So, you ask, how do we find all of these wonderful spots with turquoise blue waters and white sand beaches (and turtles!)? We have joined this wonderful "sinewy" community of traveling sailors. We regularly run into (in towns, dinghying to and from our boat, in marinas) people over and over, many of them boats we originally met through the ARC (the group of boats we crossed the Atlantic with). All of us trade information about where we have been and share future plans. Generally, David and I build our itinerary place by place as we gather details about different spots. We do have a bit of structure - hurricane season. We will head north in May.

After Mustique, we enjoyed a beautiful windy beam reach to Clifton Harbor in Union Island. We joined about 30 sailboats moored in a harbor sheltered partially by a coral reef. This reef offers protection from the waves, but not the wind, and wow, was it windy there. We had a front row seat to the kite surfers who were quite happy with the 20-25 knot winds.


As we visit smaller towns with much more sparsely provisioned grocery stores and only locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables, we are learning to plan our menus after we shop. Fun to see what is available - bananas, pineapples as you'd expect, and wow are they good. Also really nice cucumbers, sometimes avocados and green bean, and always, squash.

On the edge of the reef in the harbor is Happy Island, actually constructed out of conch shells by Janti, and now a bar run by Janti. We tied up our dinghy and had drinks with our friends John and Lucy, while watching local kite surfers demonstrating their skills as the sun set. While we were in Clifton Harbor, we arranged to go scuba diving, only our second time since we completed the certification. Amazing number of fish and coral, way too many moray eels.

We found the amount of wind a little worrisome - we were on a Marine Park mooring, but one hears stories about failures... so after a couple of days, we headed around the end of the island to Chatham Bay, which was somewhat more protected and we were able to anchor well in sand, which has good holding. We took the dinghy to the beach and explored another beautiful white sand beach (sorry!).
A fish or lobster trap.
Pelicans and brown boobies fished right off of the shore. We had dinner at Vanessa and Seckie's - no menu; it's fish, chicken, or ribs, each cooked on the barbecue, served on tables in the sand. We plan to go back.



We made an overnight stop in the Tobago Cays, which is a Marine Park, with no fishing allowed. This area is well known for having a beach area with an abundance of sea turtles and good snorkeling in adjacent reefs. We arrived to very windy conditions. I think that the turtles decided that it was too rough for them to hang out where they were told to be and instead we found some when we snorkeled near our boat. We did not take the dinghy out to the reef where the snorkeling is supposed to be very good because of the conditions. I think that I am sounding very negative about wind for a sailor. This wonderful wind which moves sailboats along so well can also be a bit a challenge when anchoring, mooring, living on a boat, and especially docking!



Yesterday, we made a quick hop to Sandy Lane Marina on Canouan, where we spent a night of luxury - shore power, water to rinse off the boat, and high pressure showers (no hot water, but who needs this). We hadn't docked in a while, and I will say (no details), we were a little rusty getting on the dock in winds that pushed us aggressively toward it. However, we did beautifully leaving the dock, as we remembered a maneuver suggested to us on ARC Portugal by fellow participant, Marc. This marina is catering to a particular clientele. There is an airport right next to the marina, large enough for your private jet. There were several super yachts, including Venus, owned by Laurene Jobs. It was designed by Philippe Starck specifically for Steven Jobs, and has a minimalist dramatic style.



We are now back in Bequia harbor at anchor, planning to pick up our friend, Ed, who is coming to join us for a few days. We will revisit our favorite spots with him over the next week.