Saturday, June 30, 2007


Sea Cycle Log #11

March –June 2007 N10.40-W61.37 to N14.27-W60.52

Well finding ourselves at loose ends after Nellie and Gary left at the end of Feb. we hooked up with Neriea again and just hung out around Union for a week waiting for a weather window to start heading north. Our plan for the rest of the season was to sail as far north as Martinique. There we would work on a couple of boat projects in the calm of the lagoon at Le Marin, while waiting for our friends Karen and Cheryl on Interlude IX who were flying into move the boat from Martinique to Tyrell Bay to haul it out for a year to dry. Yes fiberglass boats do need the occasional dry out on the wagon phase too. Finally on March 5th we got our window and pulled out of Chatham Bay at 7am arriving off Admiralty Bay at 1pm. It was very slow going from Chatham beating up to the top of Canouan where we could ease off, go to a close reach, then to a beam riding long ten foot seas with 18 to 22 knots from 90 degrees, east. Only got wet once from the seas but two squalls gave us good dusting washing the salt off both us and the boat. Beating up into Admiralty Bay, Bequia wasn’t a treat with a gusty 20 knots, but by 2pm the hook was down in our usual spot off Tony Gibbons Beach. This beach is definitely one of the nicest in the Grenadines with beautiful sand, fringed with Royal Palms. The only knock with these sandy beaches is that they are that way because of swells. Swells are not a good thing at anchor. They operate independent of the wind, rolling around the top and bottom ends of the islands and working their way into anchorages along the leeward side of an island. As a rule your bow points into the wind which here is the normal trade wind from the east backing or veering north and south. This unfortunately is at 90 degrees to the swell which causes your vessel to lie sideways to the waves. Then the boat starts to roll which is uncomfortable and if the swell is big enough can be a shelf emptier. What we have learned to do, is lay a stern anchor off and pull Sea Cycle’s stern into the wave. This causes the boat to hobby which is fairly comfortable. We keep our Danforth anchor permanently attached to the stern just for this purpose. Bequia has a reputation as a sailor’s haven and is the hub for sailing in the Grenadines which is recognized as one of the best sailing grounds in the world. Every year it gets a little more crowded during the winter as the fabled Christmas winds build, bringing sailors from all over the world to sail brisk winds in the lee of this string of small islands. These winds, part of the trade wind pattern, arrive around the holiday and are a product of the North American winter weather system which in turn plays a role in forming the Atlantic ridge known as the Bermudian-Azores high. The pressure differential between the high and what is known as the Columbian low(yeah I know what you are thinking) off the north coast of south America is what causes the winds as they slide down the gradient slope. The best description of Bequia I can offer is that it is what I would call Niagara on the Lake for cruisers, lots of restaurants, bars and groceries. Fruit and vegetables are plentiful at what’s known as the Rasta Market. You don’t need a map to find it you just let your nostrils do the walking till you smell the thick concentration of Ganja. Prepare to have your wife propositioned. Many tourist craft shops and boutiques are here catering to the tall ship cruise ships. You know the type with the stack hidden in the mast, nothing like a boat that moves under full sail with no wind. Well after a week of wallet emptying we figured we would make the big move (12 miles) up to Saint Vincent. Most boats skip St. Vincent because of poor anchorages and past acts of crime against cruisers but recently cruise ships have started to make day stops in Kingstown mostly because a great deal of Pirates of the Caribbean was shot here up the west coast at Walliabou which plays the port in the movie.
A fair amount of the set remains but is falling apart and over the last couple of years we have met a number of cruisers who were extras in the movie. Also in St. Vincent you will find a large number of charter boats operating out of the base at Blue Lagoon but you rarely see any of these boats doing St. Vincent unless passaging north to St. Lucia. In any case, besides Young’s Cut (where you have to take a mooring ball because of swift currents) there just a lack a lot of good anchorages that are not affected by swell, plus the fact as a tourist destination it just can’t compete with the Grenadines or St. Lucia to the north. This lack of development makes it the kind of unspoiled place which is fairly unchanged and you can get more of a feel of what the Caribbean was like thirty or forty years ago before the tourist evolution.
