I should have updated this blog when we arrived in Carriacou about 2 weeks ago, but I didn't!! Tut tut. We'll be here until tomorrow when we hope to move down to St George's in Grenada.
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(More photos of Scotland and the bottom photo is of Val relaxing in her living room!!!)
Anne's back on the boat after a long, hard, tiring journey from Scotland. Thanks to everyone for their good wishes. Scotland was hot and sunny and very beautiful, but I know I probably got the best weather of the year while I was there.
We're thinking of heading south in the next week or so, weather dependent. It will be great to get back to "normality". We're in Brewers' Bay next to the airport on St Thomas which is very quiet, no swell, and absolutely nobody anchored in the bay. The beach is fairly quiet too, and no noise. We simply cannot understand why there's no-one else here, but we're not complaining.
There was a really nasty thunderstorm with lightening last night which kept us awake for a while - well, it kept Alan awake, Anne went back to sleep!!
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Well, this is not the Caribbean - it's the west coast of Scotland - and very bonny it is too. It was a beautiful day. I travelled up north to see Val (from Meander 11). She lives in the middle of nowhere just south of Mallaig on the Ardnamurchan Penninsula. The scenery is spectacular and this was the best view of the day.
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Anne's back in Scotland again. Mum died on the 6th May at the grand old age of 94.
I'll be back on the boat from the 4th June to rejoin Alan, who is still in the Virgin Islands on "Freya".
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We've been in the US Virgin islands for a few weeks now, lots of photos already on the Blog. Hopefully I'll get a few new photos in the next week or so.
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We're back again in St Maarten after having had a great week in Dominica. We hadn't planned on being on Dominica for a week, but the weather put us off going further north until the seas and winds calmed down. We had a great tour of the island and I've uploaded some photographs to the gallery - no explanations at the moment as to what they are - hopefully later. Click on the "photo gallery" to find them - (Dominica 2009).
We've bought a new cooker and Alan's planning on Anne making some great meals - uhm .....
We're here in St Maarten until probably sometime next week - yet again waiting for a suitable weather window.
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We're back in Dominica. It's just as lovely as ever. We're going exploring tomorrow, or at least Anne is with Geoff and Jo from "Sutton Hoo". Alan's not feeling too good, so he may just stay on the boat and let Anne do the sightseeing. Will try to get some photos on the blog soon.
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We arrived in Carriacou yesterday, after a short sail north from the island of Grenada, although Carriacou is still part of Grenada. It's very busy here, and we're anchored right next to "Shian". We'll probably be here for a few days before heading to the Grenadines. The photos above were taken in Grenada before we left. The photo of the street, and the one with the canon is the town of St George's, the view of the water and yachts is Clarke's Court Bay. The dog was very busy digging holes all over Hogg Island sniffing out and tossing out crabs - very busy wee dog and an absolute scream to watch!
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Still here in Grenada. The seas outside are high and the winds are strong, so we're staying put until they calm down a bit. Christmas was good - we spent it with Paul and Janie on "Shian".
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We finally left Trinidad on Monday the 6th of December to sail north to Grenada. We arrived on the Tuesday morning, tired but safe and anchored in St George's Lagoon - yes we discovered we could still anchor in the Lagoon. Still free wi-fi from Island Water World. The new Port Louis Marina seems to have come to a standstill as far as building is concerned. We were in the lagoon for a couple of days and then moved round to Hogg Island for sand, sea, snorkelling and generally lazing around. It is just as gorgeous and very, very peaceful.
We had a very interesting start to our sail when we were leaving Trini. Half a mile north of the BOCA we saw what we thought was a seal in the water. A SEAL - no, not in this heat - it turned out to be a dog getting swept down by the current towards Venezuela. So, being the good, kind people we are (huh?) we managed to rescue it - interesting experience though! (We had the main sail up, but the engine was still on). The dog didn't seem too keen on this big monster that was trying to help it, but appeared to want to be rescued. However, Alan finally scooped the dog out of the water and helped him (it was a him!) on board. He was a big brown dog, but with a short shaggy coat. He was pretty scared but soon stopped shaking and made himself at home in the cockpit. Anne spent most of the time steering and hanging on to what passed as the dog's collar - didn't want doggie disappearing downstairs and maybe pee'ing up against the wall!! Well, now for the Trinidad Coastguard! They were very nice and, to cut a long story short, their initial response was to "Take the dog and set it free in Scotland Bay" (about half a mile away from where we were). Fine, so just as we were sailing into Scotland Bay (main sail still up and trying to dodge the anchored boats) and about to set doggie free, Coastguard came back on and informed us of a change of plan. "Please take dog to Coastguard HQ." (That's where all the big Coastguard boats are based and another two miles along the coast). An interesting experience - tie-up, chat with the guys who didn't seem to know why we were there anyway, unload doggie, fill in loads of paperwork and finally depart - the whole escapade took well over two hours so instead of leaving Trini at mid-day it was well after 2 pm before we left. Hope poor doggie appreciates what we did. However, he went off the boat quite happily and by this time wagging his tail (He didn't pee anywhere thank goodness, but he didn't seem to know what "sit" meant) so perhaps he wasn't quite housetrained ....!
