St Lucia and Dominica

 From St. Vincent we headed to St. Lucia.  Our planned itinerary called for us to spend, at least, a week in both St. Lucia and Dominica since we didn’t have a chance to visit these islands on our way down the chain, last spring. In between the two islands, we did spend a few days in Martinique, mainly for provisioning purposes, as we toured this island previously. However, we were very happy to fill our fridge with French cheeses while there👍 

As for our time in St. Lucia and Dominica, we were very impressed with the number of things to see and do.  These two islands were a lot of fun, and offered several activities that we found amazing!

As we traveled along the coast of St. Lucia, we cruised right past the Pitons, which are actually the magma plugs from a long extinct volcano. The actual volcano eroded away about 300,000 years ago😳

We anchored in Rodney Bay, and checked in immediately as we heard stories of some people getting large fines for delaying check in, due to weather. The process is very different for each island so we use several resources to make sure we are following the rules. If you are visiting these islands in your own boat, I strongly suggest you embrace the use of SailClear, NoForeignLand, and FaceBook cruiser groups for each island.

As soon as we got anchored, Gregory visited us in his floating fruit and veggie stand. I LOVE this part of the Caribbean experience!

I did purchase the most massive avocado I’ve ever seen.

It took some creative recipe and preservation methods to make sure none went to waste.

Our first St. Lucia adventure was a visit to Pigeon Island, and a short hike to the top of Fort Rodney, built in 1778.

The fort offered beautiful views.

On each island we rent a car for one day, and explore as much of the island as possible.

We started out heading south to get a different view of the Pitons.

I thoroughly enjoyed driving on this island! The roads are narrow and winding, but (for the most part) the roads were in very good condition compared to other Caribbean nations. Usually Keith likes to drive, and I don’t mind sitting back and being chauffeured, but on this island they required a medical release for all drivers over the age of 70😳…but not to worry…there was a clinic right next to the car rental office, for one to pop over for a quick physical.  Sounded like the biggest scam yet, so we said “no thanks” and changed the driver on the rental agreement.🤷‍♀️

Our primary destination, for the day, was the mud baths at Sulfur Springs.  The Soufrièr Volcano last erupted in the 1700’s, but is considered to be a dormant volcano.  However, there is still a lot of geothermal activity.

Boiling mud is very visible in the abandoned sulfur mine area. The site was mined from 1836-1840. This mud is a mixture of sulfur, iron, copper, iron oxide, alkaline lead, calcium oxide, and carbon.

This mud flows down the mountain, and is cooled by mixing with fresh spring water (also flowing down the mountain).

Manmade pools then capture the water to offer visitors a 103-113° mineral bath.

It is said that one feels 10 years younger after soaking in the baths. I’m not sure if that is true, but I will confirm that it takes, at least, three good showers to get the sulfur mud smell off your skin🤣

On our drive back, we stopped at a roadside food stand for lunch. This wonderful lady talked us both into trying the salt fish salad as one of our sides. Salt fish is a VERY popular ingredient in many Caribbean dishes, but to this point in time we have managed to pass.  This salad was made with cooked green banana so we were hoping the banana would balance the fishiness…no such luck!  A few stray cats enjoyed our portions of salt fish salad🤣. However, the rest of our meals were delicious!

Sadly, it was time to leave St. Lucia and a weather window allowed for an easy hop to Martinique.  We stayed in Martinique for a few days, and noticed a very busy waterfront, as they were setting up for Carnival. We considered staying in Martinique for Carnival, but in the end, decided to head to Dominica to experience Carnival there, since we felt the ability to understand the language would make the experience better. So…off to Dominica…

If you plan to visit Dominica on your own boat, be aware that anchoring on most of the west side is not a great option. The water is very deep right up to the shore.

Here we are on a mooring ball in 130 feet of water😳

This island offered so much to see and do that our adventure list was so long it was hard to know where to begin.  We arrived a few days before Carnival began so we decided to explore the coast by dinghy and do a little snorkeling.  Our first destination was a few miles south at Champagne Beach. This was an absolutely incredible snorkeling experience!

In addition to the usual fish species, this site provides a submersion into warm geothermal bubbles being released from vents on the sea floor.  The bubbles tickle your skin as they rush past to reach the surface.

When you dive down to get closer to the vents you can hear a boiling sound under the crust. A strange but exhilarating experience!

Luckily, our mooring was very close to the heart of Roseau, which made visiting the town exceptionally easy.

I am going to share a word of warning for anyone visiting on your own boat.  

All boaters normally watch out for each other, and jump in to help whenever needed, and so when we saw these boats in trouble we wanted to help. Due to the congestion caused by Carnival, there were several mooring balls with multiple boats rafted up together. These three had been slamming into each other for much of the morning, and eventually the bow line broke between the white and blue boats. This left them tied at the stern, and caused their engines to slam together with every passing wave. I started on the VHF radio attempting to locate an owner. I eventually spoke with ‘a local’ who told me he would be out in 5 minutes to check on the boats.

