Grenadines to Grenada

Our family arrived, in St. Vincent, on the afternoon of May 30, and we decided to immediately head to Bequia.  It was an easy 9 mile cruise, but provided the perfect island getaway for Matt & Beth’s short stay.  However, Anna stayed for three weeks, and joined our cruised down the Grenadines.

Bequia is a very interesting island, and if you have ever read any type of pirate story you have most likely heard of Admiralty Bay.  Due to the protected harbor, and shallow water, it was a coveted location back in the days of Blackbeard and Colonial expansion.  The shallow water provided the perfect location to careen (beach a vessel on its side in order to clean and repair the hull) ships. This quality made Admiralty Bay a valuable location to control.  

More recently, you have probably viewed some of the scenery, as many parts of the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies were filmed on Bequia. 

Click here to learn more about Bequia…

https://www.bequiatourism.com/history.htm

This was a wonderful location for Anna’s first snorkeling experience, and both Beth and Anna were right at home in the water.

Anna quickly adapted to island life, and devoured the abundant supply of mangoes.  She even agreed to eat them like the island children do, which required a dunk in the water after she finished. 

We enjoyed an island tour in a ‘safari’ like truck.

Part of our island tour included a stop at the whale museum.  Bequia has a rich history of whaling, and is currently one of only four places allowed to whale. They did kill a humpback in May, and many islanders benefited from the meat.  The islanders of Bequia use every part of the whale…nothing goes to waste!

https://iwc.int/management-and-conservation/whaling/aboriginal/bequia

We made dinner reservations for Ken’s Treehouse. This was a delightful experience! After a short taxi ride, that ended at a trail head, and a short hike into the bush, we came upon the treehouse. There are no roads, and everything you see was carried in by Ken.

The view was amazing, and dinner was delicious!  The menu is very short, and you place your order the day before your planned visit. Incredibly, we were the only ones there. I guess dinner adventures aren’t for everyone.  The only challenge we faced was following the trail, out of the bush, in the pitch dark. My only failure in planning was our lack of flashlights. Thank goodness I took my phone, primarily for the camera function, but it became our only flashlight!

Another great thing about Bequia is the ferry service.  Matt & Beth were able to catch the ferry, back to St. Vincent, on the morning of there flight, and we were able to continue south to Mustique.

Mustique is a private island for the rich and famous.  They do have mooring balls, and a beautiful beach, but we could not freely move around the island. We were able to visit the tiny town, which offers a bakery, liquor store, small grocery, and a boutique. We enjoyed a chocolate croissant and headed back to the boat. With Anna onboard, we intentionally schedule short hops from island to island. Mustique offered a nice place for an overnight stop, but we probably won’t stop here again.

We did snorkel from the boat to this beach for our afternoon exercise.  

The next day, we were off to Canouan…one of the islands seriously damaged by hurricane Beryl, last year.

Canouan is a fairly small island with a robust Main Street.

Several of the buildings, along the harbor, are brand new and seem to be finished with reclaimed materials.  They have done a wonderful job of rebuilding here! On the day we had planned to visit the town for lunch, a ferry arrived and disgorged hundreds of people. By the time we arrived there were long lines for each eatery/restaurant. We walked around town, but decided to grab lunch at the beach resort right next to the boat…that ended up being a BIG mistake! 

It was a nice place, but it wasn’t that nice!!

When the bill arrived the total was $230…not surprising, because we were in the eastern Caribbean where the EC dollar is worth .35 of a U.S. dollar, and I expected the bill to be a little higher because this was a resort not a local eatery. However, I was informed that their menu prices were in U.S. dollars😳😳😳. So two burgers, one fish taco, and three ginger ales cost $230 US dollars…unbelievable, and lesson learned! I’ve been watching menu pricing closely, and every menu since that time (and before) has been priced in EC🤷‍♀️

We stopped in Mayreau for one night, but sadly the weather was not cooperating for us to experience Tobago Cays National Park.

The waves were huge, and we were unable to visit any of the reefs.  This is on our ‘must visit’ list, when we return this winter!

Our next stop was Union Island.

This island was absolutely devastated by hurricane Beryl, and the rebuilding seems to be much slower than Canouan. Many waterfront buildings were missing the roof.

Many people are still living in tents.

We decided this was a good place to do a decluttering and donate items.  We have been living on the boat for seven years, and we have bins with ‘we might need these’ items that have never been touched. We were able to pull together 7 bags of household items (clothes, towels, sheets, rugs…etc.) and 6 bags of food.  Since we will be leaving the boat for hurricane season we needed to downsize our food stores anyway. The people of Union were very thankful!

Union Island is the southernmost island, in the Grenadines, that is part of St. Vincent. We checked out of St. Vincent here, and checked into Grenada at our next stop, Carriacou.

Carriacou also suffered tremendous damage from hurricane Beryl.  Our contribution to this island was to eat out, and hire a taxi tour of the island, which ended up being a tour of destruction…very sad! Unfortunately, I suffered a data card failure, and lost my pictures from our island tour (and many others).
 

Of course, we snorkeled in numerous locations during our cruise down the Grenadines. Instead of boring you with a million snorkeling pictures, I decided to compile a collage of our ‘first time’ finds.

Going in clockwise order from top left…a Flying Gurnard, to the right we have a smooth Trunkfish (this was not our first trunkfish, but it was certainly the friendliest.  It seemed to be attracted to my yellow and black GoPro, and followed us for a very long time! Under the trunkfish is a Goldspotted eel snake😬, and finally, in the bottom left corner is a Whitespotted Tilefish.

