heading north
19 January 2014 | Chatham Bay, Union Island
Gary
Our friend Brad - who helped me prep the boat & then sail through most the Bahamas - flew into Grenada 2 weeks ago & will be with us until the end of March. His arrival coincided with work on the boat to get ready to set sail again. The last 3 days we were at a dock to accomplish the last few work items. We then sailed around to St George's harbor on Friday (17th). St Georges gives us a nice jumping off point by saving 2-3 hours if leaving from the south coast bays.
The wind was highly variable in strength & direction while on the west side of Grenada. As we emerged from the island's shadow, the wind & waves increased a bit. We had mostly 25 mph winds, though they varied +/- by 5 mph. The seas were 4' - 6' mostly, though we saw a few that reached 12' & had a few times when we had a stretch of 1'+ waves, which slowly built back to 4'+ again.
While we were originally aiming for St Lucia (Rodney Bay), once we got into the southern Grenadines we decided to take a break from the continual pounding into the waves. Getting as close as possible, we dropped sails & motored the last 10 miles into Chatham Bay.
Chatham Bay is your stereotypical Caribbean Bay. There's no town, only a handful of bar/restaurants. One (with double the prices of the others) has wifi. We'll probably hang out here until Tuesday before heading out to St Lucia (about a 20-24 hour trip from here).