Monday 26 January 2009

Spice Island Marine, Prickly Bay, Grenada

I am cheating slightly by making one blog entry for the full week, as we spent a week on the hard at Spice Island Marine in Prickly Bay. We’d had a shackle on the anchor bridle bend in Bequia which has scraped the new antifoul off on one hull when the chain caught it, we didn’t want bare hull to be left exposed for too long and it turned out to be a very minor repair, better being safe than sorry. We also managed to upgrade our battery bank which was already struggling to hold a charge, though was never really big enough for the purpose. We now have 4 x Trojan T105 (225 Amp Hours for 2 x 6 V batteries), increasing our capacity by 25%.

We also polish the hull again and when she went back in the water she was as good as new and ready for all of the visitors we are soon expecting for the wedding.

We were also very pleased to meet Kate & Jonny Harrison of Newtsville again this week. After seeing them regularly in the planning stages in the UK, Kev hadn’t seen them since April and I since June. Therefore, ironically I run into them at the supermarket! We knew they were due in the next couple of days, but they’d arrived early and were in St. George’s when I had been sent on a shopping trip. They came round to the boatyard and we had a drink with them and their cruising friends Russel and Christine from “Christine-Anne” an Australian boat they cruised most of the way from Portugal with. It was great to catch up with them and hear all their news. They were due to be lifted on Monday and would be joining us on Invincible whilst they were off the water.

Friday 23 January 2009

St. Georges, Grenada

The last day, we all turned up on time and promptly as we went even earlier today, in fact we were the first boat to leave the marina

We started to head out to the fishing ground, which turned out to be about 10 to 15 miles North West of St Georges. Why change a winning formula.

We had a better day of it today, our team had now got to know each other better and we all got on famously, we were all keen to give it our best shot and had been talking to other anglers the previous day trying to understand our short comings.

Just before noon, Ziggy hit into a Dorado, which promptly jumped out of the water by about 6 feet and made a spectacular site, he was in the fighting chair under control and enjoying every minute. Whist Ziggy was mid way through fighting his fish, my reel exploded and line started to peel off we were into a double hook up, again another Dorado.


Kevin & Ziggy with the day's Dorado catch

Both fish were successfully landed onto the boat and at the first opportunity both Ziggy and I congratulated each other.

Shortly after noon it was Ferdinand’s reel started to scream (wonderful sound) and it became very clear right from the beginning that this was a much bigger fish. After a 20 minute battle the fish had been brought to the side and photographed then released. It was a sail fish at last and we were on the point’s scoreboard, which was a big relief to the skipper, but did nothing to improve his communication skills with his customers.


Ferdinand reeling in the Sailfish


Sailfish alongside the boat

The day ended with a meal and the prize giving ceremony at the yacht club, with Hard Play 2 taking the first prize, as it did last year, so well done guys and see if you can make it three in a row next year.


Team Yes Aye at the Awards Dinner


Hard Play II the Tournament winners

Thursday 22 January 2009

St. Georges, Grenada

The lay day was spent at the Grenada Yacht Club, were several local restaurants and hotels had a stand, which they would present there signature dish from the kitchens for the fishermen to try, what a good idea and the food was plentiful and excellent, oh yes and the local breweries had provided free beer and rum, all this starting around 12.00 in the afternoon.

Our team was doing well on the eating and drinking, at last something we can take part in!

We mixed with the other teams and crews and a very good time was had by all, the Jamaican team were the life and sole of the party, but you needed a good few beers to begin to translate what they are saying and it seemed to work, especially drinking the rum.

Wednesday 21 January 2009

St. Georges, Grenada

We all meet at the boat for 6.30 start to get underway to our fishing grounds, the skipper was very quite barely talking to anyone on arrival, he must be keen to get underway and make amends for yesterday, I know I was!

