Yacht Larus

And by ‘here’ I mean, Guadeloupe, St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Marten and the British Virgin Islands. We have been working quite a lot over the last few months, and are currently in the Grenadines doing nothing but looking after Larus and pleasing ourselves.

I still have a carnival post on the go, but time, wifi, uploading photos and time spent travelling and working have really put me behind. But a current update first and that next.

Tim and I sailed up from Trinidad mid-March to Guadeloupe to work four charters. It was a nice change to stay on the same boat for three weeks and the same location for four, five if you include the week off in-between charters. Normally, as standby crew, we work for a week or two and then move on.

‘Further’ was between permanent crews, which was a treat for us. We could change things around to suit ourselves without having to worry about returning everything to its original position or stepping on anyone’s toes. I also spent some time going around the supermarkets with the Ops Manager getting to know what was available. Not all bases are the same and Guadeloupe is very very French.
This is one of the tricky things about working only briefly at all the bases – provisioning is different from place to place. Things you can get in St Martin and Guadeloupe are not necessarily available in St Vincent or the BVI. Often the same products are packaged differently and it takes time (or an epiphany, ‘So THAT’s what a tin of coconut milk looks like here!’) before you recognise them.

Tim was able to picked up more ideas and options for the route we follow during the week. The more familiar you are with a place the more you can fine tune the charter for the guests.

Larus lived in the Pointe a Pitre Port du Plaisance (that’s such a lovely term for ‘marina’) while we were working. It was nice to have her nearby so we could pop over for anything we’d forgotten.
Having her near the charter base also meant that we could leave perishable food in the storeroom fridges. Not knowing when you’ll next work means throwing out an awful lot of open jars of mayonnaise.

With our last Guadeloupe charter finished we, moved back on board Larus and headed south to work in St Vincent on the following Saturday. We sailed overnight and, why we can never remember just how much current you have to battle against travelling south, I will never know. But it’s always there. Everytime. Once in St Vincent we take a mooring (two actually, one fore and one aft, to stop us from swinging with wind and tide) from Mike in the Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon is well protected from sea and swell by a semi-circle of reefs. We enter between two navigational posts, keeping close to the green starboard post where it’s deepest. We still sucked in our breath as we inched in and the depth gauge read 1.8 metres which is the same as our 1.8 metre keel. We must have been close but we didn’t touch down. Once inside, the depth quickly drops down to 10 to 12 metres.

St Vincent and the Grenadines are a favourite cruising ground for us. Tobago Cays is some of the best snorkelling you will find any in the Caribbean. We saw turtles and rays and had the most perfect weather. It really was ideal. Happy Island off Union Island provided some astonishing entertainment the first week. A kite surfer was surfing straight at the island and then with very little room to spare, would turn in a huge airborne leap. I stayed back on the boat preparing dinner but I could hear the cheers of the people at bar. I’ve spent a lot of time in Bequia and it is one of my favourite islands. Unusually we had our second meal ashore at the Gingerbread Restaurant; usually meals ashore are Tuesday and Friday. We had a most surprising and delicious Thai and Indian curries, all beautifully presented.

The provisioning is a bit different in St Vincent. Much of the produce is local and the fish is quite special. The fish is frozen, as it is everywhere, but it is locally caught, cleaned, frozen and used quickly. We often have comments about how fresh it tastes. The menu here is a little different too and has some local recipes like Callaloo soup and a warm plantain salad.

Next we tucked Larus in for a longer stay on her own in the Blue Lagoon, and flew up to St Martin to complete our BVI work permit medicals. Getting work permit for the BVI is not very straight forward. The bureaucracy and red tape are truly impressive and you must arrive with the paper work correct and complete. Our time in the St Martin was short but it gave us a chance to meet up with some of the new crews and catch up with some old friends.

A week later than expected we got our work permits and were able to take Solitaire, the second oldest catamaran in the fleet out on charter. Solitaire was between crews so with no handover from someone who knows where stuff is, we were glad of the extra week to get familiar with her. Recently refurbished, she was in quite good shape for a lady of her age, although she did suffer from hot flushes, of the no air-conditioning sort. This charter was a little special because of two of our guests, a couple of ten year olds who had never sailed and only ever snorkelled in a swimming pool. Initially nervous, they had truly blossomed by the end of the week. It was most satisfying to see them fling themselves off of the top floor of Willy T’s. Willy T’s is a rather unsavoury floating venue and we thought long and hard about taking the girls there, but there’s a top floor to be jumped off! So we climbed, they jumped and jumped and jumped, and then we left.

We were scheduled for two weeks charter in BVI but as Solitaire’s new crew got her work permits in time for the second week, we handed over to them. All finished for the time being we flew back down to St Vincent and Larus.

We’re now anchored off Princess Margaret Bay near Port Elizabeth, Bequia’s main town. We’re doing chores, fixing all the little things that stop working after being left to their own devices and relaxing. Next week, we’ll start slowly working our way up to Guadeloupe for a bit more work. We intend to stop along the way and enjoy the journey. There are a lot of islands before here and there that we haven’t visited for a while.