Thursday, June 3, 2010

Stroll Down South

Well after the rush to get to Bequia, our lives seemed quite leisurely. We arose Saturday morning and Evergreen and Where II upped anchor and headed south to Mayreau, another small island in the Grenadines. Jim and Dinah looked thoroughly relaxed in the cockpit of Evergreen as we made the 6 hour, 35Nm trip. Although Jim, you could perhaps trim that Genoa a bit more.

As we were in no rush, we started chasing wind and parted ways from Evergreen before Canouan heading southwest before tacking back into Canouan, but again this sailing thing just seems unnatural – we never seem to head where we want to go. So in the end we put out the iron gennaker (the motors) and motor sailed into Saltwhistle Bay.

As we arrived, just behind Evergreen, we were met by one of the local boat boys. Given that the bay is small and rather crowded, I accepted his assistance in finding a suitable anchoring spot. This looked pretty well organised as all the boats were anchored neatly in 3 rows in the bay. We anchored in about 2m of water and immediately felt that this bay deserved more than the 1 night we could afford to spend and decided it was a good place to try and bring Al and Boofa to when they arrived.


It seemed postcard perfect with a small fishing dock and a crowd of local boats. We were offered fish and beach barbeques and tee-shirts, but declined donned the swimmers and noodles, grabbed a couple of beers and headed over to Evergreen for a "we’re here" beer.


Unfortunately, Jim was having problems with his alternators (the one on the motor and the spare he just installed, so after I had finished the beer, I went back to boat to grab my clamp meter to help him figure it out (and maybe another beer – I can’t remember). By the time I had returned, Jim had the new alternator fixed (you can ask him what was wrong – it was highly technical and I was amazed at how quickly he found it and fixed it). So we relaxed and had another beer while being entertained by one of the local boat boy’s Sam whose daughter was currently in Canada. We then retired to our boat while Evergreen had the Red Snapper they bought off another of the locals.

Next morning we got up at a respectable hour and picked up Jim and Dinah for at trip ashore. Well the beach was just as beautiful on shore as it was from the boat.


There is a resort just behind the palm trees that is not visible from the bay but resembles the Flintstone’s. A very nice beach bar, a gift shop and cosy booths all in stonework under the palms.  Unfortunately the prices were not Flintstonesque and matched the ambience.


We wandered around o the fishing dock which gave a nice view of Where II over the local boats. 


Next we walked to the windward beach with views across to Tobago Cays and took a dip to cool ourselves – obviously the toes weren’t too hot!


After lunch we hauled up the anchor and took off to Union Island giving Clifton a miss and heading into Frigate Island where we anchored just behind the island and over the starfish.


Next morning we caught a bus into Clifton, passing an ice cream parlour a tented church and a cow walking on water. Check out was easy at the airport and it was back to the boat and off to Hillsborough to check into Grenada and an overnight stop at Tyrell Bay where of course Karen wanted pizzas at the Lazy Turtle with Evergreen. An enjoyable evening despite almost being run over by a French Beneteau screaming through the anchorage at 9:00pm with no one on the bow.

Next morning we left Evergreen and headed south to Prickly Bay, having a beautiful sail to Gouyave when we lost the wind totally and motored the rest of the way. We arrived in enough time to relax and get to the Qantas Club, have a drink and await Al & Boofa’s arrival from NYC.

   

COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Janette
DATE: 7/7/2010 11:03:59 PM
Three blogs in two days - great work matt, keep them coming.

No comments:

Post a Comment