Saturday, May 29, 2010

Charlotte's 7th Birthday Party

Charlotte had her 7th Birthday party on 23rd May (a couple of days before her actual birthday). For the first time in her life, she had her party in the same country as a prior birthday! – Previous to that she had had 6 birthdays in 6 different countries!

We had the party on Hog Island

- a little island that a lot of cruisers anchor off, because it is the best hurricane hole in Grenada (but they never leave!) A Rasta, who lives there, throws a BBQ and party every Sunday and it’s very colourful with locals and cruisers alike.

On the island we invited some other children over for games and cake.

It was wonderful. Charlotte had a good time and the children were all very enthusiastic. Zinnia and Cosmo came to the party (who we had first met in Antigua back in December), with their mum Liz from Pacific Bliss. Also my sister Hilary was visiting from London so that was nice to have her there (not often Charlotte has other family members at her birthday). Mike, on Final Chapter also came over to help.

The 8 children all enjoyed party games:

Pass the parcel:

Pin the Tail on the Donkey:

Musical Statues:

Treasure Hunt:

and finishing off with Charlotte's favourite – the piñata - which was stuffed full with sweets and biscuits:

The sticks kept breaking before the piñata so the kids had to run back in the woods to find other sticks – which kept getting bigger and bigger! It was a danger zone as Charlotte wanted to hit the piñata to shreds and the other kids kept running in the get all the sweets that were flying out. It was a miracle nobody got hit (they were blindfolded)

Then the cake and all seemed to have had a good time.

To finish of the great day, Charlotte then went for a sleepover on Zinnia’s boat while we collapsed, after all the activity of a 7 year olds party.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Carriacou and Sandy Island 12-14th May

Our first point of entry to Grenada was at Carriacou. Grenada is made up of 3 islands: Grenada (being by far the largest), Carriacou and Petit Martinique, the latter 2 being at the southern end of the Grenadine islands (and no where near Martinique!)

We spent our first night anchored off the little sandbar, Sandy Island,

with a 2 mile dingy ride across to the capital, Hillsborough on the mainland to check into customs and immigration. Carriacou is a small island about 7 miles long and 2 miles wide. The cruising guide quotes: "This is an island with over a hundred rum shops and only one gasoline station". It is a relaxed, easygoing place.

Our second night, we went around to Tyrrel Bay, where most of the boats seem to hang out. It’s a very quiet and laid back one road “town”. The yacht club collects for the CCEF (Carriacou Children’s Education Fund) and, as per last year, Charlotte went through some of her books and toys to give away to the local children.

We visited Denise from London (family from Carriacou) on her boat Halleluiah which she has converted into a bar / restaurant, and had dinner. Charlotte loved helping her out, being the waitress.

Our stop in Carriacou was short as we wanted to be in Grenada by Saturday to be able to participate in the Hash House Harriers 650th anniversary run. On Friday, once school was over (after an early start), we set sail to St Georges, on the south west coast of Grenada. We had a lovely sail – the 34 mile passage took us about 4 hours. By 3pm we were anchoring outside St Georges and fairly soon after, in the dingy to Grand Anse beach.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The Grenadines - May 1st - 12th 2010

The Grenadines are part of “St Vincent and the Grenadines” and consist of many small islands south of the big island of St Vincent. On the way south from St Lucia we bypassed St Vincent, mainly due to security issues, that boats have had there. The Grenadine Islands are spread over an area about 40 miles long and 10 miles wide.

Bequia

We stopped in Bequia for about 6 days. Bequia has long been a favourite stop for yachts people (and us). Isolated enough to remain relatively unspoiled, yet lively enough to be stimulating and entertaining, it provides a blend of the old and new that many find perfect. It is an island of sailors and boats. Linked to the outside world mainly by the sea (it has a small airport for close inter-island flights) the old traditions still go on. Boats are built on the beach in the shade of the palm trees, built by eye, using only simple hand tools. The island used to be an active whaling station, and although the tradition is now dying out, Bequians still make an occasional foray during the whaling season between February and April. At this time of year, humpback whales leave their northern feeding grounds to head south to mate and bear young.

The island is about 4 square miles. We had a generally relaxing time in Bequia, after the hectic life of St Lucia!! Life consisted of schooling in the mornings (Jimmy would head ashore to do “jobs” including morning coffee ….) – and then kayaking and snorkeling later in the afternoon.