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Anne went back to Sunny Scotland for her daughter's wedding on the 1st of November. The above photo is a mosaic of some of the photos. Great Highland wedding with kilts and bagpipes. Great fun and a great day. Congrats to the bride and groom!!
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Many thanks to YSATT for organising the Cook-In at Peakes Marina last night. It was great fun - as the photos prove. On the menu for tasting were Doubles, Barbequed Pig Tail, Bouillibaisse, Chicken Paella, Chicken Chowder and various other delicacies for us to tempt our tastebuds - all made by the local restaurants and some of the contractors. Budget Marine helped us out too, with Shots of either Tequila or "Pink Pussy" .. (I know, I know) but that's what it was called! The "Doubles" were delicious and Anne trotted back for another helping. Alan tasted the "Pig Tail", but Anne "chickened out". Alan said the Pig Tail was nearly edible but that the the Bouillibaisse was great and he went back for a second helping - huge chunks of octupus kind of put Anne off.
A steel band followed by a DJ kept us dancing the night away, and as usual Anne and Alan were one of the last couples to leave.
The photograph above is the girls and Tyrrell from Budget Marine.
The photographs below are, top left to right: Danielle and Didier from Sails Restaurant in Powerboats and then Sam from "Sea Warrior" getting a lesson on how to play a pan. Bottom left is our own Jessie from Members' Only Maxi Taxi Service and then the little photos top to bottom are the crews from "Discovery", "Will of the Wisp" and "Rosalinda".
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We went for a trip to the Nariva Swamp yesterday (that's on the eastern side of the Trinidad). We got picked up from the boatyard at 6.00 am. It was great fun, and of course it rained cats and dogs and we got soaked. The monkeys (Howler and Capucine) all came out to see us and I tried to take photos. It is not easy taking photos from the ground straight up and into the trees, and they mostly ended up a bit fuzzy. There's more photographs in the Gallery - click on the link at the right hand side of this page. After being dropped at the tour guide's shack, we climbed aboard a wee boat which zoomed up and through the swamp to an island. Crossing from the boat to the island was interesting - there was about 4-5 inches of muddy water to wade through, and sometimes the 4-5 inches became a lot deeper - one or two of the other cruisers actually ended up to their bums in the water. However, we had taken a change of clothes so we changed at the tour-guide's shack. Jessie James (our wonderful Trini tour guide) had bought us all doubles and saheenas for breakfast before we arrived at the swamp and after we left the swamp we had roti for lunch. Alan's all curried out! We saw lots of birds, but most were too far away to see very well. We were absolutely shattered when we finally arrived back at the boat in the boatyard and were all tucked up in bed and fast asleep by 7.30 pm - what sorry people we are. Slept a whole 12 hours!!
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Anne is now back in Trinidad, but we thought you'd like to see some photos of Scotland - this is just proof that the sun does shine in Bonny Scotland.
Anne spent three great weeks at her daughter Davinia's and fiance Paul's home in Helensburgh. We spent one of the weekends at Paul's sister's caravan in Kilberry on the Mull of Kintyre. We had great fun with all the kids and dogs flying kites, fishing and generally messing about on the water.
Thanks to Paul and Davinia, and Amanda, Alan and all the kids for a great trip back to Scotland.
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We arrived back in Trinidad at the beginning of May and after a few days we were hauled out of the water. We're a cottage on stilts again and Powerboats have given us a staircase, which is great! Anne flew back to Scotland, leaving Alan on the boat as usual.
It's been mixed weather since Anne arrived in Scotland, with mostly rainy days, and the odd bit of sunshine. It's such a shame there aren't more dry days, as the scenery would be lovely if we could see it properly.
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