Grenadines

Hello all, were are currently in Union to provision and catch up on internet stuff. We will check out of the Grenadines here and head down south in a few days. We will first stop at Petit St. Vincent, which is a little island with a resort on resort on it. They have bungalos that are completely private. If you want anything you just raise a flag and the staff sees it and comes running. We had looked at this place when we were landlubbers as a place to vacation - but at $500 a night, we went on a cruise instead. We will be able to at least walk on the island now.

We stayed in Bequia for about 7 days,it was a very nice island. We did some hiking over this very steep road and ended up on the other side of the island. We hiked down to Hope Cove a completely deserted beach....very cool. Unfortunately all the pictures we took came out blurry but we put a few in. There was a little house behind all the palm trees and we think it was inhabited so we didn't check it out. It was the windward side of the island so the surf was rough with a lot of undertow so we couldn't go swimming, but it looked like someone had tried to surf it --- once. We hiked back up to the road around lunch time and found this restaurant called Hope Estate. It was actually someones house and they but in a bar and some tables on the patio - parking area. No one was there, so we yelled out and a lady came out of the house. She said she usually cooks by reservation since she makes everything from scratch - but she would be happy to cook for us if we didn't mind the wait...of course we didn't mind waiting, give us a Hairoun (the local beer) and we'll talk to your parrots. Very good lunch, the owner Kathleen Ollivierre also made hot sauce,and other things and sold them to the local markets. She said people usually come in before they hike to the beach, order lunch and then she has it ready when they get back...well- we just like to do things backwards.

We also visited Moonhole. It is a very isolated community, founded by the late American architect, Tom Johnson and is not easily accessible by either land or sea, there is no road and no good anchorage. You have to call the owners to bring you in. They do tours, but we just brought the dinghy in for a look and didn't go ashore. The original house was built under a natural arch known as "Moonhole." It was abandoned when a huge boulder fell from the ceiling and crushed the empty bed. The other houses grow out of the rocks without straight lines or right angles. They have huge arches, fantastic views and great patios. There is rarely glass in the windows and the breeze is constant - and no electricty. People use them as vacation homes.

From Bequia we sailed to the Tobago Cays. The Cays are a national park. They are a group of very small islands surrounded by Horsehoe Reef. There is Petit Rameau, Petit Bateau, Baradel and Jamesby - and we explored every inch of them. The Iguanas on the island are huge, we saw a few of them, but didn't get a picture of the really big one, this is a smaller one. The huge one we saw actually looked like a dinasaur. There is also an Island outside the reef, Petit Tabac. When you anchor behind the reef you have a great view of the Atlantic Ocean, the seas do not get to you because of the reef, but you do get some winds. For us that was good, because our wind generator was constantly going creating energy for us. The reef was beautiful every place we snorkled was gorgeous. We saw lots of fish and one shark, it was about 5' long and we think it was reef shark. The boat boys in the Cays were not too bad, there were lots of them but they know the regular cruisers don't have a lot of money to spend so they don't bug you with the tourist stuff they go straight for the charters. But they do have necessary things like bread, fish, ice - so you stay out there longer. It was probably the most beautiful place we have seen so far, however, it was very crowded with charter boats, so after about seven days we headed for Mayreau. This is a very small island and also part of the Cays, but again we got boxed in by charters, literally, and left the next morning. The achorage in Mayreu was connected to the other side of the island by about 50 feet of sand, the beach on the other side was GREAT - it went on forever and we had a nice walk.

We had asked one of the local guys in the Cays where there was an anchorage with fewer boats, and he told us Chatham Bay on Union Island - so we headed to Chatham Bay, when we saw the anchorage we just sighed with relief, one boat and a huge bay and beach...heaven. We hiked up the mountain and had some beautiful views. The path on the way up was filled with goats, cows and bulls. On the otherside of the island is Bloody Bay, were the French and English had a major battle. The beach on that bay, had one house made of stone, the path to get down was washed out though and we couldn't get down to see it. We asked the local guy on the beach "Shark Attack" about it and he said they were selling it for $4 million US or you could rent it. So if your interested contact "Shark Attack" in Chatham Bay and he can hook you up - he also does beach barbeques for the yachties. There was also another guy on the beach, who was a squatter who had just started building a little beach restaurant. Very nice man from a town across the island. There are not roads that lead down to Chatham Bay, just a path about a mile long, so he either had to walk from his home town (a 2 hour walk he said) or he'd get a ride from a water taxi if he could. He would bring his lumber in by water taxi. The only visitors there are yachties so we didn't think he'd get much business, but he said an Italian guy was building a hotel down the beach, right in front of where we were anchored. There goes another perfectly good deserted beach. We saw the guys clearing the land for the hotel, everyday we were there we watched them put some twigs and branches on a fire - and after two hours they were gone - hard days work. I think it might be awhile before the hotel comes to be built.



We sailed around the corner from Chatham Bay to Frigate Island, where we are currently. Construction started on a large development, including a 300-berth marina. The company went bankrupt, and the project stopped. So Frigate Island is not an island anymore, but a peninsula with ruins of an almost built marina, its very sad. I think is was once very beautiful here, with a reef protected what was once an open bay. But it is very enjoyable here, and still very pretty. We went to the town close by, Ashton, and it was very cute, clean and nice people. One guy started asking us to buy him a drink or some food, and another guy started yelling at him, telling him to leave us alone, and he did, very small community. We spoke with a local women in a little grocery store who said she had just come back from New York and Canada and couldn't stand the cold - you had to wear too many clothes she said. We said - yep - we prefer less clothes too - and no shoes :)) We dinghied over to Clifton, the main town yesterday to catch up on some email. The ride was about a mile long, but we finally figured out how to get through the coral reef, so it made it much less rough than the open ocean. We are heading back there today to buy some groceries, update the web, and then we'll head south again.

We are making plans to head to Venezuela with another group of people that we met. They have three boats in their group and invited us to join them in a flotilla from Grenada to Bahia Redondo in Venezuela. They are the ones who recommended the Marina we will staying at, they will be there as well. We are very glad to have other boats to go with, as they say pirates sometimes prey on yachts from Los Testigos to the mainland, if you are alone. They do not usually bother you if you are in a group. That's all for now, hope you all are doing well and we will update again when we can.

Cheers Mike, Kim and Ka'imi