We started to head out to the fishing ground, which turned out to be about 10 to 15 miles North West of St Georges. The day was very sunny, the sky was blue and the wind was about 12 knots, so calm seas, perfect conditions! (dajavou)

We went to exactly the same fishing place as the following day, at times on the following day we could see other boats, which were much further south than we were and after a short while we were on our own no other boats in sight, listening to the VHF radio of other anglers who were hooking up, having strikes, fighting fish and ultimately releasing their catch and scouring points in the process.

The same routine again, half strikes and missed hook up’s with ‘Sail Fish’, how does he (he being the skipper) know that they are ‘Sail Fish’ must be experience.

We get a couple of ‘Sail Fish Strikes’, which turn out to be small Barracuda, which were successfully landed on the boat, we caught three small Barracuda in total for our days catch, again no points awarded for this, but maybe they should have been as these fish could imitate ‘Sail Fish’ perfectly. The highlight for the day was when we got a strike and the skipper thought one of us had missed it, were upon he would come out with no end of verbal abuse for missing, yes you guessed it, a ‘Sail Fish’, only to land a small Barracuda, I congratulated the skipper by commenting it was nice to see how enthusiastic he was.

Back to base, the next day was a lay day, were no fishing was to take part and all the crews and fishermen were to take it easy have a chat about the fishing over a few cold ones.

Tuesday 20 January 2009

St. Georges, Grenada

A 5.00 O’clock start on the boat to get up and get ready for the competition, luckily for me, we were already based in the lagoon in St Georges, which is short dingy ride to the yacht club were our boat YesAye is moored and the rest of the fishing fleet.

The start today included a parade of the boats around the caranage and then onto the start line, were at 7.00 o’clock a count down was commenced to start the event and get all the boats were under way, which was a very impressive site.


Bimini start - all boats motoring off from the start line


Bimini start

We started to head out to the fishing ground, which turned out to be about 10 to 15 miles North West of St Georges. The day was very sunny, the sky was blue and the wind was about 12 knots, so calm seas, perfect conditions!


Bimini start



All the fishing tackle was supplied by the skipper and the bait and setup was done by Alby who was the local hired mate on ‘YesAye’. After about a 30 minute journey we were putting out the lures on the back of the boat to start our trolling activites.

Throughout the day you could hear on the VHF radio how the other boats were doing as they were required by the rules to call in to the control centre any activity they had encountered.

We had a number of half strikes, which is that the bait has been taken by a fish, but not wholly committing itself, plus most of us on the were beginners to saltwater sports fishing. The skipper had briefed us on what action we should take should we get a strike on our designated rod. The instructions were vague to say the least and I resorted to talking to Ferdinand who had clearly done this before.

The day continued for us in frustration as we were getting hits on the lures but could not get hooked up with the fish.

The only real opportunity came when Ziggy’s rod and reel leapt into life screaming of line at an incredible rate, by the time we had got Ziggy to the fighting chair to tackle the fish it had already spit the hook out.

The day ended with one Wahoo caught by myself and no points for YesAye and the skipper Gary Clifford, who was very disappointed with our performance and resorted to swearing at his customers throughout the day when one of us would miss a ‘sail fish strike’. Ziggy had ideas that he was wearing the wrong hat and he would change it the following day.


Kevin's Wahoo, the only catch of the day

Monday 19 January 2009

St. Georges, Grenada

Well we have signed up for the Billfish tournament and our boat is called “YESAYE” with skipper Gary Clifford, who is one of the local boats operating out of St. Georges.

We emailed Gary with our request to join his current team of anglers and after a short wait, we had a reply and I would be the last angler. The competition is run every year with boats arriving from some of the other local islands, Trinidad, Tobago, St Lucia, St Vincent and even a team from Jamaica.

A total of 45 boats have signed up for the event, our boat was currently out at sea getting in some practice with Karin and Ferdinand from Germany, who we meet when they arrived back from there trip.

