruit, bread and anything else they can think of.
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We set sail at 7.30 am this morning from Les Saintes for Dominica. Beautiful day and we managed to sail most of the way. As we approached Prince Rupert Bay (about a mile out at sea), one of the boat boys came out to meet us - and introduced himself as Albert and he is now our boat boy (known here as "yacht helpers") for the duration of our stay. We arranged to go up the Indian River with him tomorrow. After that, we booked in with Customs - the Customs man was a very, very nice man who asked us what "Freya" meant, so we gave him a very brief history of Freya and suggested he checks the internet to get the full story. Still no wi-fi connection, so no photographs at the moment. We're a rockin' an' a rollin' in this anchorage as the big sea swells roll into the bay and this may curtail our visit somewhat.
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Yesterday's news: Alan got out of bed at 6.00 am and stands on a soaking wet carpet in the galley. Panic ... where has the water come from - in the windows? from the sink? Anne gets up, listening to expletives not to be repeated and hears the water pump running. (This is indicative of NO WATER IN THE TANKS). Alan investigates under the sink and finds a cracked plastic fitting in the hot water tap (brand new West Marine taps - or faucets as the Americans call them). We then checked the bilges and .. the water level was at the height of the automatic bilge pump switch and there's cans of coke and sprite floating in their lockers and the box of soap powder has turned to glue. ASSUMPTION: we have no fresh water left in the tanks. Even more panic - ARGHH - The Saintes does not have any marinas and almost no amenities for yachts. However, to cut a long story short, we managed to get 30 gallons of water from the Town Hall from a very, very nice lady at no cost (all done in Anne's dreadful High School French of course!) It took us almost all morning to jerry jug the water back to the boat. So far, so good!!
Alan now attempts to repair or replace the broken plastic fitting on the tap with a metal one from his spares box. This took 2 hours and copious cursing and swearing as there's no room to work behind the sinks. Great - we are now ready to turn on the water using the water pump .. and ... GRRRRR .. the water pump went round but no water came out. To cut another long story short - the water pump was b****d!!!! (A drive bolt had sheered and not possible to repair at present). Another 2 hours spent cannibalising 2 pumps to make one pump and by 4.30 pm we had success - the pump was running and the water was flowing and life was beginning to look better again. A cup of tea was had ... and ... Anne came up with the thought, "Let's see how much water is actually in the tanks". Says Alan, "Don't be stupid darling, there'll be none in them other than the 30 gallons we put into them this morning, but to keep you happy I'll look anyway". So Alan looked . and lo .. and "WOW" both tanks were nearly full!!!! CONCLUSION: The water pump failed before pumping all the water out the tanks. The only thing we lost in the flood was the soap powder, but the lockers are still drying out and the inside of the boat looks as if it's been hit by a hurricane. It was a most interesting day - with a happy ending. (In case anyone remembers that we have a watermaker - it's been put to bed until Trinidad as it has a major leak).
While there's not much in The Saintes to support boating life, apart from the odd supermarket - it really is the most gorgeous place - lovely town, lovely people, things to see, islands to sail round and clear water for snorkeling. Highly recommended to those cruisers coming this way. Just remember to have plenty of water in your tanks, preferably without any leaks ....
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The video above is of our great friends Phil and Barb of "Ceres" who we last met up with in Beaufort, South Carolina. They sailed down from the Bahamas to meet up with us for a couple of days before we left St Maarten. It may be some time before we see them again, so we wish them well and lots of lovely safe sailing. We left St Maarten, with the intention of stopping overnight at Nevis. As usual, nothing quite works out to plan and we stopped instead at St Kitts and rocked and rolled all night in the anchorage. It was just too late to get to Nevis. However, we were up again at 6.00 am on Tuesday and left for an anchorage at the top end of Guadeloupe and after a very bumpy sail in a rather confused sea, we arrived outside Daishaies at 1.00 am on Wednesday morning. Rather than try to anchor in the dark again, we decided to sail on to Les Saintes. The wind howled until we got about half way down Guadeloupe when it decided to stop blowing altogether and we had to switch on the engine. We motored for about 3 hours and then the wind came back, and we had a lovely sail all the rest of the way to Les Saintes, arriving around 10.30 am. It's beautiful here, and very hot.
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On Friday night we had a party at Shrimpy's - Paul and Janie came too and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Fish and chips is Shrimpy's special and we all had a plateful - highly recommended!
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We've been really lucky and met up with "Shian" with Paul and Janie Reid and their nephew Ben. We sailed the Atlantic with them in 1999 and we haven't seen them since 2002. We celebrated our reunion at "Lees" for pork ribs last Wednesday. It was a great night, and it's great to meet up with old friends.
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We found this gorgeous conch shell in the BVI's - it was empty at the time - cleaned it up and added some tropical flowers.
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This is a view of Simpson Bay Lagoon taken through a window in a taxi when we were returning from Phillipsburgh - the Lagoon is about 12 miles long and has many marinas, boatyards and has anchoring room for hundreds of boats.
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We went out "on the town" last night to Shrimpy's - it was only supposed to be the two of us, but we ended up as a party of eight - great fun and great food. We were in company with Art and Judy from "Ciboney", Geoff and Jo from "Sutton Hoo" and Bob and Maggie from "Tangleweed". Mike is the guy that runs the cruiser's net in the mornings here, every morning. Click here for Shrimpy's
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