We also met up with friends on a boat that we had last seen in Trinidad. Unfortunately they had just been robbed the night before, and also had someone board their boat at 4am in Dominica! We would generally think of Bequia being a safe place but security on a boat is always an issue in the islands, and it's necessary to take precautions.

Canouan

On Friday we had a lovely sail south to Canouan – a little over 16 miles - about 3 hours with perfect wind direction. We overtook a few boats on the way there, and soon had them out of sight - almost! - Always a good feeling!! The island is about 4 square miles.

Canouan has a lovely big, relatively shallow bay, great for anchoring. However, there were very few boats in the bay. Moorings Yacht Charters used to have their base in Canouan – being a great central starting place for people wanting to cruise the Grenadines. However once American Eagle stopped flying there, it makes Canouan an extremely difficult place to get to and now the base just acts as a service centre to boats rented out of St Lucia. Ashore at the base is like a ghost town. And the hotel next door looks nice but is expensive and empty. Apparently the 5 star Raffles resort up on the hill has also closed much of its hotel due to the economic downturn. This must have a big knock on effect to the small town, where there is little other opportunity for work.

After a walk around the town, we realized why we had not stopped there for some time. We stayed just one night.

Mayreau

Saturday 8th May – Jimmy’s birthday! A short motor down to Mayreau, a one-road island. We anchored in Salt Whistle Bay – a beautiful little bay with a sweeping half moon beach and palm trees. Birthday lunch at the small hotel on the beach, with stone table coves and thatched roof.

Charlotte made friends with some other children from Sweden in the bay – they went kayaking and ski bobbing.

The following night we anchored off Windward bay in the south of Mayreau. It was our first time in this bay - we had the whole bay to ourselves and the amazing thing was all the star-fish – there must have been about 100 around the boat!


Tobago Cays

On Monday we motored the short distance over to Tobago Cays – probably the biggest attraction of the Grenadines - a group of small deserted islands protected from the sea, only by Horseshoe Reef. The water and the reef colours are a kaleidoscope of gold, brown, blue, turquoise and green. In recent years they have made it a marine park and have roped off an area for non-anchoring, and made it a turtle reserve (by protecting the sea grass that they eat). Each year we see more turtles. We had a great time snorkeling and saw about 15 turtles – both big and small – sometimes up to 6 at once. It was very special.

Click on the link below to see some videos of turtles:

On the deserted island, by the reserve, we also saw white iguanas roaming around:

This was the island that Charlotte had had her 4th birthday party on back in 2007.

A couple of nights stop in Tobago Cays and then on Wednesday 12th May we motored the 5 miles to Union Island to clear out of the Grenadines (the only island in the southern Grenadines with customs and immigration facilities (a hike to the airport)). A short stop as Union Island is not a favourite of ours – just enough time for lunch on the conch shell island

and then another short motor down to the island of Carriacou (owned by Grenada). We anchored off Sandy Island (a favourite) for the night

with a trip over to Hillsborough on the mainland to clear into Grenada at the immigration (in the police station) and customs (in the port). As usual I wore my Windies Polo shirt – I must admit I bought it for the nice palm tree logo, having no idea is was the West Indies Cricket logo! – However it seems to put the government officials in a better mood when they think I support their team!!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

St Lucia (April 3rd – May 1st)

St Lucia – about 25 miles long, 12 miles wide, 238 Sq miles, population 140,000, spectacular mountains in the south, white beaches in the north. It is another of our favourite stops. We came for 2 weeks and stayed for a month!

We arrived 2.30am Saturday, Easter Weekend and anchored in Rodney Bay, off Reduit beach. This is where a lot of the hotels are located, and in the morning we could see how busy it was with everyone on vacation.

Claire (my niece) flew in on Sunday from London. She’s a 26 year old primary school teacher and came armed with 14 days of school work for Charlotte (while I had my 2 week “break”! – well time to get on with some other jobs). Charlotte was so excited to have her cousin as her teacher – Claire brought out some school uniforms (summer, winter, gym..) from Eversley, the school she teaches at (and also the school my 3 sisters and I went to) – Charlotte was up at 6am dressed in school uniform waiting for school to start! (Unfortunately the novelty wore off).