This happened to be the first day of Carnival, and Keith and I were getting ready to join the festivities.  As we were heading out, at least 30 minutes later, we noticed no one had ever addressed the issue. We decided it would be best if we attempted to remedy the problem.  It took a little work, but we were able to get the errant boat turned around, and I had to climb onto the boat to re-tie them together. After about 15 minutes of work we were satisfied that we had done the best we could to minimize additional damage, given that no additional lines or fenders were in sight.

We continued to town and enjoyed the Carnival festivities. The next morning Marcus (the man we were renting our mooring ball from) stopped by our boat to check on us. I attempted to tell him about the boat situation and he kept cutting me off. Finally, he said, “ don’t talk about those boats, don’t look at those boats, and don’t touch those boats, they are all drug boats that came from Martinique to sell drugs at Carnival and no one here cares how damaged they get or even if they sink. We don’t want those boats here!” 😳😳😳  Two days later the owners returned to their boats to leave the area. They did notice damage on the sides of the boats from them slamming into each other, but I don’t think they noticed the engine damage or the fact that the bow line was broken and retired. They yelled at each other for a few minutes over who was to blame, then they all untied and left.  I was sitting on the back deck reading, and never looked up from my book😬

Anyway…Carnival was pretty cool…

There were sooo many people, and thousands of very elaborate costumes.

Everything was pretty much shut down for the three main days of Carnival.  Once the festivities ended we were able to rent a car for our island tour, and this time our itinerary was packed!

Our first destination was Scott’s head, at the southernmost tip of the island. We decided to leave our car on the ‘solid ground’ part of the island, and walk across the peninsula and up the hill to the fort.

Me met a very friendly group taking a rest from their maintenance tasks.

The view did not disappoint.

Back on the road…

There is an elaborate network of wooden water pipes that carry water down the mountain.

Next stop, to see the twin Trafalgar Falls. Our normal M.O. would have us scurrying across the rocks to play in the pools at the base of those falls, but today we don’t have time. We have a reservation for an afternoon of repelling into river gorges, and need to keep moving. I will confess that repelling is outside of my comfort zone, but I was willing to be scared to death for the experience.

We stopped at a few overlook sites for spectacular views.

Unfortunately, we made it to the site of our reservation only to be told that the company had to cancel…ugh!  I was determined to swim in a gorge so we continued to the site of Titou Gorge. When we arrived we were told that we could swim up the gorge ourselves, but most people went with a guide. We declined the guide, and started upstream ourselves after renting the mandatory life jacket.

Our pictures did not capture the slender of this site, but I will say it is one of the most incredible experiences I have ever had!

This is the entrance.

We swam against the current, in a river that flowed through a gorge with very high rock walls.

At the end was a waterfall that you had to climb a shelf of rocks to reach.

The pressure of the falls made it very challenging to stay in place long enough for a picture🤣

For some strange reason, Keith and I were totally alone in this gorge during our entire experience, which definitely contributed to the majestic experience. However, as we exited the gorge, lines of people were getting on black inner tubes so the guides could pull them through the gorge😳. At least 50 people entered the gorge as we were leaving…we were so lucky!  What an amazing day…we definitely got our money’s worth from that rental car.

Soon, we will be leaving Dominica to head for Guadeloupe. We leave our mooring in Roseau and head to Portsmouth, in the northern part of the island, to be in a better staging area when it is time to leave. We also have one last adventure planned before saying goodbye to Dominica.

We hire Elvis to take us on the Indian River tour. Normally, we love to explore this type of mangrove rivers in our own dinghy, but this river has special rules protecting it from engine damage.  The island has embraced this river as an essential part of there ‘ecotourism’ industry and requires visitors to be accompanied by a guide who must row clients through the system.

Again, several scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean were filmed in this river. The trees and wildlife were stunning! This is a ‘must see’ if you visit Dominica!

Goodbye Dominica…we will certainly miss you!

2026 Off To A Great Start

 It has been a long time since my last post, and in that time we have done quite a bit of exploring without covering very many miles.  In preparation for our granddaughter’s annual visit we had to decide where we would meet them, and which places we wanted to visit during their three week stay. This happens to be one of the most stressful situations for me…the planner, weather specialist, and navigator.  Realistically, I would like to purchase airline tickets 6 weeks in advance. However, six weeks is too far away to accurately pinpoint where we might be, at that time. 