After paying our entrance fee in the Grenada Yacht Club, we were introduced to another one of our fellow anglers, who is from the UK, Liverpool and his name as he likes to be know is ‘Ziggy’, who turns out is on an extended holiday here in Grenada and like me thought it would be fun and a good idea to take part in the competition.

We were all introduced and were given brief instructions on what we should do the following morning, which was turn up early at the boat ready for departure.

Friday 16 January 2009

The Lagoon, St. George's, Grenada

Today we have more jobs to do, refilling the gas, another service available at Grenada Yacht club, a visit to the Island Water World chandlery where they did have the right fishing gear and overdue catch up on the blog. It is really hot in the lagoon with very little breeze, which I know you won’t thank me for mentioning! However, it doesn’t make you feel like doing too much so a bit of reading etc. I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon to meet a local JP as I have to get an affidavit signed to say I am single and eligible to marry to enable me to get married in Grenada. Hopefully if we have managed to get all our other wedding jobs done we may then get away for some local cruising. Although there is a Billfish Sports fishing tournament in the Grenada Yacht Club next week which Kevin is very keen to join if we can find a boat with a space, so we’ll see!

Thursday 15 January 2009

The Lagoon, St. George's, Grenada

Thursday morning I ventured out on my own for a hair cut, supermarket run and to do some laundry at the Yacht club. Candice looked after me very well in here new salon which she had just opened for herself. She is a very hard working young mother of two with big plans for the future and I am sure she will do well. We discussed and agreed my hair styling for the big day and I was very pleased with her ideas and looking forward to going back.

The local men are very flirtaeous in the Caribbean, not just with tourists but every woman passing by and it always amuses me the difference when I walk on my own compared to with Kevin. However, it is all good humoured and a mention of a husband is usually enough.

I spent a nice hour or two with my book in the shaded terrace of the Grenada yacht club whilst waiting for our slot on the self-service washing machine and doing the laundry. I also made use of their book swap, the first one I have found so far which had books I wanted to read.

We are fairly busy back at the boat too with arrangements for the wedding, coordinating travel plans and trips etc during the week which is made easier by the flaky but free WiFi provided by Island Water World. Unfortunately bad news from Lucille, The Beach House restaurant where we planned to have the wedding reception have taken an exclusive booking for 120 guests on valentine’s day and we can’t now use it for the reception. So we are having to look at Plan B options. Therefore a quiet evening in, with more Wahoo fillets with excellent local Pak Choi stir fried which is a new favourite.

Wednesday 14 January 2009

The Lagoon, St. George's, Grenada

Wednesday we had an appointment to meet Lucille our wedding planner at True Blue. We have been in email contact for months, so it was great to finally meet up and she took us through all the details over a coffee which put both of our minds at rest. She then drove us round to see the beach where the wedding will take place, the restaurant for the reception, both were absolutely perfect completely how you would dream of a beach wedding (sorry no photo's til the Big day!).

Lucille then gave us a bit of a tour of this area of the island pointing out useful supermarkets etc and taking me to meet my hairdresser for the day. I booked an appointment for the next day for a very overdue trim and then Lucille dropped us off at a shop she’d recommended for some wedding items we’d still not found. Unfortunately, we still didn’t manage to get what we wanted and ended up back at one of the first shops – in a way that men always deny doing!

Finally, wanting to get everything done in one day we returned to St. George’s by bus to see about some shoes now the rest of the outfit was sorted only to find they didn’t have the right size. We did get some books at the second-hand shop though and then had a nice cool drink at the Yacht Club.


