Bequia2 Grenadines 27th Jan – 1st Feb

I know! I know!... I’m rubbish at keeping this thing up to date! We have been busy doing sunny stuff and enjoying the Caribbean. We spent longer than anticipated in Bequia and our initial plan of 10 days in the Grenadines has rapidly gone out of the window.

In Bequia, we saw most of the island using a taxi tour over two hours, sat in the back of a Nissan pick up truck while Terrence our driver gave us all the facts and figures.

We have also been SCUBA diving, clocking up another 3 dives with ‘Dive Bequia’ the local PADI centre, the best being the last dive, our first ever wreck dive over 'Devil's Table'. We didn’t enter the wreck but just going around and over this sunken trawler was absolutely amazing!

When we were not snorkeling our two favorite haunts are the Green Boley that serves the best boneless chicken Roti’s on the island (so we are told) and Jacks Bar on Margaret Beach where we often indulge in cocktails while the sun sets.

The rest of the time has been spent relaxing...

We have also taken the next step as ‘Sea Pikeys’ now baking bread and catching rain water in the dinghy cover. The water has a slight blue hue to it from the canvas so we only use it for washing up. Our best day so far yielded 25 litres in 4 hours (that’s some heavy rain) before we ran out of containers! For those interested:

Pressure Cooker Bread (1 loaf).
2 Cups Flour (general purpose)
1tsp Salt
1 tsp Yeast (instant)
150ml Water (room temp)

Mix dry ingredients, stir in water, knead, leave in warm draught free place for 1 hour, knead again and place in pan, leave 30 mins. Add approx 1 inch of water to pressure cooker. Place pan on trivet in pressure cooker so pan stays above the water. Bring to boil. Place on smallest burner at lowest setting for 25 minutes. Turn the loaf out and let cool & dry.

Bequia, Grenadines

We left Jalousie Bay around 6pm local time just as it was starting to get dark and strategically as the marine ranger arrived to take mooring fees. While a solid 15kn of wind was forecast we had less than 5kn and ghosted along at around 3kn for a few hours until we entered the St Lucia – St Vincent channel. With the wind and swell increasing to around 20kn and 2.5m respectively, we went from full sail to three reefs in the mainsail with a scrap of genoa!

The coastline was clearly busy with passenger liners lighting up the horizon. Apparently, they ‘circle’ and ‘waste time’ as they take passengers from island to island overnight to seemingly arrive in daylight. The Caribbean coastline is no place to be sleeping while single handing!

Due to various recent violent crime reports we decided to boycott the island of St Vincent and head straight for Bequia. As we cleared St Vincent around 6am local time we could see heavy rain squalls coming off the St Vincent mountains. The last 5nm across the channel saw winds to 32kn and short, steep 3m seas. These were the worst conditions Kat and I had ever encountered while sailing together (in Brighton), although strangely neither of us were even slightly phased, indicating how far we have come in terms of sailing experience.

We entered Admiralty Bay while being completely drenched by wall after wall of rain pelting us in the now 25kn winds.

This wasn’t exactly the picture of Caribbean sailing I had imagined!
As we approached nearer and nearer the shore we could see areas of mooring buoys and anchorage. I must be getting soft as we opted for the security of a mooring buoy yet again after we negotiated $100ec ~ £25 for three nights. Things were certainly made easier by name dropping Christian and asking for either ‘Phat Shag’ or ‘African’ in advance as these two characters are the official moorings boys.

Despite being completely knackered, we decided to have ‘breakfast’ of croissant and jam in the cockpit and then go ashore and clear in like good little yachties. As the sun made an appearance, it was hot work getting the dinghy off the foredeck and the new outboard fitted. I was however, grateful to not have to row for once!

Once ashore, we queued at Immigration for about 30 minutes only to be told you have to go to the Customs desk (4ft to the left) first; more queuing! When we were finally served, we handed over our ESeaClear reference number, only to be told once again ‘its not ready’; more paperwork! Finally we handed over our $70ec ~£17 cruising tax and headed out of the door. With our courtesy flag flying and paperwork stamped we were all legal and ready to start our adventure in the Grenadines.

Jalousie Bay, St Lucia

Setting off from Marigot Bay, we decided that a night crossing to Bequia in the Grenadines (about 60nm away or 11hours) would be best to avoid arriving in the dark. We sailed on south along the St Lucian coast for about 10nm and picked up a mooring buoy in the idyllic Jalousie Bay situated between St Lucia’s landmark Piton mountains in about 50m of water. We paid a boat boy $10ec for the mooring and purchased some bananas for the afternoon. After a light lunch we jumped overboard for a swim with Kat freaking out at the thought of 50m of water below her (and more importantly what may be living in those depths!).

Marigot Bay, St Lucia

The next day (Saturday 24th) we had breakfast and got the boat ready to sail for a lunchtime departure to Marigot Bay about 10nm miles south along the coast. This was one of those lazy sails under headsail (120% genoa). It was good to be out on the water again! On arrival, I attempted to drop the hook in the small anchorage to the left of the main buoyed channel as we’d already been accosted by a pimp-looking boat boy who’d told us it’d be $80EC (~£20) to use a mooring buoy for the night. Unfortunately, the anchor bounced its way back out to sea indicating a solid slab of rock, as I attempted to set it. With the wind gusting and a new rasta / less ‘bling-bling’ boat boy on the scene we decided to take the easy option and pay for a mooring buoy which was now being offered at 55EC (~£14).

While haggling over the price of the mooring buoy, it seems I one over the local (Peter), who later came over to the boat for a beer and a chat. He fessed up to his banter about supporting his kids etc being lies and gave us a gift of a woven fruit bowl and offered advice on being ‘careful’ around specific areas. It seems that crime is still a real problem in the Caribbean, especially with specific hotspots.

The next day we decided to check out of St Lucia and head for the Grenadines. We spent an hour the night previously completing the ESeaClear registration process online which is supposed to make clearing in and out of the Caribbean painless. Needless to say, on checking out we still had to complete all the paperwork by hand as the system is ‘not ready’. We also got charged $40ec ~ £10 ‘overtime’ as it was Sunday! Memo to self: Do not leave or enter a country on the weekend or public holidays!