• 
• Anna definitely has some mermaid DNA👍👍

In addition to snorkeling Anna stayed busy with a variety of activities…

We made invisible ink, conducted experiments with sunscreen, had numerous engineering challenges, and learned a little about line handling and knot tying.

One thing I learned (much to my dismay) is that, at night, bats will fly in an open window to snack on hanging bananas…yikes😬…the claw marks really freaked me out!

Our last stop, before flying Anna home, is the big island of Grenada.

We started our Grenada adventure by snorkeling the sculpture garden, on the west side of the island.  This garden offers 70+ underwater sculptures, in a fairly large area. On the day we visited, the water clarity was compromised by the recent high wind and wave action. We all agreed that the scenes were quite eerie, in those conditions, and we abandoned our search after seeing only half of the sculptures.

Look what was anchored near us…my Baltimore friends probably recognize the USNS Comfort. We were certainly surprised to see her in Grenada.

https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/display-news/Article/4213452/usns-comfort-arrives-in-grenada-for-continuing-promise-2025/

During Anna’s last few days with us, we rented a car to explore Grenada…

Of course, waterfall discoveries were on the agenda.

Hiking in the rainforest…beautiful!

This might be more than I signed up for😬

She loved our fresh water fun!!

Goodbye our sweet girl…we will miss you😘

I escorted Anna home on June 19, and returned to the boat on the 21st.

Keith and I then traveled to Trinidad, but those details will have to wait until the next post.

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St. Vincent

 

The weather forecast was not cooperating with our plans, and it looked like conditions would deteriorate over the next 10 days, so we decided to suck it up and leave in ‘less than ideal’ conditions. On May 20, we left Martinique for St. Lucia, however, we only spent one night anchored at the southern tip. On May 21 we traveled to St. Vincent.  This is where we needed to be for the arrival of family on May 30. During our transit we experienced waves 6-8 feet, at times, but overall it was a fairly comfortable trip…now we had time to relax and enjoy the country!

Between the islands, conditions were very sporty, but behind each island it was smooth sailing (actually motoring).

St. Vincent is an active volcano that had a major eruption in 2021.We anchored, and checked into the country, in Chateaubelair. This was a wonderful village with very friendly people!

As we traveled down the coast, it was easy to see the results of the recent eruption. It looked like part of the rim was blown away, and scarring showed the remnants of an ash river.

There were also several outflow fields at the water’s edge.

Residents told us this village was buried in 5-6 ft of ash, after the eruption.

This is a very deep bay, with a narrow strip where anchoring is possible. If you plan to visit this island, in your own boat, I strongly suggest you contact Kemroy. He will paddle out to meet you, and show you exactly where to drop the hook.

Check in was easy, but a little unconventional. 

Ezekiel came out every day to ask if we had trash. He is eager to make a little money, and possibly get a treat😁

Children visited the boat daily, and usually asked for biscuits. It took me a minute to realize they were asking for cookies🤣 I was quickly running out of cookies, so I made a batch of caramels to hand out…they were a hit!

We love places where we can snorkel right from the boat.

There was some healthy coral.

Kids aren’t the only people who visit the boat! This is John…he was our go-to fruit guy. This is the first place we have been where we could easily stay for months and never get off the boat. The locals come out, on anything that floats, to sell fresh fruits, vegetables, and seafood.

Yes, we could use a lobster today😋

If you have never seen a spiney lobster close up, let this be your warning…they don’t play!

Would you like fresh coconut water?

This is Naieem, he became our official liaison for all things Chateaubelair! He explained customs and rituals, and taught us how to eat several fruits we had never seen before. He was a ‘old soul’, and really seemed to enjoy hanging out with us!

This was the place that registered as a perfect match with the visual image I have always had of what cruising the Caribbean might be like.  The scenery was beautiful, and the people were truly happy we were there. Yes, they did want money from us, and I can see how the fairly constant line of visitors might annoy some people. However, if we told them you didn’t need any x,y,z…at the moment, they were still very pleasant and always wished us a wonderful day. 

But we did buy a LOT of fruit, and it was AMAZING!! Can you name each of the fruits pictured?

One evening, we noticed a lot of activity with many small boats, packed with men, leaving the village. Later that night we heard a lot of commotion on the beach, with frequent conch horn blowing. The next day, Naieem explained to us that the village relies heavily on fish for protein, and at least once a week the men in the village go out with big purse seine nets. We also learned that the conch shell blowing was the signal to announce to the villagers that fish was available on the beach.

We absolutely loved Chateaubelair, but found we needed to move once the wind direction changed. The ocean swell wrapped around the island and created a very uncomfortable anchorage.  We moved only 3 miles south, to Cumberland, and again were enchanted with this small hamlet.

This is pretty much the whole town…beautiful, adorable, and very welcoming.

This bay is very deep, with a narrow strip of shallow water close to land. Here we dropped our anchor in 50 ft of water, and a local man took a stern line, rowed ashore, and tied us off to a palm tree.

This man came by one night trying to sell us something. We didn’t buy it, but when asked if we could give him something for a tooth ache I gave him some OTC pain pills.  He came back the next night to share a freshly roasted breadfruit (hot out of the fire) to thank us for helping him the day before. Everyone we met was fantastic.

There were still a few people who visited the boat here, but overall this was a very calm and peaceful anchorage.  We stayed as long as we could, and on May 29 headed south to the Blue Lagoon, to be as close as possible to the airport, for the arrival of Matt, Beth & Anna the next day.

My next post will highlight our time together, and Anna’s three week adventure cruising the Grenadines!