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

Tobago Cays

Finally, here!! We are in an anchorage here in the Cays that is surrounded by a reef and open to the ocean. There about 4 small islands surrounding us that we get to explore, there is incredible snorkeling here and a few great dive spots - we have our tanks full!!! We plan to be here for a couple of weeks then head down to the next island, will update with photos the next time we have a chance, we'll have a lot by then I'm sure. The weather is beautiful, the turtles are huge and life is good.....Cheers Mike and Kim

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Bequia

(FYI- double click on any picture in this blog to enlarge it)
Hello all, were currently in Bequia which is located in the Grenadines. We will be traveling south from here stopping at possible Mustique, Canoun, the Tobago Cays for sure, Mayreau and Grenada. After that we will travel to Trinidad and maybe Tobago then on to Venezuela for Hurricane season. We have reserved a slip at the Bahia Redondo in Puerto La Cruz for the season so we have a safe haven. It is located in an area that has many surrounding islands so we will be able to take trips to these in between working on the boat (a never ending task)....but we love it!
We last left off in Dominica, the first pic is of one of the many beautiful sunsets there. We took a tour on a River Boat with our guide Martin on "Providence" which was an amazing tour. The river narrows and gets completely overhung by huge swamp bloodwood trees on both sides. Their massive roots spread out above the ground and down into the water, twisting and tangling into wavy designs. The Carib Indians use to use these bloodwood trees for communications. If you bang on them they are hollow, so depending on the tone and frequency of the hits, they could talk to each other throughout the jungle. The trees overhead form a complete canopy, so it is very dark at times. We heard and saw many birds, crabs and lizards. Fish (mullets) also swam in the brackish water, then the Barricuda fish swim up from the sea to feed on them. Barricuda are one of the few fish that can swim from sea to brackish water. (Brackish water is a mixture of fresh and sea water.) We stayed in Dominica a couple of weeks, mainly waiting for our mail which we had sent from the U.S. (thank you Linda). It was sent overnight and we received it 7 days later :). We made a trek to this post office on Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday (when the mail came in) after 3:00 PM, so they had time to sort. We finally received it on Friday and were overjoyed until they said the customs officer had already left for the weekend and we had to have it inspected - I must of let out a yelp, cause they said - well if its not official documents it will be ok. We told him its just mail (had to get w2s-it was almost 4/15)..so we opened it and they let us go....phew!! The next picture is of a boat that parked to close to shore - well really it was blown there by Hurricane David many years ago, there are three wrecked right up on shore. Some local boys who rowed out to our boat in a boat they borrowed from there Uncle said that bats live in these wrecks. The boys were great and before they left they asked if we had any snacks, Mike said NO...but upon some persuasion, he gave up some of his black licorice :)..its usually not a problem to share, but there were no provisions (except roots) in Dominica and our snack drawer was very, very, very low on goods. On our way back from the Post Office we heard the blow of the conch shell, which means someone is selling fresh fish, and followed the sound. We bought this Tuna from the local fisherman and barbequed it up - it was wonderful!!!!
We left Dominica at 3:00 am to head for Martinique - we were only planning to overnight there and leave early for St. Lucia. The sail was great and we did overnight at Martinique (the last of the French Islands) then headed out at 3:00 AM again to hit St. Lucia. We stayed at Rodney Bay, St. Lucia for about a week. We reprovisioned the boat (somewhat), stocked up on gas and diesel, and enjoyed the Easter Weekend. They celebrate from Good Friday to Easter Monday. It was very nice there, but we didn't do any land travel as we wanted to keep heading south to the islands were in now so we can relax a little before we have to head to Venezuala.
We left St. Lucia at 10:00 PM for an overnight sail to Bequia. We started at the Northern tip of St. Lucia, sailed past St. Vincent and landed in Bequia at 3:30 PM, the winds were kinda light, but we had a good sail anyway. Bequia is very beautiful but have not explored yet. The anchorage is rather large and we ended up on the outskirts, having a little privacy. Mike has finally got the hang of fishing as you can see by his catch...it was very exhausting, thirsty work....We have discovered a new fruit here, its soursop....not sure if we like it or not, its very hard to eat, but the local guy told Mike is very good for your virality...so he bought ten.
Thats all for now, will fill you in on the rest of Bequia on the next update. Hope everyone is doing well!!!
Cheers Mike and Kim

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM FROM ST. LUCIA

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM - we love you and miss you. Still can't make it back for a visit yet - cause we ain't found the pirate's gold :) Hugs and Kisses Kim and Mike

We are in St. Lucia, safe and sound, well safe anyway, we've never been sound :)...we left Prince Rubert Bay, (Portsmouth) Dominica at 2:00 AM on Saturday morning and stopped at St. Pierre, Martinique to overnight and get some sleep. We left Martinique at 3:00 the next morning and were heading to St. Lucia when we heard a strange sound coming from the rear of the boat so we stopped at a little anchorage at the end of Martinique (Grand Case D'Arlet) to find it's cause, we didn't find anything but we think we took a fish trap or crap pot for a ride. We dove on the prop - where we thought the noise was coming from, but is was all clear and working fine. We did find a fish trap in the bay we stopped at and there were no bouys tied to it (that let the fishermen know where its at) so we released all the fish (eels and exotics)-there were alot of them and the eels were getting fat - they would have just died if no one found them... The strange noise is gone now, and were in St. Lucia to do a few things and then provision (get food). Will update the web with pics while were here then head out to St. Vincent and the Grenadines soon. Cheers Mike and Kim

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SETH!!!