We spent a week in the bay, including a couple of nights in the marina. Rodney Bay is a place we enjoy and also know a few locals. Charlotte became a fixture on the morning Cruisers Net with her announcements, and yet again was offered a “job” by the net controller (as in St Martin). Unfortunately there was not enough boat kids around to look at arranging a beach play date but she found plenty of kids on holiday at the hotels with Claire. We even won the Saturday competition – $EC50 lunch voucher at our favourite roti restaurant.


Then we started to head down the coast, to eventually end up at the airport in the south of the island for Claire’s departure. A couple of nights stops going down the coast, where there was great snorkeling

and Charlotte "caught" some fish:

and then 4 nights at one of our favourite anchorage “between the Pitons” – probably one of the top 10 most spectacular anchorages in the world - being on a mooring between 2 dramatic mountains.


While there we did a couple of “Class Field Trips”, first to Diamond Botanical Gardens, where we saw some spectacular flowers that Claire said cost a fortune in a florist in UK. And then to Tierelle waterfalls, that we swam in – very much appreciated in the heat of the day!

Charlotte proudly wore her new school sports uniform for this trip!

On other days, gym consisted of: swimming, kayaking, hiking, rope swinging off the back of the boat, water skiing…


Jimmy and I took advantage of a “resident babysitter” with a couple of nights out on our own – we had dinner at another favourite spot – Dasheenes, at Ladera resort, which is up in the hills between the Pitons with a spectacular view down into the anchorage.


Well, almost ready to head to the south of the island for Claire’s flight, when we heard the news of the volcanic ash from Iceland that shutdown airports in Europe for a week! After finally getting through to Virgin Atlantic, the earliest flight was a week later. Claire was told Virgin would cover a 3* hotel and food!! so being stranded in St Lucia wasn’t that hard to take. (Her mother and father were stranded in Austria skiing.) So back up to Rodney Bay to a “convenient” hotel for Claire, where Charlotte and I could easily come and visit and enjoy the pool.


Jimmy decided to take the opportunity to fly back to NY for a few days to see his sister Doris and Brother-in law Fred so we put the boat into the marina. The girls were left by themselves!! – once Tracy (on Challenger) arrived, the 4 of us had a girls night out!!


Claire met many other "stranded Brits" while at the hotel and amused us with the daily sagas. We were all sad to see Claire go, but she had to get back to see her own class, having missed the first week of term – Charlotte would have loved to have gone back with her. Not sure that Claire felt the same! And she did say that teaching one-on-one is actually tougher than teaching a class of 30, even if it’s only for 2 or 3 hours a day, as it’s a lot more intensive.

Despite our original plans of heading south after Claire was due to leave originally, we stayed a further week after Claire’s delayed departure – other cruising friends were arriving… Joe and Shawn on Libertas - heading north so again probably the last time our paths will cross on Heat Wave. A few late nights, with dinner/drinks on each others boats, seeing the early hours of the morning – all being used to the normal cruisers bedtime of about 9pm, we are still “arguing” about who is the bad influence on who.. . We introduced the southerners (Joe and Shawn) to Jerry (another Southerner) and Tracy (Brit) on Challanger and the southern drawls were flowing – even Charlotte, the waitress was asking “Y’all wanna Pina Colada?”

There was a lot going on in St Lucia about the time we left – the Jazz festival just starting (we have been regulars at this over the years) and the 20/20 world cricket. For some strange reason, they seem to hold 2 major events at the same time, resulting in a shortage of hotel rooms and plane seats (not to mention the stranded passengers from volcanic ash…) Claire didn’t seem to mind the Australian Cricket team staying in her hotel – her comment was “yummy”

By May 1st it was time to get going – it would have been easy to stay longer…

Bequia was 70 miles away – about 10-12 hour trip - we wanted to get there in daylight so, with the alarm to wake us up, we left at 3.15am to ensure extra time for any problems. As usual this season, the winds were light. We went the windward side of St Vincent in a hope of being able to sail rather than motor but still ended up putting on one motor some of the way as the winds were lighter than predicted.

We have not seen many dolphins this year but on this trip, we had one that scared the heck out of us, by jumping 15 feet out of the water, almost landing on the boat and splashing next to us – it was pretty spectacular and all over in a second.

We arrived Bequia about 2.30pm – an 11 hour trip.