Kingstown the main town is very old, noisy and boisterous, but a fair size place with an interesting history. St. Vincent along with Dominica was the last of the Caribbean Island chain lands to fall under colonization. To give you and idea of how brutal the revolt was, the fort of Kingstown has its cannons pointing inland. Over 5000 black-caribs, descendants of a slave ship wreck in 1675 and inter marriage with the caribs, were exiled by the British after decades of bloody warfare, first to the island of Battowia a few miles off, but surrounded by enough strong current to make escape impossible and with conditions that made the Frances’s Devil island look like a holiday camp, then finally to Belize and Honduras where today they are known as the Garifuna and have their own vibrant culture. Dominica to the north has a similar history. St. Vincent’s calling card is the mountain at the north end,
the Soufriere Volcano. Roughly 3000 feet it literally is the northern end of the island and has let go a couple of times in the last century. There aren’t any roads that round the island at the northern end and as you sail by you can see a few houses clinging precariously to the lush leeward slope, not exactly prime real estate. I climbed this volcano on the windward side in 2001 with Dan Edwards and we had a good look down into the crater. It is very well defined with a small cap in the center of the crater which is covered in a light moss, very Jurassic appearing. You hike up from the windward side, the leeward side kind of being a no go zone, as the marijuana smoke basket of the island with some robberies and rapes happening to the unaware. The bus drivers (jitneys, small minivans) are absolutely the craziest I have experienced and that’s saying something. This is the only place I have ever come close to getting out of a bus for fear. I rode down with
Dan of Nereia one day from Walliabou to Kingstown and white knuckled doesn’t describe it. There are only two main roads, one to Windward and one to Leeward and both are a series of switchbacks built into cliff sides. Any young girls aboard and it is a given the drivers need to go faster to impress. Kingstown has some shopping with a fairly new market as a center piece built with Canadian tax dollars. Nobody uses it. All the vendors congregate around the outside and line the sidewalks running to the bus stops. Got a great head shave here for 2.50 which the barber topped off with something called Globe Shine. In the town center there are lots of sidewalk food vendors including one guy with an old coffee truck which for old time’s sake I zeroed into like a homing pigeon.
Housing here goes from hillside shacks to a few luxurious villas which are all on the southern end. One good hurricane and I think most people would be homeless.

Getting off the north end and vice versa sailing to St. Lucia or from has to be approached carefully. This is one of the nastier crossings especially the northern route. The wind and waves have to funnel between Mount Soufriere in St. Vincent and the Pitons on St. Lucia. This can cause a lot of short steep waves with gusty conditions and the first few miles north of St. Vincent are always rough. We waited on this trip for near calm conditions before going and were rewarded with a great sail up to St. Lucia. We left Walliabou at 6:00am getting help from a boat boy to untie my shore line while he smoked a huge spliff and made it all the way to Rodney Bay at the north end of St. Lucia. We just yellow flagged St. Lucia intending to visit longer on the way down, plus the fact that the World Cricket rounds were on island during this period. However, we did run into some friends though, Splendid Adventurer and Encantada. Phil and Nicola run a day charter into the Cays and were up for the cricket. Phil is also the man behind “Captains Phil’s Wreck-Tum Fire Hot Sauce” a well known local condiment. Margie and Sam on Encantada are from the Coral Cove mob and they filled us in on other cruising buddies including Watermark who, had to leave the boat and return home to Canada because of a sick father. Spent one night and at 8:00am the next morning we set sail listening to Jaime on Neriea and Phil exchanging friendly barbs across the harbor and then had a mixed bag for sailing to Martinique with the last hour being a full sail, rail in the water romp with both of us holding on with a big benateau 51 doing its best to pass us with no luck and who finally gave up tacking off towards Diamondhead. Finally we pulled into the lagoon and set our hook in our usual spot in the mangroves alongside Neriea.
