It is that time of the year that the weather windows in between the tropical waves become shorter and more of the days are influenced by these tropical waves. This not necessarily means that the weather is really bad, but winds are up to 20 to 25 kn with a lot of squalls with wind speeds mostly up to 35 kn and seas between six (6) and eight (8) feet. For a committed sailor it is not a real big problem, but we are cruisers and no one is waiting for us, so why would we want to leave a good anchorage to go into bad weather especially since the compression between the islands enhances the wind most of the time with an additional 5 kn and 2 ft. of wave height. But it was time to leave Rodney Bay Marina and continue to sail south. We left the marina and anchored in the bay to give Island Girl a good bottom cleaning and left the next day for Soufrière which is for us the jumping ground to sail to St. Vincent and The Grenadines. We love Soufrière but after I found out that I am allergic to the sulfur from the volcano we limited our stays in this bay next to the world famous Pitons. We always use one of the private mooring balls in this bay and Kendel and Claude the nephews of the owner of the mooring balls are always greeting us miles out from the bay like family returning home. This relationship also makes us feel very safe in this bay and Kendel makes it every time very clear when we go ashore and leave Island Girl alone; “No one will touch your boat captain you are one of us”.

The next day at 5:00 AM it was anchor up to sail to St. Vincent or with good weather to Bequia. The seas on the south side of St. Lucia were this morning again a washing machine with 3.5 kn current on the nose. Difficult to sail, but after about 3 miles out Island Girl started loving the broad reach wind of about 20 kn and we had one of the best sails with 7.5 to 8.0 kn speed to the south side of St. Vincent. Just passing the coast line for the crossing to Bequia we encountered a big squall with nasty wind and high waves; the fun was over and we were happy to enter Admiralty Bay and anchored on our favorite spot in front of “Tony Gibbons Beach” also known as “Princess Margaret Beach”. Since we arrived early in the afternoon we had time to clear customs and immigration to prevent the problems we had two years ago when we waited until the next day to do the clearing.

Bequia is such a great place to be, great yacht services, reasonable grocery stores, good restaurants, great Wi-Fi from the boat with our wave antenna and friendly people. The island is beautiful and it is a great place to take an island tour using a small pickup truck with benches in the covered truck bed. We love to boardwalk from town especially now that it is extended all the way to “Tony Gibbons Beach”. Sunday mornings are always reserved for a full delicious breakfast at the Gingerbread Hotel and Restaurant. Although their dining room on the open second floor is great, we prefer to sit outside in the garden in the shade of the big almond trees with a great view over the bay and watch all the people go by walking over the boardwalk. It is off season and I was the only diver on board of a boat of “Dive Bequia”; I made two drift dives, one dive along the coast of “Moon Hollow” and the other one over “Devil’s Table”. A large yellow marker indicates the location of the “Devil’s Table” but ships and especially the ferries to Kingstown in St. Vincent are passing very close to this marker. The sound of the diesel engine of the ferry and a fast fishing boat passing over our heads was very intimidating although we had about 20 ft. of clearing.

Together with some other cruisers we met in St. Lucia we made an island tour and I encouraged these people to trespass with me into a few beautiful homes built in the hills with the most astonishing views. Only after our tour guide told them it was okay, they followed me and we loved the quality of the buildings and the beautiful architectural details using the locally found white cedar that is also used for boat building on the island. Dorothy and I took the ferry to St. Vincent to visit Kingstown the capital of St. Vincent. The old town built in the 1700s is very small with 3 roads parallel to the coast and at regular intervals side roads. Despite its rough edges we like Kingstown with the old stone buildings, cobblestone sidewalks and very beautiful arches. The unusual feature of the architecture is that many buildings have pillars on the outside of the sidewalks supporting the floors above, creating a covered walkway with arches. After a great lunch with local food, we took a taxi to visit Fort Charlotte, not to see the fort but to enjoy the great view over Kingstown, the west coast and the mountains of the island. Like many people returning to Bequia we did some grocery shopping in a large super market just before the ferry terminal.

Tuesday and Wednesday were the only days of a small weather window to sail south to Mayreau and the Tobago Cays. We love these locations, but settled weather is needed to snorkel in these waters and swim with the turtles. We had a great sail from Bequia to Mayreau, but we were followed by large squalls drifting to the south so we decided to end this sailing season and return to Grenada. We sailed to Clifton Bay in Union Island, took a mooring ball for 2 hours just to go ashore, check out and have lunch. After lunch we sailed to Tyrrel Bay in Carriacou. Just after we anchored the first squall came over us starting a night with a lot of rain and wind.
The next morning the anchor was up at 5:00AM and we had a great sail to St. George’s. To be able to have a stern-to mooring in the marina we always drift in the bay to get the dinghy down and the fenders and mooring lines out. Unfortunately this was the moment that the big wind started blowing and we had wind gusts up to 27 kn outside and 35 in the lagoon. It took me two attempts to get the boat in our very narrow spot but without any problems Island Girl was moored and we concluded our 9 months trip through The Caribbean.

We visited 17 islands and our trip that started on September 15, 2014 from Grenada took us to: Bonaire, St. Croix, St. Maarten, Saba, St. Kitts, Antigua, Barbuda, Guadeloupe, The Saintes, Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and The Grenadines, and Carriacou back to Grenada.

This blog is called “Back Home in Grenada” and we feel Grenada is our home. Where else are you welcomed by the Custom and Immigration staff expressing that it is so great to see you again? The marina staff, the people working on boats in the marina, the owners of The Merry Baker, the taxi drivers all welcome us with hugs and kisses expressing how happy they are to see us again. The crew of Shadowfax a large tour catamaran that is moored next to us in the marina welcomed us back with a bottle of homemade Rum Punch served on the boat during their tours. And then we say hello to our adopted Grenadian son Sean and this is always emotional for us. Sean takes care of our boat and works long hours to get our varnish looking great. He brings us local food, and/or fruit and vegetables and we share many hours talking, joking, singing and dancing when we hear good soca music. We check on the progress of the building of his home that he works on after making some money to buy materials in the summer season and when he has time he drives us around the island and helps us buy parts for the boat. On Saturday morning he is always a little late since he first goes to the market first and brings us special lunch or breakfast food that we share together. Grenada is home and we love to be here.