Salt Whistle, the Cays, Chatham, Clifton to Carriacou

23/6/2011

Salt whistle bay has got to be one of the most special anchorages in the Caribbean. As such, it tends to get overcrowded at times, and often with inexperienced bare boat charter boats. Fortunately, these folk are often on a limited time route march, and regardless of weather, they have to move on. We enjoyed a few days there, waiting for a good time to visit the Cays.
We all walked up to an old church, the highest point on the island, to look over the Cays, Saline Bay, Union etc, and to have breakfast at the Sunshine Bar and restaurant.
We all had a very refreshing R25 glass of juice, before enquiring about how long the breakfast would take, as we could see the rain clouds building.
“Oh, my Golly Gosh…… Breakfast!!” Said the owner. “ I have no more eggs or bacon…. All I have got is juice! Sold out of eggs and bacon yesterday!”

Mary and I elected to hot foot it back to the boat, as we had stupidly, and unusually, left the boat hatches open! Jeremy said “You won’t make it before the squall!”, and he was right! We got about half way down the mountain before the heavens opened, and we were drenched. By the time we got down to the dinghy on the beach at Salt Whistle Bay, the sun was shining, and Mary had won the “wet T shirt competition!”
Fortunately, the squall was short and sharp, and the boat was not too wet.
The following morning we went round to the Cays, where we dived with the Green Back turtles, that seemed oblivious to our presence, and also dived the outer reef, in lovely clear water, with shoals of reef fish, and the odd ray or shark. It was just as well we packed so much in on day one, because the rain came down in buckets the next day. We felt for Sheldon, and the crew of Nexus, a 60ft RSA catamaran, as the rain squall dropped its load. They were anchored next to us on a 3 day Grenadine charter, having to cover as much as possible in the 3 days.
We sailed on round to Chatham Bay on Union, enjoying a really nice, fast reach
in flat water, picking up a Barracuda along the way. Chatham is a wide open, well protected Bay, with minimal services…. which suits us! The water is clear, and the beach long enough for a good walk! Boobies, pelicans and jumping fish surround the boats , and our neighbour landed a bonito spinning from his foredeck.
On the following Monday, we headed round to Clifton , to check out of St Vincent and the Grenadines, and sailed down to Hillsborough, Carriacou, to check in once again, to “Grenada and Carriacou” .Bureacracy completed, we continued round to Tyrrell Bay to await the arrival of Jervon, who had elected to go via Petite Martinique, before coming to Tyrrell Bay

Magical Mustique?

8/6/2011

We made heavy weather of our little 12 mile line of sight sail to Mustique! The gentle Easterly was converted by a localized squall into a NE beat against a bitch of a current once we rounded Pigeon island on the way back up to Britannia Bay. When we skirted Montezuma Shoal , sailing into the anchorage, we did not know that the splendid homestead, with the infinity pool, behind which lay an entertainment /bar area, wedged between two hotel sized accommodation wings, belonged to Celine Dion! Now we do! It was still a bitch of a beat, but at least we can dream about the day we entertained and enthralled the great diva with our own little show! We learned later she wasn’t even in residence!!
The island is different, with its Kirstenbosch like gardens, and carefully manicured lawns, laid out picnic areas, barbeque facilities, gazebo’s, sign posted nature trails, horse riding centre, cricket field, tennis courts, library etc, all owned and controlled by the 100 “elite” owners, who make up the “whose who” of the entertainment world. We did the “Island tour”, and were shown where some of the celebs have their pads…. Mick Jagger, Bryan Adams, Tommy Hellfiger, Late Princess Margaret etc. We also were shown Corporate Homes where the big execs of organizations such as Merryll Lynch and Lacoste take time out to recover from their daily stresses!
Hotels such as the Cotton House, and the Firefly, sell their facilities as “An experience, not just a hotel”, and attract large numbers of honeymooners wishing to sample the lifestyle of the rich and famous.
The shops were indeed lovely, but expensive! A $3 EC beer would cost $15EC (R45) at Basils, but who knows which of the locals might pitch up?
On our last day there, Mary and I did a walk from Basils along the waterfront around to the point. The path took us through mangrove swamp areas, past bird hides, and beautiful picnic spots, through groves of carefully marked and signposted poisonous Machineel trees. Boards instruct one never to eat the “apples”, or to seek shelter from the rain under these lovely looking lush trees, as they are highly toxic: a fact we discovered for ourselves later that night.
I had collected a little pile of these apples to photograph, handing the camera to Mary afterwards to wash my hands in the sea. Later that night, Mary had a violent allergic shock reaction to something, with her throat and tongue swelling up alarmingly to the point where she could not talk or swallow. Antihistamines made no difference, and by 2.00am Mary managed to swallow and keep down two Cortizone tablets, without gagging. Slowly but surely the swelling came down to the point where she felt she might survive the night. We spent a very frightening six hours waiting for daylight and the clinic to open with the visiting doctor, where we were forced to join the waiting queue before being seen by Dr Teddy. He was so distracted by Mary’s sky high BP, that he would not listen to our previous experiences, and was convinced that Mary had suffered a mini stroke( TIA). Even when her BP came back to normal without medication, he kept seeing paralysis in one or both side of her face, and was convinced that her swollen tongue( twice normal size at 2,00am) was only normal size but paralysed. He instructed Mary to double her BP medication , and to do nothing strenuous!
Having seen Mary’s allergic reactions to the “No Seeums” in Brazil, and the Sand Dollar fibre toxins, we are still totally convinced that the problem was a “cross allergic shock reaction” to the Machineel tree. She had handled the camera after I had handled the apples, and washed my hands. Cortizone was her salvation in Brazil, and was again the answer in Mustique. Lesson learnt….If you are susceptible to allergic reactions ----- don’t go near a Machineel tree!
This little drama delayed our departure to Salt Whistle Bay, some 20 miles south in Mayreau where we met up once again with “Jervon” a day later.