 Could we make it to the Virgin Islands?  Do we want to rush through so many islands to make that deadline? What if weather doesn’t cooperate, and we get pinned down for a few weeks? Ugh…in the end, I decided that the best meeting location would be St. Vincent, which would avail us to wonderful exploration opportunities in the Grenadine Islands.  However, this meant that we had six weeks to travel 150 miles, which isn’t very much ground to cover for that amount of time. There are numerous islands in the area, but most were islands we planned to return to once the girls arrived.

In the end, things worked out perfectly, and we had the flexibility to take our time and enjoy our surroundings. We also were able to complete quite a few boat projects during our down time.

The green lines show my and Keith’s path in December, and the blue lines show our travels with the girls in January.

From Tobago, Keith and I traveled to Grenada. During our last visit to Grenada we had trouble finding a protected anchorage that wasn’t rolly from ocean swell.  This time we decided to spend the first few days in a Marina, to hide from strong winds and make provisioning easier. 

Grenada did not disappoint with the amazing fruit selection at the roadside stand.

On the day we were scheduled to leave the marina we ran into a slight issue. We originally requested three nights, which the marina approved and said we couldn’t stay longer, because they were totally booked with ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) boats just completing an Atlantic crossing. This was fine with us since we aren’t really marina people, but we wanted to see some of the ARC boats arrive. However, as we prepared to leave we noticed they had tied a trimaran directly in front of us…so, I was off to find a marina dock hand. 

He accompanied me to the boat slip, and proceeded to tell me that he thought we could squeeze out😳. There were boats on both sides of us, tightly sandwiching us in place. We both told him that was not an option, and we would not start our engines until the boat was moved. This turned into quite a pissing match (sorry for that visual, but that is the best way to describe it). I walked to the manager’s office, explained the situation, and showed her the pictures. She said she would deal with it right away. This time 4 men showed up at our slip and said they would place dinghies and their bodies between the boats, but they were not going to move the trimaran. Our answer…NOPE! Move the boat or our engines don’t start.  The ridiculous part was that all they needed to do was pull it back 7 or 8 feet (there was nothing behind it) and we would be able to get out safely.  Finally, when they realized we weren’t budging, they said they would need to find the owns to get permission…so again we waited. After several waisted hours, they pulled the boat back a few feet, and we left🤯…people can be exhausting!

We spent the rest of our time, in Grenada, on a mooring ball in Grand Anse Bay and thoroughly enjoyed the sunsets!

Next, we were off to Carriacou, where we would check out of Grenada. 

No luck fishing…our only catch was this large barracuda.  Even though we have heard that barracuda are delicious, we have been very concerned about ciguatera poisoning.  I have read (and been told) that ciguatera is not a problem south of Puerto Rico we were not willing to take the chance, so this guy went back into the water.

We spent a few days relaxing at Carriacou. It’s a nice stop.

This little cutie was super excited to show me her shells😘

Then it was off to Bequia…

We actually spent close to three weeks in Bequia, waiting for the girls to arrive on Jan. 6

We stocked our freezer with lobster, and I spent a lot of time cooking to fill the freezer with premade meals.  The girls like to spend so much time in the water it feels like the afternoons are rushed and exhausting…so this year I am trying a new strategy - heat & eat👍

We also has a lot of time to explore the islands and beaches around Bequia, and of course, a lot of snorkeling was involved.

Bequia is a wonderful place to relax and enjoy people watching. There is always a lot happening in the harbor!

Bequia harbor contains the most diverse group of cruising nationalities I have ever seen. I was intrigued by the variety of flags, and it occurred to me this would make a great homeschool geography assignment when the girls arrived.  Each day they selected one flag to research. They drew the flag in their journal, had to be able to show me the country on a map and verbally describe its location, and give two interesting facts about the country👍

We attended a beach bbq to sample local dishes, and I must say, this Goat Water (that’s the real name) was a hit. It was a very flavorful soup with goat (ALWAYS watch for bones), veggies, and small dumplings.

Finally, it was time to get in position, at St. Vincent, to pick up the girls. We experienced very rough conditions (at Blue Lagoon) last June, when we were there to pick up Matt, Beth and Anna so we decided to look for a different place to anchor.  We hit the jackpot with a mooring ball at Young Island!

From this view, Young Island is on the right and we are standing on Duvernette Island. Home of Fort Duvernette. The other wonderful thing about this spot was our ability to enjoy marvelous snorkeling right off the boat!

If you look closely you can see where the 250 step are cut into the side, which lead to the fort at the top.

The fort did provide a beautiful view.

Everyone was excited when it was time for our first snorkel👍

This isn’t the best picture, because Keith was trying a new underwater filter (which turns everything red in shallow water). Nothing was actually red, but this little trigger fish thought he owned this mooring ball, and was actually biting us. The girls named him Little Killer🤣

Since Nicole was only staying for a week, we decided to remain in St. Vincent during that time. I was excited to share my favorite part of the Caribbean with them, which happens to be the little villages and hamlets along the west coast of St. Vincent.  First stop, Chateaubelair♥️. 

