To Carriacou
06 January 2020
Paul Kember
The sail from Barbados to Carriacou was a short 120 NM almost downwind sail that should take less than a day so after clearing immigration in Barbados in the morning we filled up with water and a small amount of fuel at Port St Charles Marina, all of 22 litres used since we last filled up in Gran Canaria, and departed Barbados by one o'clock in the afternoon. As we left we waved goodbye to the other yachts in the anchorage and the new friends we had made whilst in Barbados.
For our passage planning Jim had produced a route using course-to-steer, Jim's software, and we used this to guide us on our journey. The software predicted less than a 23 hour passage time and it is always a good challenge to beat this predicted time!
Our initial course was 230 deg(true) and we were using the full standard white sail set of Genoa and main sail and after the initial predicted slow start we were soon up and running at over 6 knots. We gybed four times in the whole trip with the last two close together to sail between Union Island and Carriacou and then to sail along the West coast of Carriacou.
With the majority of the sail was overnight and we were very fortunate to have the moon lighting our way for the first half of the night before the full majesty of the stars appeared. Once the moon had gone the phosphorescence in the water appeared in Mirage's bow wave and wake. With very little sail management needed, other than the very occasional reef in and out of the Genoa it was easy sailing with a 'slight' sea. With three of us on board again it made for easier watches, with each of us taking a stint overnight. Jim, Sally and I each shared the watches overnight.
We saw the usual flying fish when under passage but they appeared much smaller and less in quantity than other times on this trip which may be as a result of over fishing, or simply a different variety. We had our fishing line out on the trip but didn't catch anything but did lose our first lure with distinctive bite mark evidence on the where the lure was, so we may have been pleased to not have caught this fish! With the usual sea birds seen we had no other wild life during the sail.
When we spotted land, it wasn't just a single island, but a whole group of the islands that form the Grenadines, including the larger island of St Vincent and the smaller ones such as Bequia and Union Island. All are much more volcanic in nature than Barbados and hence much higher. As dawn approached the islands became more distinct and could be identified individually. With all most perfect timing we approached the shallower waters with the day light when navigation becomes more critical. Every anchorage we saw as we sailed passed was full of yachts, yachts and more yachts at anchor, but the Grenadines are a Mecca for sailing and boat chartering.
The final stage of the sail was a simple Genoa only sail along the west coast of Carriacou reaching and the anchorage in Tyrell bay, anchoring, swimming to check the anchor all before midday, so the whole end-to-end trip was less than 23 hours including the fuelling at the start and the faffing at the end. We we very unlucky to have a very short rain shower during the last mile of the trip that fortunately stopped just as we entered the anchorage.
With the dinghy already inflated it gave us the afternoon to clear immigration and customs conveniently situated at the local yacht/boat repair facility. Having used an on-line system to register our intended arrival this was painless and easily performed after waiting for lunch (12pm to 1pm) to finish at 2pm! But this is Caribbean time!
The straight line route from Barbados to Tyrell Bay was 120 NM and we sailed 138 NM. As the sail was a short single day sail and we had stowed the dinghy, still inflated, on the front of Mirage, we didn't bother setting up a true downwind sail configuration and simply gybed our way downwind, gybing 4 time in total for the trip. Again it was another lovely sail as we only used 1.5 hours on the engine and this included getting out and in of the anchorages as well as motoring to the marina for fuel.