Pretty Bequia

5 June 2011

Instead of writing about this island, which is so easy to love, we will just drop in a couple more photos. Sadly, our Sony video camera has died, as has our brand new Olympus digital camera, so we have been forced to resuscitate our faithful 11yr old Olympus. We were joined in Bequia by Jeremy and Yvonne (Jervon), whom we had last seen down in Baia Da Ilha Grande, Brazil. They had gone on down to BA, and travelled by bus down to the Magellan Straits, before working their way up to the Caribbean. Yvonne is making a great recovery from a brain tumour operation in Trinidad, four months back. It has been really good to catch up with them again, and to share all our news together. Two years back we shared my birthday with them at a beach restaurant in Parati, and this year we did so at the Porthole in Bequia.

St Vincent fly by!

24/5/2011

Once again we debated the wisdom of stopping along the coast of the lovely looking island of St Vincent. Having chatted to a number of “regulars”, we decided to make the final decision when we got to Cumberland Bay.
The winds were predicted to be a light 10-15knots from the East, but the acceleration zones around the top ends of these islands can make a mockery of such forecasts!
The first 24 miles of this crossing was a lovely broad reach in 18knots, and for once we also enjoyed a favourable current for most of the leg. At times we were doing 8.5knots, and so reached St Vincent well ahead of plan. The Northern end is very mountainous with rainforest vegetation. There are lots of bays and anchorages which really look inviting, but the crime and violence reputation lingers, and many cruisers elect to give the island a complete miss. It has a reputation for being the Ganja growing headquarters in the Caribbean, and most of the crime is apparently linked to this “industry”, and specifically the lack of revenue during the non growing season!
As if to reinforce our concerns, when we were 5 miles off St Vincent, we saw a big Pirogue, with twin 150hp outboards, being approached by a little high speed shuttle from the coast.
Shortly after their rendevous, the big pirogue took off at speed towards St Lucia, and the little shuttle boat back from whence it came in St Vincent.
Mary was about to film this little rendevouz, but we felt it might be unwise! Not 5 minutes later, the Pirogue came belting past us in the opposite direction, doing about 60 knots, leaping from wave to wave. While we were still busy watching this, we were passed by a Coast Guard vessel on our other side, doing similar speed….. but this time with two guys aiming machine guns at the pirogue about a half a mile in front! We felt like the ham in a sandwich, and decided right then to give St Vincent a miss, and “sail on by”!( We subsequently heard that it was a drug bust, and that the Pirogue was from Trinidad, and that they had been caught by the Coast Guard)
As we got into the lee of the island, the wind died, and then switched to S, on the nose, as did the current. We were motorsailing at about 1800rpm, making 6.5knots through the water, and 3.2knots over ground! As we came out from behind St Vincent, into the channel to Bequia, we were experiencing 25 to 30degrees of leeway from the currents, and still making barely 3knots SOG. When we got to within 5 miles of Bequia , we sailed into an area of ocean that looked like the confluence of two rivers, as the currents met. Without touching a single thing, the leeway stopped, and the Speed over Ground climbed back to 7knots.
We made our way over to Princess Margaret beach, anchored, and decided that a swim and a beer was much more appealing than the need to check in, which could wait until tomorrow!

Inverter trouble—Again !

29 May 2011

After a restful couple of days in Martinique, we headed on to Rodney Bay, St Lucia, where there is a branch of Island Water World, from whom I had purchased my first Pure sine 1000w Inverter. It had failed early on in its life, and its replacement had gone the same way in the BVI.

The need to solve the inverter problem led to our earlier than planned departure from Martinique….. ie before we had stocked up on wines, cheese, sausages and all those other lekker French goodies. The weather conditions prompted this stupid decision to forgo the shopping trip, but we did at least have a very comfortable sail at last!
I will spare you all the frustrations of trying to get an American company (Inverter supplier) to honour their warranties without putting their customers through an inquisition… I have seen it far too often now, as they imply the failure MUST be the clients fault, and will not replace the warrantied product until you have sent it back to them, at your non refundable expense, for their inspection. Apologies for inconvenience etc just do not come into it! No wonder Ralph Nader made a name for himself there! We in “3rd world South Africa” have a far better understanding of customer service, and our obligations as suppliers, than I have experienced with so called 1st World US companies!
I was lucky to have the MD of IWW, an ex South African, batting for me and was eventually able to upgrade to a better top of the range unit, which, touch wood, will prove more reliable!

Rodney Bay is a big wide protected anchorage, with good shopping and infrastructure…… but we tend to prefer the more remote, quieter and interesting places to anchor. We had intended to pick up a buoy between the magnificent Pitons. Unfortunately, when we got there we found the buoys to be right in front of a noisy construction site. Those further away were surrounded by a floating mass of Sargossa weed, pushed in by the current. We had wanted to snorkel and swim there , but fearing that there was also likely to be an accumulation of stinging jellyfish, we took our photos, and pushed on to the fishing village of Vieux Fort, on the southern tip of St Lucia, close to the International airport.
Once anchored , we walked around the little town, checked out at the airport, bought a small tuna (embarrassing to have to admit defeat!), and returned to prepare for our trip over to St Vincent, where we had been told by experienced old salts, that Cumberland Bay was “now safe”, and could be used as a night stop.