Kevin and Lucille overlooking Grand Anse beach

Tuesday 13 January 2009

The Lagoon, St. George's, Grenada

Tuesday we ventured through the Sendel tunnel past the Carenage to where the cruise ship docks to do some shopping from the wedding – outfits for groom, best man and father of the bride. After all this time in foreign ports it was very odd to hear all the English, Scottish and Irish accents in the area with three very large cruise ships in dock. Although we found some excellent hardware stores and a good second-hand bookshop we didn’t manage to find what we were after here for the wedding clothes. We decided to try some of the shopping malls in Grand Anse where the large hotels are concentrated at the back of the beautiful 3 mile white sand beach. We took one of the excellent local minibuses for the grand total of £1.25 for both of us each way. There are so many that they pas by every few seconds, it really is an excellent form of transport and would certainly cut the congestion on UK roads and perhaps the loud reggae music would liven up early morning commutes! We were a little more successful in our shopping here, though no pictures as we don’t want to spoil the surprise for our guests on the day!

Monday 12 January 2009

The Lagoon, St. George's, Grenada

Monday morning we decided to venture by road from True Blue to see Spice Island marine boatyard which turned out to be a five minute walk…funny when we asked for directions at Horizon Yacht charters we were told 20 minutes and two buses and recommended to take a £10 taxi! We found the Budget Marine chandlery which although well stocked on some things didn’t have the fishing gear Kevin was looking for. We did however manage to book in for some work we want to do on the boat on 26th Jan.


Kevin at Grenada Yacht Club

We decided after our lazy quiet weekend to head back to St George’s which is a bit more central to allow us to complete some of the wedding preparations we need to do. We found a good anchoring spot in the Lagoon and visited the excellent Grenada Yacht club. The water is clearer on that side of the lagoon and we watched several large fish jumping out of the water in hot pursuit of the smaller fish hiding around the dingy jetty. There were several egrets roosting in the trees just off the balcony, you wouldn’t think you were on the edge of the capital of the island.


View from Grenada Yacht club balcony at night

Sunday 11 January 2009

True Blue Bay, Grenada

Sunday we decided to make use of the facilities and spent the morning doing some boat jobs / cleaning and the afternoon swimming in the pools of the hotel. A great day and obviously several more chapters of Captain Jack Aubrey’s adventures to keep me entertained.





Saturday 10 January 2009

True Blue Bay, Grenada

We decided to head south on Saturday to see the True Blue resort where we would be staying during our wedding. It was a fairly short sail round the south west point of the island through the channel to the uninhabited Glover Island and along the south coast with its deep inlets created sheltered coves, which makes Grenada so popular for sailors. We visited Prickly Bay first which is the most famous of the bays and it was chock full of anchored boats however with 25 knots winds blowing across their decks and no shelter that we could find we weren’t sure why this was so popular.

We decided to try True Blue Bay instead which was far more sheltered from the wind, through there is a fairly consistent light swell. We didn’t mind this however, for us it was a nice gentle rocking which made us both sleep very soundly that night! There are a number of mooring buoys available in the bay managed by Horizon Yacht charters who also operate the jetty there for the resort. We decided to take one of these and after a quick lunch we ventured onshore to check in and have a look round. We paid our £10 a night for the mooring ball, which gave us access to showers and two pools in the hotel and free Wifi and seemed very reasonable to us!

Next we spoke to Peter at the Aquanauts dive school there about some diving for our guests coming for the wedding. Peter was very helpful and it looks like they are very active from the boats in and out during our stay.

We then went up to the hotel and Jennifer the reservations manager showed us round, which was well worth it for her as we decided to upgrade our room to a Tower suite. This has a fantastic Tower overlooking the bay and as soon as we saw it we decided as we will only do this once we wanted to have that room. The resort is lovely, lots of brightly coloured small buildings in tropical gardens, very Caribbean and relaxed. You have guessed it… that evening we also surveyed the Dodgy Dock bar for sundowners, which passed the test well. We returned to the boat for another splendid Wahoo fillet dinner (with Kevin special five spice / piri marinade) and were joined by a black hooded Caribbean kite which must nest nearby as it flew over the headland behind us. It is a really quiet and protected bay and the lovely evening there was only improved by the sound of a great saxophone band playing later at the Dodgy dock and drifting over the water to us.

