Carissimi,

first of all let me give a big shoutout to Renny, the young gentleman in the picture. Renny is a very sociable and entrepreneurial fisherman (and dj!) from Carriacou who has been getting us the most amazing fresh produce - and lobster! - when we couldn't get it ourselves. Renny has just upgraded to a bigger boat and stopped by earlier today to let us check it out.

Next order of business: departures. It appears that our long sojourn in the Grenadian territories may be coming to an end. It feels a little funny, as we've been here a very long time, lockdown and what not, and you definitely start building routines and habits and a mental album of memories. Hurricane season ends officially next Sunday, 11/1. Our plan of record is to get a PCR test next Monday, November 2, here in Carriacou, clear out after getting the results and set sail to Antigua possibly by the end of the week, as for a Negative PCR test to be considered current by the authorities it must not be older than a week.

Why Antigua? Because it's pretty, duh!, but it is also a big yachting center, with all that comes with being one: from the quality of the work in the boatyards to well-stocked supermarkets, etc. While there we'll have our main sail replaced with the new one that was specced in St. Martin last January and the genoa furler. These are the priority items but there'll be also some interior painting touch-ups and various other bits and bobs together with general TLC. And we'll get the chance to check out the island's beautiful beaches and other natural features.

Normally we'd be a little wary of being in Antigua in high season: sailboat rallies mega-yachts, boat shows... it can be very busy. But Covid 19 has caused all of the above to be reduced to a minimum, when not canceled altogether, and a quiet season is expected. Having said that, being that the Covid rules for clearing into countries of the CARICOM (CARIbbean COMmunity), even when you're already inside such countries, can be unclear and the need to make revenue off tourism hard to reconcile with keeping tight safety rules, we'll have to keep our eyes - and our minds - open. This is also why we'll be sailing straight to Antigua, as to stop at other islands along the way and risk having to go through the same or different version of the health routines one or more times with feeling is...not a desirable outcome.

On a good weather window, it'll probably take us 30-35 hours to get to Antigua from Carriacou - where we are now -. Leaving at early lights, a full day and night sailing, arrival before dark the day after. There will be coffee consumption!

Other than that, not too many changes since our last entry. You find us exactly where you left us at the last blog entry, off Sandy Island. "Wait, wha? You mean you haven't moved at all in more than a month?". Yes and no. We've definitely spent six weeks here at anchor, feeling really guilty about not doing more, sailing more, working more on the boat etc. for about 10 secs per sense of guilt occurrence. One morning we sailed to Petit Martinique, also part of Grenada, a very small island about two and a half miles off Carriacou. It didn't quite sweep our feet off, to quote one of my famous malapropisms as speaker of English as second language, so we changed course and sailed nice and fast to Saline Island, a small private island (currently for sale if you're interested) between Grenada and Carriacou. Saline has a small and protected anchorage, and is faced by an equally striking small island called Frigate, as it recalls in its shape the bird by the same name. We happened to beat another boat, a smaller monohull - or half-a-boat, as we like to call them - to the best spot in the anchorage and heard the boat's captain complain to a friend on the radio that "The cat beat me to it!", very funny.

We spent a couple of nights there and got very good snorkeling off one of the reefs closest to the boat. Another very promising area snorkeling-wise was more exposed to the sea action and, being the conditions a little rough on the day we chose to go snorkeling - not to mention a rather strong current - it wouldn't have made for comfortable swimming. On a calmer day I hoisted the Cap'n up the mast for his traditional check-that-everything-works-fine above deck level. It was a wonderful bluebird day, so he was able to combine the functional aspect of his ascent with the leisure one (enjoying amazing views from the top floor).

From Saline to Sandy again for a while, which we were glad to find as we left it: the ocean its usual gorgeousness and the skies offering varied qualities of drama every day, any time of day. Amazing and huge shape-shifting clouds, crazy colors at sunset, majestic squalls, all punctuated by the flights of the birds scouting for fish. Then, about ten days ago we zippitydoodahed back to Woburn in Grenada to run some errands on land (land? What's that?) and we motored into well-protected Egmont last weekend to put some distance between us and a rather nautical couple of days with big squalls and high wind gusts.

And finally yesterday, Tuesday, we set sail from Egmont back to Sandy Island. Definitely a "never a dull moment" kind of sail: we were close hauled all the time and we changed sails 9 times to cover 32 miles!! We had wind, no wind, lots of wind, rain, no rain... it definitely kept us busy, but now we're so buff and wind-beaten we're ready for the cover shot on Sailing Magazine.

Well, I think that's it for the moment. As it's tradition, I invite you to visit our Gallery and check the map for a detailed track of our movements. Thank you for reading and for your comments and be well!!