Leaving St. Vincent - 19Feb2009

I had been looking forward to this vacation since the Fall. Lizzy and I were returning to the Caribbean to spend a long week cruising the Grenadines with our great friends, Mark and Laura. We had done three similar cruises with Mark and Laura, and each, while different, had been near perfect escapes to life in a tropical paradise. This year, with the economic mess, craziness at work, and a colder than normal winter, I was especially looking forward to the trip. (Although, at one point in the Fall, as the market crashed through another low, I called Mark and asked if he still wanted to make the trip. Without missing a beat, Mark responded "Absolutely. If the economy gets much worse, we'll just go down and not come back!")

We had booked a one-way bare-boat charter with TMM out of St. Vincent to Grenada. There are two key advantages to a one-way charter. First, you can visit more Islands since you don't have the return leg. Additionally, this allows sailing almost exclusively with favorable winds due to the prevailing direction of the Trades. This turned out to be especially advantageous during our time in the Grenadines, since the weather was unusually breezy with gusts well above 30 knots.

Getting to St. Vincent is a bit of trip in itself, since there are no direct flights. While Mark & Laura began the trip in VA and we started in NJ, we met in the San Juan, PR airport in time to catch the LIAT ("Leave Island Any Time) island hopper. The flight itself was uneventful, but Lizzy and my luggage didn't make it to St. Vincent. But what the heck, we were in the Caribbean. In the morning, along with provisioning, we picked up bathing suits, tee shirts and flip flops at the local stores. The good people at TMM assured us that, when LIAT found our luggage, they would take care of collecting it and putting it on a ferry to catch up with us (which it eventually did two days later.)

We were anxious to put to sea, and in the afternoon, we left Blue Lagoon, raised the sails and began the exhilarating sail to Bequia. Almost immediately, with the salt spray in my face, the wind in my hair and the We Two's wheel in my hands, the craziness of the last several months was left miles behind.

Carriacou Boat Building

We woke on Ash Wednesday to a peaceful sunrise on Tyrell Bay. There was no external evidence of the previous night's revelry. A short, au naturel swim off the back of the boat cleared out the remnants of fat Tuesday. Hard to feel the need to repent in such surroundings!

As we enjoyed a cup of coffee, we were visited by a local merchant. "Hello, my name is Simon, I am mentioned in the cruising guide and sell the wine". We selected a couple of bottles. Simon clearly had been out fishing early and we bought some snapper for dinner. Simon has a good reputation among cruisers and we asked if he'd be willing to give us a tour of the Island. Simon met us at the yacht haul-out dock with his small car. Once we had squeezed into the car, I mentioned to Simon that the guide books refer to him as Simon the smuggler. He took offense at this characterization, but he didn't let his offense stand in the way of giving us a great tour of this beautiful island. We were particularly interested in visiting the local boat builders in Windward.

The Windward shipyard is just off the beach hidden behind the mangroves.  It was quiet the day we visited.  Simon introduced us to Charles McLauren, who took a few minutes to explain a little about the two boats they were building.   One was a 30 ft boat that would be used by a local fisherman.  The other was a 44 ft sloop that was being built to race in the classic regattas.

The keels are made of Greenheart trees imported from Guyana.  The remainder of the ship is constructed from Cypress.   Charles explained that shipwrights take forms into the forest and find trees that match the shapes they need.  Charles guaranteed that these boats, if maintained, will last over 100 years.

It seems like the kids are let out of school at mid-day in most of the Caribbean.  As we left the shipyard, we spotted two kids who were have a great time playing in the gentle surf.

As we headed back to Tyrell Bay, Simon stopped to show us the weather beaten side Atlantic coast.  Carriacou is a beautiful island with friendly inhabitants.  I look forward to a longer visit.

From Here to Carriacou

Before I go on to describe more of our recent Grenadine's cruise, I'll digress about the links in space and time that brought us to Sandy Island. Back in the Fall of '79, Lizzy (back row, far left) and I were students at Duke living in Wilson House. Lizzy and I had met a few months earlier and were still getting to know each other. Wilson House was a wonderful enclave of kids with widely diverse interests. Recently Lizzy and Lynne Wolfe (sitting directly behind me) reconnected on Facebook. Lynne is now a mountaineering guide and editor of The Avalanche Review. (When I heard this, I felt oh, so corporate - but I guess I am pretty corporate!). Lynne learned we were heading to the Grenadines and suggested that we look up Tom, her husband's uncle. It turns out Tom is a long-time Bequia resident and publisher of the The Caribbean Compass. Lynne introduced us to Tom via email and Tom responded that he was "happy to meet with anyone who was willing to buy his drinks." Unfortunately Tom was under the weather when we were in Bequia. I let Tom know, via email, that we had never been south of Tobago Cays and asked if there was any place special that we shouldn't miss. Tom responded right away that we should head to Carriacou and spend a day at Sandy Island. Thank you Tom!