Martinique is one of the French islands, considered territory of France and is clean and modern unlike most of the other islands which seem to suffer from poor infrastructure, lack of economic opportunity and wealth disparity all managed with a hint of political corruptness. I mean, Gee-whiz, they even have a BMW dealer who also sells Minis. There are industrial areas off a modern highway and box stores along with huge grocery stores like at home and you got to know one thing the French do right is food. We spent two weeks here changing some rigging around in the safety of the lagoon and waiting for Karen and Cheryl to fly in to St. Lucia and ferry over to Martinique. I helped Winona II (friends from Carriacou) and we moved Interlude from its mooring to the marina to make it easier for the girls to ready ship. Elaine and Ingmar took Neriea and us up earlier for a great lunch on the windward side of the island with a spectacular view of the Atlantic. La Marin is tucked up in the south west corner and close to the beach town of
St. Anne’s where you can breakfast on fresh croissants and lattes. Leaving the boats in Marin we took a bus into Fort de France
which is the biggest city in the Windwards. Here the Cruise ships pour off their passengers into a miasma of old colonial Caribbean fret porch like architecture mixed into the modern. We finished our stay off by opening the page for next visit with a rented car trip around the island
with Jaime and Dan doing a full circumference including a lunch stop over on the windward side and a visit to the Clement Rum Factory and an early afternoon stop at the
Mount Pelee observation where my fashion dictate of flip flops preventing me from climbing up unto what I am sure is a magnificent island view stretching north over the passage north to Dominica. Oh well something to plan for next season. Of course as with the joys of modernity we got caught in traffic jams on the way home. The girls from interlude finally arrived on a Sunday after arriving too late to catch the ferry from St. Lucia on Saturday. As usual the ferry (about a thirty foot fishing type) which was due in at noon arrived at three after what the girls described as lumpy and bumpy. Everybody poured off with the ticket taker telling us to wait for the officials behind the red line to check the girls and their gear in. After about ten minutes and everybody else just walking off we realized that no one was going to act as an official which is typical for the French islands so we just grabbed the gear and walked. This is another thing about the French islands nobody cares about the check in. In Guadeloupe I actually had to chase the customs guy who was never in the office and when I did corner him on a Sunday he begged off saying tomorrow. Once in Martinique I did the check in a bar and had a beer while filling out the forms. The form here is great too, one sheet, not the usual four or five copies of everything. They actually seem to appreciate your visit and the lucre you are going to drop while staying. Well our time was coming to an end and we had a weather window that would allow us to move down to St. Lucia on our way to pick up Eileen in St. Vincent for a week in the Grenadines. The boys on Neriea were waiting for a mail drop so we left them, worrying that the weather window for picking up Eileen was collapsing. The first part of the trip was pleasant but then the squalls moved in but that gave us some wind as we ran along the edges close hauled gaining some more angle on St. Lucia and allowing us to sail the whole trip. We were hoping to spend some time in St. Lucia which we have never done properly but it rained for three days straight and finally we decided to move down to the Pitons where it looked like we might get a one day window to cross back to St. Vincent. Leaving Rodney bay we had a slight emergency when lifting the anchor and we lost steerage quickly redropping the hook. Twenty minutes later the problem was found and fixed. A keyway had slipped allowing the quadrant to slide down the rudder post. We spent one night under the Pitons making the mistake of not tying the stern to a tree on shore and sure enough when the wind died we spent the night rolling in the swell It is impossible to anchor here and you take a mooring ball for your bow which you pay the park for (15-20 dollars) and then if you are close enough you try and tie off to shore swinging your bow into the swell.

Rising early we left the Pitons with Interlude
and headed south to St. Vincent. Anchoring behind the Pitons gives you no view of the east or windward horizon so until you are a couple of miles out you really have no idea of the immediate local conditions.
First trip down, we rounded the bottom of the island and were caught in a squall. This passage just turned out to be a miserable overcast morning. The wave train was short and just off the stern quarter, rising Sea Cycle’s stern and constantly yawing her nose to the wind. We sailed the trip until the lee of St. Vincent when the island smothered the winds and the iron jenny was turned on. We did have a highlight though, about halfway across my eyeballs had to overtake my imagination when I thought I saw some kind of spiked knobby shiny black object off the bow, very Jules Verne like, turned out to be a huge turtle, most likely a male Leatherback. This was a rate sighting for us and I am assuming it was a male because of its size, males being much larger that the females. It took a good look and then dived. The girls on Interlude had wanted to do Wallibou on St. Vincent but had always waited in the past hoping for a buddy boat because of local security issues. We were going to stop but a quick look at the rolling masts confirmed the swell was bad and it being early afternoon we decided to push on to Bequia. At the bottom of the island we usually get a blast on the nose as the winds veer around the bottom. This time there was just a whisper, but just enough to roll out the jib, full main and mizzen. About two miles out we got hit with the Bequia Blast and had another rail in the water run right to Admiralty Bay under protest from the crew, but I over rode hoping the photographer who hangs around the point in a dinghy would be working and I figured how often do you get a full sail rail shot, so we hung on but no joy, I guess it was his day off. It was one of his shots that caught my eye when Jeremy and Paula had Sea Cycle down in the nineties and were advertising her for sale. Our early arrival gave us more time before Eileen was due so we dropped the hook in our usual spot and did boat projects as well as visiting with the girls. Deb, Karen and Cheryl did do a trip to the Moon Hole Houses.
Built by architect Tom Johnson these dwellings form a community which was built in the late sixties early seventies and embedded in the natural boulders on the way to West Cay. Deb and the girls thought it was probably a good thing I didn’t go since the consensus was I would have found a new project to start.