Friday 9 January 2009

Port Louis Marina, St. George's, Grenada

I can’t believe that in my last post with our excitement of catching the big Wahoo I forgot to mention the largest school of dolphins had passed by us only 30 minutes before! I was at the helm and at first saw dozens of fins close together on the surface to which my first reaction was that I had missed some sort of off lying rocks on the chart and shouted Kevin up. The next thing was that the whole pod of dolphins then left the water in unison and dive through the air. They were coming at us very quickly and showing off jumping through the air, when Kevin shouted me to give a hand to pull in the fishing lines quickly in case they took a liking to the lures. They’d passed by as quickly as they had appeared but it was a great welcome into Grenada.

We were up really early on Friday morning as we were both excited to see some more of Grenada, our arrival here was long awaited as we had read so much because of our wedding here. We decided to have a walk into St. George’s before breakfast, which turned out to be about 20 minutes walk around the bay from the marina. It is quite a bustling place, which with all the colonial architecture reminded me a little of Falmouth with its narrow winding streets. Unusually for the Caribbean the older buildings are brick built with tile roofs which were brought in as ballast on the returning spice ships taking the native nutmeg to Europe. A number of the building have been refurbished recently and are used as government buildings with cobbled courtyards surrounding using the old hand made bricks. The town is built on quite a steep hill and a tunnel is used to get through the rocky headland round which the town has expanded. The Carenage is the name of the waterfront which we explored and the water in the bay here is really clear with lots of fish and is still used by the fishing boats.


The Carenage, St. George's


The Carenage, St. George's

After a stop-off at the supermarket for supplies we were back to the boat for breakfast and somehow the morning seemed to escape us as we charged all the electrical appliances and refilled water etc now we had the luxury of marina life again. I checked us in with the marina and found out that the signed office for Customs & Immigration wasn’t actually open yet and we’d have to go to the one at Grenada Yacht Club across the bay. The nearest ATM was also on the Carenage and we’d need to go there first to get some cash for the fees. Our pilot book said that the Customs & Immigration office shut over lunch time and it was about 1pm when we finally made it there with the boat papers. We received a telling off for not reporting directly when we arrived by the youngish and humourless official, but I guess he was right so we can’t complain.


Newly refurbished Government buildings


Original fishscale tiled buildings in St. George's


Statue dedicated to the Bianca C Passgenger Liner which foundered off St. George's

We then needed to do a proper supermarket stock up with shopping bags, finding that the prices here are about half of Union Island and Bequia. After all that walking around in the sun all day by 5pm we were more than ready to take advantage of the half price Happy Hour in Victory bar. We even treated ourselves to a burger and West Indies Vegetable curry as we’d forgotten to get our Wahoo out of the freezer!


Grenadian courtesy flag now we are cleared in

Thursday 8 January 2009

Port Louis Marina, St. Georges, Grenada

We were away early into a nice gentle 15 knot breeze and very gentle swell for a great leisurely sail south through the Grenadines toward Grenada. The plentiful yachts began to thin out slightly from the hoards further north and we had a really great sail downwind past the beautiful islands of Petit St Vincent & Petit Martinique, Carriacou and Ronde Island before we entered the lee of Grenada. The smaller islands looked great and we hope to get time to head north again at some point to visit them too when we have completed our preparations.
Grenada is very green and mountainous and much bigger than the other islands visited so far creating a large lee which provides a millpond sea along the west coast, though we did need to start the motor to go closer in.