Carnival in Carriacou

During our short cruise from St. Vincent to Grenada, we had successfully lost track of time. We innocently sailed into the Hillsborough harbor and dropped an anchor just before noon. We knew we needed to dinghy over to the Customs' dock and check into the the nation of Grenada (Carriacou is part of Grenada). What we didn't know was that we had arrived in Carriacou just in time for Carnival (Mardi Gras).

The check-in process is a bit cumbersome. First a stop at Customs, then Immigration, and finally with the Harbor Master. They were all in good moods and seemed anxious to move the process along so that everyone could get back to the festivities at hand.

Carnival in Carriacou is an all day affair. Early in the day is the Shakespeare Mas. Revelers take turns reciting the various parts of Shakespeare's Julius Caeser. If one misses a line, then he is playfully beaten. We tried to find out the background behind this part of the festival, and especially about the emphasis on Julius Caeser. We were simply (and proudly) told that "it is part of our culture."

Knowing that the festivities would be going on through the night, we headed back to the We Two and motored the two miles or so over to Sandy Island.

Sandy Island is a small strip of perfect beach with coral reefs on either end. We dropped anchor in about 10 feet of crystal clear water just in time for a light lunch.

We spent the afternoon relaxing and taking turns snorkeling over to Sandy Island to explore the island and the reefs. The waters were complete with beautiful corals, stunning fish and even a pair of green turtles. The beach was complete with a nude sunbather (French of course, but friendly, even if she was chain-smoking!)

As the afternoon started to wane, we accepted that we needed to pull anchor and head over to Tyrell Bay. Tyrell Bay is a well-protected harbor popular with both cruisers and working fisherman. In fact, there is a "Hurricane Hole" -- a lagoon surrounded by mangroves -- that is used by hundreds of boats during large storms.

Up to this point, we had managed to overnight on a mooring, and had even tied up to the end of the dock in Union Island. While the wind had settled down, it was still gusting well above 20 knots. I was nervous about the anchor holding, especially with the number of beautiful boats close by that we would collide with in the middle of the night if our anchor started to slip. It took us three times, but finally the captain was happy that we had securely anchored far enough from other boats to sleep through the night. But first we had plans for the evening.

We got cleaned up and loaded into the dinghy. After puttering around Tyrell Bay, we ended up at the main ferry dock. This was fortuitous, since just as we were securing the dinghy, a Dollar Bus pulled up onto the dock and asked if we wanted to ride to Hillsborough. (At some point, I'll do a posting about the Dollar Buses, but for now let's just say it was only a few lively minutes before we were deposited just back outside of Carriacou's main town.) Carnival was in full swing.

Everyone at Carnival seemed to be enjoying themselves (although some of the younger revelers looked pain exhausted even though it was still early in the evening.) This women was really enjoying being costumed and getting lots of attention. As is evident in the photo, the audience was also getting a kick out of her .

What you don't get from the picture is the sense of the lively and loud Caribbean music.








After enjoying the festivities for a while, we walked through town to the Green Roof Inn. The Green Roof Inn is a small guesthouse and restaurant a mile or so North of Hillsborough. Except for the faint pounding of the amplified music wafting across the harbor, it could have been in a different world.

We had a wonderful meal on the veranda overlooking the harbor. At one point, just before they were ready to serve our entree, the electricity in the restaurant cut out. We could tell that power was fine in the rest of the Island since we could still see the lights on in Hillsborough and hear the deep bass of the Carnival bands rumble across the water. The friendly staff at the Green Roof Inn never missed a beat. They brought out a few extra candles and served an exquisite meal.

After such a luxurious meal, we were not ready to crowd into a Dollar Bus, and asked the restaurant to call us a cab. We were happy when we got back to Tyrell Bay and found that We Two's anchor was still holding!