Well after a week it was time to move to Young’s Cut and pick up Eileen. For the second time this winter Air Canada was late into Barbados and the connecting flight Liat was missed. This time I was prepared with a book and actually phoned Eileen on her Blackberry who yes confirmed it was Scare Canada again and that she would be in on the late flight. A short ride and we were all back in Young’s Cut swapping tales with Eileen handing over a king’s ransom of Tim Horton’s coffee. This was the start of another too short week. We slowly drifted south through the Grenadines and said another sad “Dammit too short” goodbye at the Clifton airport in Union. This saved us the beat back up to St. Vincent and was only a twenty minute flight for $40US in a small plane which Gary, Nellie and Eileen said was a highlight flying over the islands and seeing all the reefs we had picked our way through in Tobago Cays. After Eileen left we checked out and headed back over to Carriacou which is really starting to become home here for us. A couple of weeks here saying goodbyes to Neriea, Mi Lady Kathleen and a lot of fellow cruisers who were all heading to different places for Hurricane Season. We had a beautiful Sunday sail down to St. Georges and anchored in the lagoon off Island Water World. The cleanup of the lagoon here has started with removal of all derelicts and wrecks making way with the new Port St. Louis Project. You might get one more season here in the lagoon but then like Marigot in St. Lucia it will fall to the mega yachts. Small yachts will probably find it easy to anchor in the roadways outside but it can get rolly at times. Hopefully the project will provide sustainable employment for the island without being a onetime cash grab. Whatever happens something had to be done with the lagoon. Hopefully the surrounding residential development won’t turn into a ghetto for the cravat and deck shoe crowd. On our last Friday night in St.Georges we headed up to Gouyave for the Friday night fish fry. Gouyave is located on the northwest corner of the island and is the fishing capitol of Grenada with the town closing down two streets for the fish fry. Vendors have all the local delights and you kind of just go table to table buying a nibble here and there. This is a do not miss event if you are ever in Grenada. Well the following morning we lifted the hook and moved around to Clarkes Court on the south end of the island. When you round Saline point by the airport you go from a calm sail to winds and current that is whipping around the south end of the island. Heading east into it can be wet, slow and sloppy. You also have to be vigilante because of some reefs line the bay entrances including the infamous” Porpoises” a set of jagged rocks that lay just outside Prickly Bay and are covered by high tide and have caught a few unsuspecting vessels. Here we hooked up with Encantada and had a pleasant week just hanging out with one interesting trip on the bus over to Grenville for the market on a Saturday. Grenville is the island’s only windward town of any size. After goodbyes to Encantada who were staying on the hard at St. David’s for hurricane season we left at 5pm from Clarkes Court and with Audrey Page and Kyeta leaving from Prickly we all started the overnight passage to Trinidad. We motored east for forty minutes to get as much angle as possible turned the engine off and proceeded to have one of our best sails ever, very fast and smooth. Ended up taking the oil rig on the eastern side by a good two miles and didn’t experience any of the flukier currents we usually get on this trip. About three in the morning having lost contact with the other boats we saw some running lights to the north east of us and it turned out to be friends “Break and Run” (the only 45 foot Endeavour ever built) who were running down from Union island having left at noon the previous day. This is another cruising couple we have been running into off and on since the Abacos during our first season. They finally caught us just before the Bocas which we both entered at first light and headed for the customs dock having to kill a couple of hours before they opened. Checking in was a breeze, we have never had the problems with officials here some people have claimed to. This year we had decided not to go to the Marina until a couple of days before lifting for the season so we headed back to Scotland bay, settled the boat in spending a week varnishing and then another week at Chaccarre island a former leper colony and home to the Caribbean’s highest lighthouse marking the shipping channel to the last Boca separating the island from Venezuela. Finally on June 1st we moved into the marina, got Sea Cycle stripped down and ready to be stored on the hard. A couple of days just before we hauled her out Halcyon Days from Toronto, our old friends from Humber Sailing club motored in to the marina a couple of berths down from us. We had both left Toronto back in August 2005, but they had taken a more leisurely trip down with a few side trips home to deal with aging parents. We squared Sea Cycle down on the hard and on June 14th flew out around noon from Picaro airport banking over Trinidad’s northern mountain range with a beautiful look at all the currents running out of the Bocas and up into the Caribbean waters we had just spent the last eight months cruising. Finally arriving back on terra firma in Toronto around 7 pm. Shuffled through customs and immigration and out to Eileen who whisked us home to the Danforth where she was putting us up for the summer,
To be continued,

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