Rodney Bay St Lucia
Christmas Day with Vagabond Heart, Red Herring & Legend II at Rodney Bay
Christmas Day fun & games - egg & spoon race
New Years Eve with Daq Attack (English) & Balu (Irish) in Bequia
Pete & Mandy checking the rum punch at The Green Bole, Bequia
Sunset in Bequia
Pizas for lunch?
Pete branches out into olive ciabatta bread
Hair cut time in the Saliander Barber Shop
Tobago Cays
You can get real close swimming with the turtles at tobago Cays
One of the local characters selling lobster
Pete & Mandy check out the colourful fruit & vege market at Clifton Bay, Union Island
This little bar is sqeezed in down a narrow alleyway at Clifton Harbour, Union Island
The Carnage at St Georges Bay, Grenada
There are many churches in St Georges bay, Grenada, that were destroyed in hurricane Ivan & are now lying derelict
Karen & Miles share a fresh coconut at St Georges Bay market
A local stall in Grenville, Grenada
A "Jenny house" built after hurricane Jenny hit Greanda in the 1960's
An "Ivan House" built after the recent hurricane Ivan hit Grenada
You see many rum shacks like this one as you drive around the islands which the local men frequent during the day & night.
We joined the local sunday BBQ at the rum shack on Hogg Island, Grenada
A light house anchor ship, now converted into a resturant at Grenada
Exploring a yacht washed up in a storm on the Grenada coast. The inside was stripped bare, even the motor had been taken away
Anyone fancy some Spanish Mackerel
Pirates of the Caribbean? No, it's just one of the many "Tall Ships" that sail around the Caribbean with their charter guests. The small island it's passing is man made from conch shells with a rum shack built on top (Union Island)
We took Cathy to The Green Bole, Bequia for her Birthday to sample the rum punch, they make a mean one & it certainly packs a punch
We had to become mountain goats to get up some parts when we climbed La Soufriere volcano on the island of St Vincent
The steam esccaping from the dome in the middle of La Soufriere crater is evidence that the volcano is still active
On our journey down from La Soufriere we met a number of locals making their way up the mountain, most had bare feet or only wearing jandals
The rugged beauty of the east coast St Vincent. Surfing is illegal here because there are too many deaths, but this doesn't stop the locals
We explore a tunnel built by slave labour in the early 1900's for transporting the sugar cane to the ports on St Vincent
The town of Soufriere, St Lucia
The local fishng boats at Soufriere, St Lucia
Anchored out at Soufriere, St Lucia
GRENADA TO ST LUCIA
We stopped off at Bequia again with “Legend II”, & got some sail repairs done. We helped Cathy celebrate her birthday on 4th Feb with a girl’s afternoon shopping which ended up at the Green Bole checking out their rum punch. It lived up to its reputation, needless to say the guys had to come & pick us up & take us home……
We visited the turtle sanctuary at Bequia which was very interesting. The turtles are collected from the nearby beach where they hatch each year from around September to December, so there were lots of cute little turtles, about the size of the palm of my hand, swimming in the tanks. The turtles are kept for 5 years before being released & they don’t start breeding until they are 25 years old
We followed “Legend II” over to St Vincent which is the largest island in the Grenadines. Their main crop here is bananas & they supply most of the fresh produce to the smaller islands. We joined Cathy & Werner in a climb up to the top of La Soufriere which is an active volcano. We got dropped off at 1,000ft & climbed up to the crater rim at 3,000ft. It was a bit of a slog, but well worth the effort as the views of the volcano & surrounding area were quite spectacular. Luckily we had Pete’s famous raisin buns & cheese rolls to sustain us on our trek.
We celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary on 9th Feb which happened to be the day we sailed from St Vincent to St Lucia. We had wind gusts up to 38knots & boisterous seas at the top end of St Vincent, but the rest of the trip was fairly good. We didn’t get much opportunity to celebrate our anniversary cause by the time we arrived at St Lucia & anchored it was around 11pm & we were eating dinner at 11.30pm. We made up for it the next night however when Karen & Miles took us out for a lovely meal in a restaurant at Marigot Bay (St Lucia) & we boogied to the music of the live local band.
Karen & Miles have now left & are on their way back to “chill out” in England & catch up with friends & rellies before heading back to their boat "Stella Maris" in Marmaris, Turkey. If you want to read more about their Saliander adventure you can check out their web site http://www.sailthedream.co.uk/ Karen is a great narrator & I'm sure you'll find it entertaining. They’ve had a wondeful time in the Caribbean & are already planning their return trip next Christmas.
