Hello Folks,

We have finally left Antigua and are on the move south to Grenada where we will haul out SeaSparrow and store her once again at Spice Island Marina. As I am explaining to a late arriving guest in the lead photo of this blog we are not expecting any more guests this season. Our plans include haul out on the 13th of April and fly home on the 15th, which will put an end to our second sailing season. We are currently at anchor in Bequia (pronounced BECK-WAY) having traveled about 260 miles from Jolly Harbour, Antigua. We have approximately another 70 miles to go before getting SeaSparrow "home" to Grenada.

Before leaving Antigua we welcomed our last guests for the season, which were Debbie's sister Wendy and husband Mike. During Mike and Wendy's time with us we were much more fortunate in terms of the winds then was the case with cousin Noel as we were able to once again sail completely around the island. Of course we had to do the requisite visit to Shirley Heights for the Sunday evening BBQ and music.



This was a great evening once again however, the trip back was more eventful then we would have liked. The journey back includes some steep roads in order to get down from the heights and during our traverse of the steepest section Wendy went for a tumble. No major injuries were incurred but Wendy gathered an impressive souvenir from her visit in the form of scraping due to road rash. Here's a pic of Wendy's leg a couple of days after the incident.



For Wendy the fun didn't stop there as after our visit to Shirley Heights she started to feel not quite right. She felt lousy pretty much for the remainder of her visit as evidenced by this pic taken while sailing. When you need a blanket while in the Caribbean all is not well.



After Wendy returned home we learned that in fact she had salmonella poisoning, which obviously is not good and explains the illness while with us. Hopefully now that the diagnosis has been made the recovery will follow quickly. Not sure where this was contracted but this is the first we have heard of anyone suffering this affliction during our time in Antigua. Although feeling like crap Wendy tried to hang in there and enjoy her vacation as much as possible which of course included the mandatory beanbag visit.



If nothing else Mike and Wendy were able to get out of the snow for a while even if all didn't go quite as planned.

Once Wendy and Mike departed it was time for Debbie and I to get into moving mode once again. After sticking to the local waters of Antigua for almost 3 months it requires a change of mindset to venture back out into the greater Caribbean Sea. Before leaving however, we had to say our goodbyes to the friends we made at the Westpoint Bar. Great, friendly people that were fun to hang with while we were at home in Jolly Harbour.

Bar staff pic including Kevin, Billy and Christina


Bartender Wally


Lastly the owner,George who was really sad to see us leave.


I suspect next season we will find a way to stop in at Jolly Harbour once again and reacquaint ourselves with these fine folks.

We left Jolly Harbour on the 22nd of March and headed for Martinique where we enjoyed some excellent weather for sailing. I took the opportunity to catch up on some reading while doing the sailing at the same time. Days like these don't seem to happen often enough but when they do you have to take advantage and enjoy.



One of the main reasons for going to Martinique was to, as Debbie's says, replenish the four basic food groups. Wine, bread, cheese and chocolate.



I don't know how they do it but the French just do these things better then everyone else and do so very cheaply. The price of great French wine is foolish in the French islands as you can get excellent wines for as low as 3 euro a bottle. If you want to splurge and get really fancy spend 7 or 8 euros for the crazy good stuff. We spent a week in Martinique between Fort de France and Sainte Anne and pretty much ate baguettes, cheese, wine with chocolate for dessert the whole time.

We left Martinique on the 29th of March and sailed to Rodney Bay, St Lucia where we anchored for the night and departed the next morning thereby avoiding the need to check in and checkout of that country's customs. On the 30th we made it to Bequia where as mentioned earlier we remain anchored. This is a beautiful anchorage with crystal clear water despite the fact there must be a hundred boats around us. Here are a few pics of the underwater world within about 50 feet of where we are anchored.




One of the reasons we came to Bequia was to get dinghy chaps made by a guy named Avell at Grenadine Sails. Dinghy chaps are a covering that goes over the top of the dingy to protect it from the sun's UV as well as scraps and scratches from normal wear and tear. Avell has a great reputation for making quality chaps at a reasonable price and can do the work in a couple of days. Based upon the big news we received about a week ago, the need for dinghy chaps became all the more urgent. We learned from the dog breeder in Ottawa that a yellow lab female puppy has been born with our name on her. We should add this new member to our family sometime in May when Debbie and I plan to head to Ottawa to pick her up. According to Debbie our new girl's name is "Piper", which I am slowly getting used to but am not completely sold as yet. Regardless of her name we are looking forward to having another dog as we still miss Stella but it is time to begin anew.

We plan to leave Bequia tomorrow morning and travel 37 miles to Carriacou, which if you are following along will realize was our first port that we visited in this our second season. We hope to meet up with some old friends while there but can only stay a day or two at most as we need to get to Grenada and begin prepping the boat for haul out and storage. We will be back home in no time so you folks in Halifax it's time to get serious about getting rid of all that snow. It has been an interesting story but come on it's time to bring it to an end.

Jeff