Yacht Larus

We are back in Antigua after a whirlwind trip around the Grenadines.

There aren't many photos of Bequia and I suspect that's due to my having spent a lot of time there in the past, the fact that it kept raining and that it was quite a short visit, but we will definitely be back there, so I will have many more opportunities.

The wet season is truly here and we shopped in between rain squalls. This included an extra trip back to the boat in the rain for Tim after I'd inadvertently left the wallet back on the boat.



This Bequia produce which we bought from a cart on the street in the rain - passion fruits, a red fruit with a single large seed in the centre and a mild flavour with a touch of alum, and nutmegs still wearing their mace.



One of the unendingly surprising things about the cruising life is the people you meet. Our neighbours in the anchorage in Bequia were Dan and Sue on Triumph, who turned out to be from my home town.

We moved on to Union Island to meet up with Lee and Kirsty on Jon Jon.



We hadn't even dropped anchor off Clifton, the main town on Union Island, before we clocked Emma and Stuart on Amarosa, who we first met in the Cape Verdes and more recently in Martinique, on our port side.



Moments later Lee and Kirsty arrived from Grenada and anchored on our starboard side.

Looking at these photos again also reminded me about how hot was. The number of times we heard, 'Is it just me, or is it REALLY hot?' I'd taken to carrying a pocket handkerchief to stop the sweat running into my eyes. Tim is much better with the heat than I am, but even he was been choosing to sit below deck in the relative cool.



May Day downtown Clifton, Union Island. The character of the islands is a little different now. The season is drawing to an end and there fewer tourists or cruising yachts about. Not only was it May Day but it was high noon as well. A lady in the fruit and veg market told us that come 5 o'clock, there would be all sorts of festivities going on in the cooler part of the day.

We planned to meet with friends and go and see, but ended up just meeting.



Graham, Tim, Nancy, Lee, Jaff, Cara, Kirsty and Chrissie on Larus.

Some Union Island advertising....



Lion fish have become a huge problem in the Caribbean. They are not a native fish and have no natural predators. FYI Hairoun is the local beer and Mayreau is the island just north of Union Island.



More Lion fish propaganda. I love the fact that cows can't spell.



They can cuddle though.

We said our good byes on the second of May, and headed back north to Antigua via Martinique and Guadeloupe. This is the time of year when many people park their boat somewhere and head back to the UK, like Lee and Kirsty. Others go north up the East coast of the States or south down to Grenada and Trinidad.

We left Union Island mid-day for an overnight sail to Martinique. We by-passed Mayreau, Canouan, Mustique, Bequia, St Vincent and St Lucia, and were approaching the south west corner of Martinique at about 5 in the morning. As we were only doing a single night sail before stopping of a day, neither of us had bothered to get a lot of sleep and by this time we were pretty tired and ready for a nice long nap.

We were just passing Cap Salomon when Tim noticed a French Customs boat mooching around. They circled us at a distance before launching their RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) and we soon had 4 burly Frenchmen squeezed in the cockpit. I would dearly have loved to have taken photos, but it really wasn't appropriate.

While Tim was with them in the cockpit, I hurried below to tidy up a bit, move our bedding from the passage berth in the main saloon to the fore-peak and trying to make the dirty dishes in the sink look smaller.

After talking to Tim, one official came below to talk to me.

They check that our stories tallied, checked out log (our route on the iPad as well as the written log), lifted up a few floor boards and having clocked the tiny basil plants I've been trying to grow since Tobago, asked if I cooked with drugs.



Erm... no.

They then piled back into the RIB that had come back alongside to collect them. As they were all manoeuvring to get seated the driver accidentally leant on the throttle, the whole rib reared up and very nearly threw them all in the water. It was most amusing and perked us up to know end. We alln laughed about it and off they went. I expect the RIB driver is being ribbed about it to this day.

We finally arrived in Fort de France, dropped our anchor, and after a couple hours sleep, did what we'd come specifically to Martinique to do. We went shopping.

We are finally beginning to run out of staples like tinned veg, powdered milk, beer and toilet paper, much of which we last bought in Las Palmas. Martinique has a huge supermarket were you can get pretty much anything you can get in France, as well as all the things you can get in the Caribbean. Tim and I walked up hill and down hill in the the noon day sun, to get to the supermarket. We looked at the huge selection of absolutely everything, considered the logistics of getting any purchases back to the boat, didn't buy a thing and walked allllllllllll the way back to the Leader Price supermarket in the port. They have everything we needed and it was close enough that we didn't need a taxi.

There's also a fruit and vegetable market nearby if Leader Price doesn't have what you want.

Shopping complete, on the fourth of May we continued north towards Antigua. The plan was to anchor at either of the two anchorages on Dominica, the next island along, but the winds were unexpectedly from the South West. All the anchorages on Dominica are exposed from the west and it would have been an uncomfortable and rolly night, so we carried on overnight to Martinique.

As we approached the northern tip of Martinique, we began to notice all sorts of flotsam in the water. The unusual wind direction was causing weeks or months' worth of debris to be cleared from normally sheltered beaches. There was stuff everywhere!

Twice we had to depower the sails, pulling the main and mizzen to centre and rolling in the jib, to slow us down enough to detangle branches and not risk losing our shockingly expensive squid lures.

The last time Tim had managed to hook a 3 metre length of bamboo. I would have loved a photo, but we were too busy trying to get rid of it to take a picture. We gave up trying to fish after that.



This bit of flotsam came along shortly after. It's big but it is only bamboo so very light.

Once we cleared the Dominican coast the flotsam disappeared and we had a very nice sail overnight to Deshaies, Guadeloupe.

We arrived at dawn and saw our friend Fair Lady anchored in the bay. Five in the morning was a little early to knock on the hull and demand tea, so we anchored, had a little snooze and when we looked out again they were gone! Next time we'll knock first. You have been warned! :)

Deshaies is where we saw the whales breaching when we first arrived. We have finally been able to find, edit and upload to youtube, the little video Tim was lucky enough to record.



We stayed the night and headed out not particularly early for the final leg of our journey to Falmouth Harbour, Antigua.



Having seen whales once, we were hopeful of seeing more, but didn't, despite Tim's diligent efforts at whale spotting.

We arrived at Falmouth on the 7th of May and will be here for a while. We've changed our plans for the summer having been offered a job with a charter company providing standby cover as Skipper and Crew/Cook. This suits us to a 'T' as we'll be able to work a little and still continue cruising.

We have some training courses to do and will be heading down to Trinidad in time to do our STCW95, a marine safety course. One of us also needs to be a Dive Master. It makes sense for Tim to do this, as I will have enough on my plate with the cooking during a charter.

Tim has started his dive training with a local school here in Falmouth Harbour, Extreme Marine Scuba . After he'd completed his Advance course, we both dived two local dive sites with Don, the Irish-Jamaican owner and Dive Master. As promised, we saw turtles, a ray, a moray eel as well as numerous fish. I was particularly pleased to see sand tiles fish peeking our of their little holes on the sea bed. I think Don was as pleased and surprised as we were that fauna had been so obliging.

We won't now be heading north for the summer as previously planned. We'll be staying south for most of the summer and will go north in a year or two.