Happy Birthday to my (Kim's) nephew (great nephew) Seth who is 5 years old today....wow what a big boy now!! We tried to get to your Birthday party Seth, but we was a hunting pirate treasure here in Caribbean, and we thinks the pirates may be on to us...so we had to stay in the mountains a few days...we think were close and if I find some treasures, I'll send thems to you...Love you Seth.

Still in Dominica

Hello all, finally found an internet cafe so we can share some pictures. We are doing great and having a wonderful time. Since leaving Nevis we have visited Guadeloupe, The Saintes and Dominica. We sailed overnight to Guadeloupe bypassing Montserrate because we had a wind change and layed anchor at 6:00 AM at Pigeon Island Anchorage in Guadeloupe. The Jacques Cousteau marine park is here around Pigeon Island with a very small town. We could not check in here so we went down to Basse Terre to try to check in at the Marine Rivere, however, they were closed - we were told by another cruising couple we met in Nevis that is was really hard to find a customs office open in Guadeloupe and checking in and out could be very difficult, it's true!!! We didn't want to stay at the anchorage in Marine Rivere because we were anchored on a shelf with a huge drop off and the shelf was not very large, so we decided to sail to the Saintes a group of Islands just off the coast of Guadeloupe to try and check in---we could not---surprise, surprise. We needed to find someone to fix a stanchion on the boat so we sailed back to the main Island in an achorage called Pointe Pitre and finally were able to check in. The anchorage was outside the main harbour, on a little islet which was very pretty, but the other side of our view was a big city and lots of industry...so we provisioned, made some phone calls and went to a little anchorage around the corner called Grosier to wait for a weather window to head back to the Saintes where we were told we could check out with the Police. Grosier was very nice for a couple of days, quiet until the weekend. It is a local hangout and on Sunday the little bay was filled with power boats, day sailors and jet skies. We enjoyed our stay there and left for the Saintes when the weather was right. We only stayed overnight at the Saintes and left the next morning for Dominica. The Saintes were very pretty, but there anchorages were very crowded.
We had a great sail to Dominica and arrived in 6 hours. The landscape is so beautiful here, it is all green everywhere. We came in Portsmouth and anchored in the secluded part of the bay on the south side. We were greated by and Indian River Guide, Martin on Providence (the name of his boat) who would arrange for the tours on the Island. The Indian River Guides will also help you arrange to get your laundry done, take your garbage and other services. Martin arranged a land tour for us, with Jeffrey as our guide, it was an all day tour with some hiking and swimming. The island of Dominica has every spice, fruit or vegetable you would want, as well as excellant fish, teas, coffee and cocoa - and plenty of it. On the tour Jeffrey showed us various spices, such as Bay Leave, Cinammon, lime leaves, nutmeg, lemon grass, vanilla, just to name a few. We even got to take some leaves back to the boat. We stopped at a little hut on the way that was the local bay leaf distallery, the local farmers bring their bay leaves here, crush the leaves and slowly burn them keeping the oil to bring to the refinery in Roseau, the capital of Dominica. A large use of this oil is for mens aftershave lotion. Our next stop was a cold water sulfer springs. This part of the island is the oldest so the water has cooled and it bubbles up very cold, still good for ailments though so Kim took some and and washed her face, she looks 20 years younger :) There was a very strong sulfer smell there and many ponds. Jeffrey showed us all kinds of different plants such as the sensitive plant that closes when you touch it, many beautiful flowers and one special plant that allowed you to tatto yourself. Kim got here first leaf tattoo....The interior of the islands has many individual farmers whose farms lie on very steep hills. The farmers are very hard working and grow bananas, grapefruit, mangos, papayas, provisions-which are root vegetables, cabbage, and many many more. We stopped along the way and bought some fruits and vegetables from a local farmer who had just picked them. They bring them to a little hut and sort them out and package them to bring down to the town market or for export. We traveled down the coast and saw the location where they filmed Pirates of the Carribean 2 then went inland again to take our final hike to a fresh water pond and take a swim, it was so refreshing, crystal clean water. We just moved to the north end of the anchorage which is closer to town and a dock so we can go ashore more often. The internet cafe is here also. We have a tour tomorrow with Martin to go up the Indian River, which is supposed to be very beautiful. He rows you up the river under a canopy of vegetation with lots of birds and a little hiking on land, we will share pictures of that later. That is all for now, we are waiting for some mail then a weather window to start heading south again. Would love for anyone to leave comments on the site and to hear from you!! Cheers Mike and Kim
For Robin: we couldn't upload the pics on yahoo...but here they are.