We were within sight of the lovely colonial architecture of St Georges, the capital of Grenada, complete with large cruise ship in dock when there was a sudden buzzzz of the fishing reel. After one bite that had not taken earlier in the day we had been just about to put the reels away to go inshore. However, as Kevin had predicted when the sun got a little lower and the fish came shallower again we got another bite about 4pm. At first it seemed that it had gotten off again because there didn’t seem to be much tension on the line. Kevin lifted the rod out of it’s holder and started to reel in to check when clearly his catch now realised he been hooked and started to swim off fast in the opposite direction. The line ran out at a rate of knots, about 100 meters running out within seconds as Kevin fought to apply the clutch to the reel to stop him. The reel really heated up from the friction, as well as Kevin’s thumb! Clutch applied, Kevin started to reel him in, the bend in the rod suggesting this would be our biggest catch so far. It was quite a battle to reel in, I was sure the rod would snap from the bending but sure enough soon there was a flash of silver in the water, Kevin shouted for me to get a photo, I guess in case the landing was unsuccessful. I lent out the back to catch him coming to the surface and couldn’t believe the size! I thought we’d got a marlin or something on, though a few minutes later Kevin had him on deck and alcohol was swiftly applied as he’d managed to slip his hooks. It was a 4.5ft Kingfish, same family as tuna. Kevin was thrilled as you can see from the photo.
It was all go then as we were practically in the channel for St. Georges, we dropped sails and managed to get a berth at the new Port Luis marina being built by Camper & Nicholson who have marinas in all the tops sailing spots around the world. It is only partly built yet, but nearly all the superyacht berths were full already, infact there was more of them in than normal yachts! We were soon alongside and Kevin did a very neat job on processing the fish, I was on rinse and cling film duty. We now have about 15lb of fish fillets in our tiny box freezer and the Norwegian boat next to also benefitted with a couple of very large steaks!







There is a nice bar in the complex who had a half price happy hour when we went to look round, so it seemed appropriate to participate! We went back to the boat for a lightly fried fillet with fresh garlic, ginger and soy sauce and I have to say it was the best fish I have ever eaten, which is probably just as well as we will be eating it for weeks!!!




Wednesday 7 January 2009

Clifton Harbour, Union Island

Wednesday started early with a tender over to one of the islets at Tobago Cays where we were anchored so we could walk up the small hill to see the view from the top. We took Indefatigable our tender over to the white sand beach and pulled her up before heading off up the path. Grass to my head height (no comments please on the altitude of that thanks) surrounded us as we made our way up the path, with bursts of colour provided by the local wild flowers and many butterflies. We were soon up to the edge of the summit, but the thick and rather spiky vegetation persuaded me not to go much further, Kevin managed to get to the top but said that you couldn’t really see out of the thick growth there. We therefore contented ourselves with the photo’s posted in yesterday’s blog and went back down to the beach to the picnic area there to enjoy the view before heading back to the boat for breakfast.

We both went for a snorkel to say a last goodbye to the turtles for now before we dropped the mooring to head back to Union Island. We had decided it was time to head to Grenada to finalise arrangements for the wedding and do a few boat jobs, so we needed to check out of customs / immigration for St. Vincent & The Grenadines, which I did without too much trouble despite the fact we had apparently only cleared customs and not immigration at Wallalibou on entry, not that anyone explained that at the time.

We completed a few jobs and then decided complete our last task of Union Island which was to visit Janti’s Happy Island recommended to us by Tim we met in the Cape Verdes. Six years ago, Janti an enterprising local decided he had a solution to the growing pile of conch shells left by the local fishermen. He decided to use them to build a bar on the reef at the entrance to Clifton Harbour. It started as little more that a mound on which a very informal rum bar was started and is now a full building with I understand restaurant facilities and a lobster pool! We took our tender over and did the same as everyone else entering that evening, caught the reef which shallows very rapidly just infront. However, we were soon tied up and Janti came over and showed us photos of the progress of the build over the years he had been here. He is a really nice guy and wished us well on our wedding, he too is planning to tie the knot this year, his fiancĂ© works alongside him behind the bar.







We had a couple of beers, as more and more dingies arrived over the evening. As it grew dark the candles came out and everyone moved on to rum punches. Janti was kind enough to provide ours on the house to wish us well for our big day. A really great place with a great atmosphere and one of the busiest bars we have been to in the Caribbean so far.