We were so excited to see Nieem again, and he did an excellent job of collecting fresh coconuts so we could stock up on coconut water, and have plenty of meat to make fresh coconut milk.

Fresh fish delivered to the boat.

This time, we hired John (our ‘go-to’ fruit man) to guide us to a local waterfall.

Love the people we meet!

…and snorkeling right off the boat!

After a few days in Chateaubelair, it was time to visit Cumberland.

Cumberland is smaller, but also better protected from swell.  Here, boats have to drop anchor in fairly deep (50’) water and run a stern line to a tree so the boats don’t swing on anchor.

When Nicole originally asked the restaurant I would most recommend for authentic Caribbean cuisine I knew visiting Christine at Mojito’s was a must!!

Throughout the entire three weeks the girls were with us, snorkeling was phenomenal! We saw a total of four octopi in those three weeks…in addition to almost everything, except sharks. We did not see one shark in three solid weeks of snorkeling🤷‍♀️

After Nicole flew home, it was time to explore the Grenadines with Lucy and Maggie. Since we were island hopping we stopped at some islands on the way down and the way back…so this part isn’t necessarily chronological, I am grouping photos with the place, not the time.

Canouan was 90% destroyed by hurricane Beryl in July 2024.  They have made amazing progress in rebuilding. Apparently, in large part thanks to Ian Wace, a wealthy homeowner on the island who donated $25 million U.S. dollars to the rebuild efforts.  A woman working in one of the new shops told us that he was the owner of a large portion of the island, in addition to two resorts. However, my Google search went down a strange rabbit hole that left me confused about who he was, and what his intentions were.

Either way, everyone agreed that he did amazing things for Canouan, Union, and Mayreau islands. He paid for a shipment of heavy equipment and building materials to be brought to Canouan.  

They used the empty containers to build harbor front businesses, and you will notice that they reclaimed everything they could to reuse in the new construction. From the corrugated metal from old roofs to the reclaimed telephone poles holding up the roof overhangs, the new construction does an excellent job of honoring the old, and making it an important part of the new look and feel.

The souvenir shop is decorated with before and after pictures, as well as satellite images. This one shows how many roofs were replaced with funding from Ian Wace.  Every dot represents a replaced roof…the colors do not have a meaning. When I asked she said they only had one pack of dots and had to use all of the colors🤣

The next island on the tour was Mayreau. I was very excited about this one, because we had never been. We had cruised past it a few times, but never stopped. I really wanted to take Anna there last June, but the wind was too strong making it dangerous and uncomfortable. This time I carefully planned our arrival to be at the beginning of the nicest three days the girls were with us.

This is what make Mayreau so amazing…look at the reefs!  The whole area is part of a National Park, and some portions are designated as turtle sanctuaries.  The opportunity to swim with turtles is the main reason I wanted to bring the girls to this spot.

There was some protection behind Petit Bateau so we joined the crowd.

The turtles did NOT disappoint!  I love it when a plan comes together!

The girls LOVED swimming with the turtles!

To my surprise, many boats were anchored right behind the reef. It was a little too rough out there for us.

We did attend the beach bbq, which apparently brings a lot of people to the island. Boat boys must get some commission for bringing people to the dinner, because several boats stopped to try to get our commitment.

Once the girls got their fill of the turtles, it was time for us to return to Bequia. We had briefly stopped on our way south, but would stay a little longer this time.

The girls enjoyed the ‘safari’ style taxi that we took to the whale museum.

Bequia is still one of only four places in the world where whaling is aloud. The island can take up to four whales per year, but can only use old traditional methods.  We did see a whale rib bone while snorkeling at a small island near Bequia.

It really didn’t matter if we spent 3-4 hours snorkeling…it was never enough water time for our two mermaids!

Moonhole is another interesting thing we discovered while exploring the island. Apparently in the 1960s an American couple built a home under this stone arch. The design was such a hit that they built some other structures for other people. The original house was destroyed by a rock collapse, but the other structures are apparently still for rent as an ecotour type vacation. 

Click the link below to learn more

https://www.moonholecompany.com/mission-and-history

Sadly, three weeks went by way too quickly!  We returned to our mooring ball at Young Island, in preparation for our flight to Charleston.

As luck would have it…we flew out two days after the snowstorm…needless to say we were in airport hell for a very long time. Delayed and cancelled flights caused us to divert to Jacksonville instead of Charleston, and poor Nicole drove down to meet our flight at 1:30 a.m. and then she drove us back to Charleston…ugh! However, on a bright note…I did not get any airplane diseases on this trip, yippeee!

So sad

While I was away, escorting the girls home, Keith stayed with the boat. One day he decided to clean the bottom, and when he was in the water he saw two flying gurnards under the boat. Wow!