Union Island
We made it to Union Island in time to walk over to the capital and still be on time to check into the country. The sailing was fast and easy. We found a free mooring buoy behind Frigate Island which is a big rock in front of the village of Ashton in Union Island. The rock is connected to a reef and you can walk along the reef across a bridge to reach the shore. A very beautiful but a very long, hot and strenuous walk. We had put our dinghy on a beach by a small bar and when we got back (just in time for sunset) we had a few beers and an interesting conversation with the owner.
Mayreau
From Union Island we sailed a fairly short distance to Mayreau. I had decided against the more popular bay in the north and we arrived in front of the beach of Saline Bay after a few nice sailing hours. We almost had the whole bay to ourselves. It was really beautiful here and we walked across the island to a bar that someone had recommended to me.
Someone was tuning steel drums von our beech all day until late into the night and when we woke up at 0630 the next morning he was already at it again. He must be the first call steel drum tuner for the whole Caribbean. We urgently needed water and the guy in the bar yesterday had called his uncle Dennis who has a small desalinification machine and sells water. So I rowed the dinghy over to Dennis’ house and we filled our jerry cans. Dennis and I also became friends. He told me he needed new friends because he had always had older friends and they had now all died on him so he wanted to try younger friends. So we exchanged numbers and send us the occasional message here and there.
Tobago Cays
From Mayreau we sailed what was to be the shortest distance in the whole trip so far (5 Miles) across to the Tobago Cays. Andi and Kudi were already there and told us to anchor next to them because that’s where all the turtles go. So we did. There was no protection from wind and waves so the place was a bit rough but it was fairly calm weather and we were really lucky. A lot of the time it is hardly possible to see anything while snorkelling because the sea gets much rougher. We stayed three days. The last day we moved behind a small island to have a bit more quiet. The snorkelling was great (we saw turtles, fish, and stingrays)and we also flew our kite with the camera attached. This place looks like right out of a catalogue or one of those photo wall papers. It is sometimes hard to believe that we are really here.
Bequia
Another day of good and relaxed sailing. We anchored in the Admiralty Bay in front of Hamilton which is named after one of the US founding fathers who was born here. Bequia was very touristy. There were cruise ships and also cruise ships und sail which I had never seen before and the coast seems to be designed for the tourists. There was one local bar we liked but unfortunately it was only open on the first night.
The second night we witnessed a Church Mass on a football field. It was a goose pimple experience with all thereat music and singing and rejoicing.
We took a walk across the island along the Princess Margaret trail and into friendship bay where we found a huge private barbecue party but unfortunately no place to eat anything except a very expensive tourist beach bar. So we stayed hungry and walked home. The next day we cleared out of St. Vincent and spent a day doing some chores like cleaning the hull again, repairing my electricity panel which had been ripped out of the wall during the bumpy ride to Cariacou. A boat came by and gave us banana bread and two Bequia caps for free. We both had or hands full so we asked them to throw it in the dinghy.
In the late afternoon we weighed anchor and took off for an overnight passage to St. Lucia. This turned out to be a rough passage. Much rougher than forecast and there was not a lot to enjoy about it. The sea was rough and the winds were very gusty. We had some gusts of over 40 knots during the night and luckily we were only under genoa. I was constantly reefing and unreefing.