Tuesday 6 January 2009

Tobago Cays

We were up early to get some fresh fruit and vegetables before departing from Sheena’s stall and some fresh bread from the baker’s next to Erica’s. We made the short 6 mile hop to Tobago Cays via Palm Island just after breakfast arriving about 11am. Tobago Cays is a horse shoe reef off the east coast of the island of Mayreau which provides a great anchorage over white sand and seagrass with the reef surrounding you to break up the surf. There are four small islets within the reef all with white sand beaches. It is utterly stunning as you arrive, we took one of the substantial mooring buoys provided by the Marine Park to discourage anchoring. We saw a turtle breaking the surface just in front of us as soon as we stopped and we were both soon in the water with mask fins and snorkel to investigate. There were lots of turtles around and you didn’t have to swim far before you saw one either gazing on the grass at the bottom or coming up for a short breath of air before descending again. They didn’t seem too concerned by the many yachts and day boats in the large anchoring area and we had a great swim round watching them before returning to the boat for lunch.










There are lots of boat boys operating in Tobago Cays and we refused fresh lobster, fish, t-shirts etc, though we did buy ice. We also paid our park fees of 10$EC (£2.50) per person and 45$EC (£11) for the mooring buoy to the very helpful and friendly park rangers that visited. I asked them where we could best get to snorkel / dive the reef and he directed me to some pink buoys set up for dingies on the edge of the area. We went straight over that afternoon and spent an hour or so swimming around. The reef was great though only about 2-3m deep it was teaming with lots of fish of many different varieties. It wasn’t really worth getting the dive gear out for but we really enjoyed our snorkelling, Kevin managed to find an octopus and lobster whilst I excelled at taking pictures of fish swimming away! The deeper areas of the reef were either directly in the swell or on the entrance channel and so it wasn’t really suitable to dive from our tender.






We watched the sunset from our cockpit that evening, it’s unusual to have such an all round view at anchor, broken only by a small islets. We could see the lights on in the yachts all around us and another lovely evening onboard under the stars.











Next time I say have have my tea ready, better have it ready! who am I kidding, I do all the cooking anyway :-)

Monday 5 January 2009

Clifton Harbour, Union Island

After a bad night’s sleep we decided to head straight to Union Island and treat ourselves to a night in a marina to catch up on our rest and give my a arm a chance to recover before going to Tobago Cays. We had another pleasant sail past Mayreau and into Union Island. We docked at the Anchorage Yacht Club stern to, with our anchor holding us off forward. It is just one simple floating jetty with one hosepipe and two double UK style sockets for power in the little watch house at the end of the pier, so not exactly plush, but we could walk ashore and we did as soon as we were moored up. The dock belongs to a small hotel which has a lobster and conch pool for diners at the edge of the bar and a shark pool between the path and the restaurant presumably for non-payers. It had a number of fair sized nurse sharks in, though it was pretty shallow and presumably quite hot for them as they were trying to hide in the large concrete inlet pipe. We had a cool beer / G&T to celebrate our arrival to a new island then went back to the boat to clean up before a wander round Clifton.

Clifton is fairly small but full of colour and character with brightly coloured vegetable stalls round the central grass square. Everyone is very friendly but not over pushy and we had a pleasant browse round the shops. We visited Erica’s a really good yacht facility with internet stations, book swap, cycle hire, dvd hire, charts, property and souvenir sales infact just about anything you can think of. We decided to hire an old war film for the evening and headed back to the YC for a sundowner cocktail (Pina Colada and Margarita respectively) before retiring to the boat for fresh tuna steaks and the rare treat of shore power and a film.









Sunday 4 January 2009

Charlestown Bay, Canouan

We were up early today ready to be back under sail again, whilst we were having our breakfast in the cockpit of the boat we watch an Osprey dive into the water and take a fish just behind us. There are apparently a number of them on the island. We are also treated to daily fishing displays by cormorants too, the local waters are teaming with fish.