We had to become mountain goats to get up some parts when we climbed La Soufriere volcano on the island of St Vincent
One of the old lava flows decending La Soufriere
It was rather windy & cold up at La Soufriere crater rim, but we were very fortunate there were no clouds to obscure the views
The steam esccaping from the dome in the middle of La Soufriere crater is evidence that the volcano is still active
On our journey down from La Soufriere we met a number of locals making their way up the mountain, most had bare feet or only wearing jandals
The rugged beauty of the east coast St Vincent. Surfing is illegal here because there are too many deaths, but this doesn't stop the locals
We explore a tunnel built by slave labour in the early 1900's for transporting the sugar cane to the ports on St Vincent
The town of Soufriere, St Lucia
The local fishng boats at Soufriere, St Lucia
Anchored out at Soufriere, St Lucia
GRENADA TO ST LUCIA
We left Grenada on 20th Jan with our visitors Karen & Miles, to make our way north again. We stopped at most of the same islands we saw on the way down, but went to some different anchorages, plus we stopped at the islands of Petite St Vincent & Petite Martinique for the first time. Petite St Vincent is a privately owned island with an exclusive resort taking up the entire island. They charge US$1,000 per night for 2 people, for this you get a large house with no immediate neighbours & great views. To call room service you hoist a flag from your house, and each day the staff leave buckets of iced water & big fluffy towels at the deck chairs & umbrellas conveniently placed around the island beaches. We were reunited here with Karen & Graham from “Red Herring” & the “Vagabond Heart” family (these are the people we spent Xmas Day with), plus a Swiss family on their boat Sea Quest (they were on the same radio net crossing the Atlantic. Our visit to Petite Martinique was brief, but long enough to stock up with duty-free grog.
Pete & I did a few more dives looking for the elusive crays & revisited the Purina wreck at Mayreau Island with Cameron off “Reborn V”. We also took the team (Karen & Miles) on several snorkeling expeditions; once again the best was at Tobago Cays. We met Cathy & Werner from “Legend II” (Kiwis) at Tobago Cays & they joined us for a 2 hour drift snorkel from the outside of the reef, through the pass & back to the boat with Pete towing the dinghy whilst snorkeling. Once again the visibility was great & there were lots of turtles & fish, including several stingrays. We also met the team from “Reborn V” & “Sea Quest” ashore at sundown for drinks, nibbles & petanque. The Saliander crew got slightly trolley’d, we realized when we got back to the boat that we’d been drinking 70% proof rum (we thought it was the usual 40% proof -ooops!!!) Luckily we ran out of coke before we got legless.
Pete & I did a few more dives looking for the elusive crays & revisited the Purina wreck at Mayreau Island with Cameron off “Reborn V”. We also took the team (Karen & Miles) on several snorkeling expeditions; once again the best was at Tobago Cays. We met Cathy & Werner from “Legend II” (Kiwis) at Tobago Cays & they joined us for a 2 hour drift snorkel from the outside of the reef, through the pass & back to the boat with Pete towing the dinghy whilst snorkeling. Once again the visibility was great & there were lots of turtles & fish, including several stingrays. We also met the team from “Reborn V” & “Sea Quest” ashore at sundown for drinks, nibbles & petanque. The Saliander crew got slightly trolley’d, we realized when we got back to the boat that we’d been drinking 70% proof rum (we thought it was the usual 40% proof -ooops!!!) Luckily we ran out of coke before we got legless.
We stopped off at Bequia again with “Legend II”, & got some sail repairs done. We helped Cathy celebrate her birthday on 4th Feb with a girl’s afternoon shopping which ended up at the Green Bole checking out their rum punch. It lived up to its reputation, needless to say the guys had to come & pick us up & take us home……
We visited the turtle sanctuary at Bequia which was very interesting. The turtles are collected from the nearby beach where they hatch each year from around September to December, so there were lots of cute little turtles, about the size of the palm of my hand, swimming in the tanks. The turtles are kept for 5 years before being released & they don’t start breeding until they are 25 years old
We followed “Legend II” over to St Vincent which is the largest island in the Grenadines. Their main crop here is bananas & they supply most of the fresh produce to the smaller islands. We joined Cathy & Werner in a climb up to the top of La Soufriere which is an active volcano. We got dropped off at 1,000ft & climbed up to the crater rim at 3,000ft. It was a bit of a slog, but well worth the effort as the views of the volcano & surrounding area were quite spectacular. Luckily we had Pete’s famous raisin buns & cheese rolls to sustain us on our trek.
We celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary on 9th Feb which happened to be the day we sailed from St Vincent to St Lucia. We had wind gusts up to 38knots & boisterous seas at the top end of St Vincent, but the rest of the trip was fairly good. We didn’t get much opportunity to celebrate our anniversary cause by the time we arrived at St Lucia & anchored it was around 11pm & we were eating dinner at 11.30pm. We made up for it the next night however when Karen & Miles took us out for a lovely meal in a restaurant at Marigot Bay (St Lucia) & we boogied to the music of the live local band.
