April/May 2008

Log 19-April 2008

We started to move down the island chain accompanied by Gladys. We had two weeks to get to Grenada where Gary and Nell were flying out and our oldest son Nathan was to fly in the day after. We spent a few days in Bequia at Admiralty Bay which is a sailor’s port full of shops, boutiques and yacht services. The port is especially geared to charter boats, so very touristy and as well as the local charters gets a lot of Catamaran charter trade traffic from the French island of Martinique as well. Geoff and I had previously managed a couple of good hikes to the farthest northern reaches on the island and this time we convinced Halcyon Days as well as their friends Heaven Can Wait to come along on a hike over the island to the turtle s
anctuary. The sanctuary is called The Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary and is the retirement project of Brother King who takes no government help. He tells no one where he gets the eggs from and no one where he releases the mature turtles( a five year process) back in to the sea.
Turtle poaching is common here while hunting of certain varieties is legal in season. Nevertheless it is very disturbing to see them butcher these beautiful animals, which is usually done at the local dock. Brother King also has found artifacts from the prisoners who were interred by the British on the two islands of Battowia and Baliceaux after the conquest of St. Vincent before being shipped off to British Honduras and becoming known as the Garifuna.
The artifacts were found after hurricane Ivan’s surge washed over his property. This is proof that some of them did manage to brave the currents between the islands and escape probably eluding detection by living quietly on Bequia.
Leaving Admiralty Bay we came upon two smaller wooden sail boats, one with a sailor standing on the bow with the jib wrapped in one arm and the other arm waving us off. Not understanding what was going on, a whale suddenly surfaced, blowing off and diving again between the boats and the island. These two boats were hunting the whale. The island of Bequia being a historical whaling community is allowed under international law to take two whales a year.
The hunt must be traditional and involve no engines or fire arms. The harpoon must be thrown by hand. Of course this got Nellie going. I brought up the fact there were a 250 feet of depth under us and that their chance of getting the whale were negligible. We hung around for awhile till the hunting boats finally filled their sails and moved back into the Bequia channel. From Bequia we headed straight down to Tobago cays where Gary and Nell spent the rest of the day snorkelling and
swimming and just enjoying the isolated if crowded anchorage. The long Horseshoe reef protects the Cays from all the fetch that has built up rolling across the Atlantic from Africa and Europe. The constant trade wind blows steadily all winter. From the Cays we headed over to Chatham Bay on the west side of Union island where we met up with our good friends Kathleen and Roland on M’ Lady Kathleen. We had a couple of great days here with everybody hiking over the hill to Clifton on the other side for groceries and lunch and then capped it with a great beach barby with Shark Attack doing the grilling. We were joined by our friends Splendid Adventurer, a couple of transplanted Brits who run a day charter service from the Raffles Hotel on Canouan and who had just brought a 45 foot powerboat for the business all the way from the States via the Bahamas and the Virgins running it down during hurricane season. After this we checked out and headed over to Carriacou where we did barbeque at Luckies giving Gary and Nellie the taste of the Tyrell Bay lifestyle. Pulling the hook early Sunday morning we headed down to Grenada having another nice beam reach all the way till the island smothered the wind. When we pulled into the
lagoon at St.Georges we realized that from Martinique down we had had a steady beam reach all the way with constant wave height capping what was probably the best stretch of sailing we had had since coming down to the Caribbean.
We spent the next four days touring Gary and Nell around the island and then had the sad goodbyes at the airport. Nell after arriving all pale and weary from the land of central heating, was going home, looking as tanned and fit as a volleyball vamp. Booking in they managed to get an earlier than scheduled flight back to Trinidad to catch their connecting flight back to Canada, the same flight which was bringing our eldest son Nathan down for his first visit. Nathan was to arrive the next morning on the first flight from Trinidad but in true Caribbean style LIAT Airlines (leaving island any time or luggage in another terminal) shipped him all over the southern Grenadines giving him the grand tour and he arrived 18 hours late. We then repeated the whole sightseeing process again using Bootsy the taxi driver as a guide giving Nathan the tour this time hitting the old Rivers Rum
distillery and the Seven Sister waterfalls before moving around to Clarkes Court where we hung out with Encantada and Watermark and did the Friday night fish fry up at Gouave and a great little drum festival north of Grenville. The last few days were spent at Prickly bay getting ready for the trip to Venezuela. All winter we had discussed going to Venezuela with other boats and it was agreed to rendezvous in Grenada for mid may the idea being that there would be safety in numbers for the crossing. There had already been two shooting incidents this season, with one on the Trinidad to Grenada crossing and the other at Los Testigos on the way to Venezuela. By the time we got to Grenada there are 10 boats wanting to go. Five days before we were due to leave, the yacht Moon Goddess, who we knew from Trinidad had pulled into Prickly Bay and announced on the morning radio net that they had been boarded by pirates when trying to get to Grenada from Margarita Island. Of course this prompted a lot of sober reflection on everybody’s part. While crime has always been present in Venezuela the violence of it has escalated in the last few years especially against gringo yachts. Everybody who was interested in the trip agreed to meet at the Grenada Yacht club for lunch.
To be continued.....