We had a great sail down to Canouan where we had decided to stop off rather than Mayreau as we needed to get some cash and there are no banks on Mayreau. We had a steady 5-6 knots under one reef and a reefed jib to keep us at a nice speed for fishing, the rods going in the water as soon as we had the boat on the right bearing. I thought that was some mistake on the setting up of the rods because literally seconds after Kevin had put the rod over the side the now familiar buzzzzz of the line running out started however the quick dash across the boat from Kevin and the bend in the rod, I soon twigged we had a bite. Kevin worked on reeling it in whereas I did my jobs of fetching the camera, the medical alcohol, gaff hook and bucket and watching the helm. Kevin soon had another tuna in the bucket, slightly bigger than our last, which was dinner today and tomorrow sorted again! We could see Mayreau, Tobago Cays and Union Island in the distance as we rounded the headland into Canouan. At that point we heard the buzzzzz again and Kevin started to pull in our second catch of a large barracuda, however after photos we decided to let him go, being a little bony for our taste, especially with fresh tuna already available.

The usual super yachts were moored just in the lee of the coast and we proceeded in through the gap in the reef to the inner anchorage. We picked a good spot and laid our anchor with plenty of chain because there was a big swell running and breaking on the shore. The dingy dock was right in the middle of where it was breaking and we decided to let Kevin drop me off there to get to the bank and get in some fresh supplies rather than leave ours lurching again the dock in the swell. I jumped off the dingy quickly up the ladder which is at the shore end of the jetty. Kevin kept going and just managed to turn the dingy into the next wave before he was swept on the beach.

I wondered down the road past the posh new Moorings Yachting base and then into the local’s area a football ground with corrugated iron fencing and down the main street with baby goats and chicken wandering around. I found the bank straight away (there is only one main street) and went into the little kiosk, put in my PIN, pressed Enter as directed on screen, it didn’t do anything then eventually asked me if I need more time? After about 4 attempts and worried about having my card swallowed on a Sunday I decided to go to the supermarket (well minimarket in UK terms) and see if I could pay by visa there. No, luck there either, so I decided one last try at the ATM, on this attempt I finally saw the sign that told you to press the Clear button after entering your PIN! Ah well, back to the supermarket though I didn’t go mad as the prices were not exactly cheap (3 tomatoes = £1.25, all wine £11+ per bottle etc).

Canouan definitely had an undeveloped feel to it, Charlestown has a few restaurants but they are more like modified houses and definitely has a locals feel to the place. However, this is only part of the story because the entire northern half of the island has been sold to developers and now houses a Raffles resort and Donald Trump golf course. The entrance is apparently gated and open only to residents, closing off half the island. I gather it has brought some prosperity to Charlestown as the local houses are a good size, but the ongoing income clearly doesn’t extend far beyond the walls.

Back to the dock, I called Kevin on the handheld VHF to pick me up, I could see the swell was even worse now splash up through the dock and the ladders were clearly no longer an option. Kevin told me he’d pick me up at the end and I’d need to be quick. He swooped round and I eased myself to the edge and then dropped in as he came below. However, somehow I managed to leave my right arm behind me, trying to slow my descent, ending up with my weight resting on my underarm before I dropped into the tender. Ouch! I told Kevin to keep going as I grabbed my arm and we got back on Invincible. It turned out to be just badly bruised though swelled up like a golf ball. Kevin got me some ice in a towel to get the swelling down and I spent the afternoon with my feet up reading Patrick O’Brien. Writing this now three days later I am nearly back to normal though have a quite impressive bruise, which I am hoping will be gone before our wedding day in only 6 weeks time!

Our impression of Canouan didn’t really improve overnight as the wind howls down the hillside permanently into the anchorage providing about 25 knots all night when it’s only about 15 knots outside. This is barely mentioned in our pilot book, which we have detected is concerned more with not upsetting the advertisers than informing yachtsmen. Anyway, we still had a lovely evening with our fresh tuna fillets and we were joined by a number of other yachts.