Karen & Miles have now left & are on their way back to “chill out” in England & catch up with friends & rellies before heading back to their boat "Stella Maris" in Marmaris, Turkey. If you want to read more about their Saliander adventure you can check out their web site http://www.sailthedream.co.uk/ Karen is a great narrator & I'm sure you'll find it entertaining. They’ve had a wondeful time in the Caribbean & are already planning their return trip next Christmas.
The petanque set has been getting a thrashing & tonight we’re challenging another Kiwi boat, Diane & Keith on “Chriselle” Our game skills usually depend on how many rums we’ve consumed, but we’ve invented some interesting variations of the game & we try & choose difficult terrain to throw the opponents off. (ha ha ha)
We’ve had a bit of rain since arriving in the Caribbean, but mostly at night. The wind blows constantly 20knots from the north east-east & with temperatures up in the 30’s the breeze is a welcome relief. We’re enjoying cruising here, but it’s not all Pina Coladas & palm trees. There is a lot of poverty in the Caribbean & we’re not sure how the locals survive as food seems very expensive, especially on the smaller islands where all the produce is imported. As with most countries in the world there is also crime. Tourist & cruisers are prime targets for the criminals so you need to be very conscious about security & there are some areas that are best avoided.
The fishing has been going ok, not great, but better than most others we’ve spoken to. In the last 2-3 weeks we’ve caught a nice Spanish Mackerel, a couple of Tuna, a small Marlin which we lost, & a Barracuda which we put back because they can be poisonous in these parts. Coming from the Mediterranean Karen & Miles thought we’d done exceptionally well with our array of fish; however I don’t think they were too keen when we found out that the small fish Pete caught on his fly rod one night turned out to be poisonous!!! We ever found out they were poisonous until a few days after we had eaten them. They were rather tasty though & the fact that nobody got sick was a bonus…….
We’ve finally seen the “green flash” We had just watched “Pirates of The Caribbean” DVD a few nights previously & were expecting the whole sky to light up with the “green flash”, but in actual fact it is a green glow that surrounds the last part of the sun as it sinks below the horizon at sunset. We had been thinking it was all a myth as we have been waiting to see it for the past 2 month since arriving in the Caribbean, however we’ve discovered it can only be seen when the horizon is clear of clouds & atmospheric conditions are right.
So far all the counties we’ve visited have been English speaking. Our next port of call will be Martinique, a French country. There are several French islands in the Caribbean & as with the mainland France they have also had workers striking for the last 3 weeks. Apparently the supermarkets & petrol stations have been closed & it’s difficult to find an ATM cash machine that has any money. Consequently we’ve made sure we’ve provisioned up well on St Lucia & will be topping up the fuel tanks before we leave tomorrow.
We’ve had a bit of rain since arriving in the Caribbean, but mostly at night. The wind blows constantly 20knots from the north east-east & with temperatures up in the 30’s the breeze is a welcome relief. We’re enjoying cruising here, but it’s not all Pina Coladas & palm trees. There is a lot of poverty in the Caribbean & we’re not sure how the locals survive as food seems very expensive, especially on the smaller islands where all the produce is imported. As with most countries in the world there is also crime. Tourist & cruisers are prime targets for the criminals so you need to be very conscious about security & there are some areas that are best avoided.
The fishing has been going ok, not great, but better than most others we’ve spoken to. In the last 2-3 weeks we’ve caught a nice Spanish Mackerel, a couple of Tuna, a small Marlin which we lost, & a Barracuda which we put back because they can be poisonous in these parts. Coming from the Mediterranean Karen & Miles thought we’d done exceptionally well with our array of fish; however I don’t think they were too keen when we found out that the small fish Pete caught on his fly rod one night turned out to be poisonous!!! We ever found out they were poisonous until a few days after we had eaten them. They were rather tasty though & the fact that nobody got sick was a bonus…….
We’ve finally seen the “green flash” We had just watched “Pirates of The Caribbean” DVD a few nights previously & were expecting the whole sky to light up with the “green flash”, but in actual fact it is a green glow that surrounds the last part of the sun as it sinks below the horizon at sunset. We had been thinking it was all a myth as we have been waiting to see it for the past 2 month since arriving in the Caribbean, however we’ve discovered it can only be seen when the horizon is clear of clouds & atmospheric conditions are right.
So far all the counties we’ve visited have been English speaking. Our next port of call will be Martinique, a French country. There are several French islands in the Caribbean & as with the mainland France they have also had workers striking for the last 3 weeks. Apparently the supermarkets & petrol stations have been closed & it’s difficult to find an ATM cash machine that has any money. Consequently we’ve made sure we’ve provisioned up well on St Lucia & will be topping up the fuel tanks before we leave tomorrow.
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