Sunday, February 23, 2014

Short and sweet (and sour)

We're still sailing our way south and are now in Carriacou so we're finally flying our Grenada flag. We stopped a lot of places on the way since my last post but my computer has gone kablooey and I'm feeling pretty defeated by it so I'm jumping ahead here.

Grenada at last!
I had a post in progress that covered our stops in Mustique (including a serendipitous invitation to drinks at a private villa), Saltwhistle Bay in Mayreau, Tobago Cays (where we swam with the turtles), Petit St Vincent, Petit Martinique and Union Island. Then of course there's the infamous long promised centerboard blog for which I finally have photos but then BLAMMO my computer did this.



It did several other bright and artsy things too but I'll spare you those photos. Now I'm no computer expert so correct me if I'm wrong but my guess is that this is not a good thing for a computer to do. At this point it's working at random and I've been spending most of my time trying to rescue what I can before it dies completely. (Any Mac gurus out there who would like to chime in.... I'm all ears.)

However so as not to leave you with the screen of death as the final image here - here's a nice shot of our view in the anchorage at Saltwhistle Bay in Mayreau.

Full moon, Saltwhistle Bay, Mayreau


Thursday, February 13, 2014

Bequia

After the music festival in Bequia the crowds really thinned out and we needed to spend some time using the good wifi we had here so we spent a lot of time on the boat working. Other than than we got in a few good hikes, a daily (almost) swim at Princess Margaret Beach, daily (almost) shopping at the fruit and veggie vendors along the main road and time with friends who came and went while we stayed on.

Walking on the windward side
There's lots of color and interesting artwork everywhere here; these were on out our walk to the Old Hegg turtle sanctuary along the eastern shore.



At the turtle sanctuary we met Brother King, a Bequia born fisherman who started this sanctuary seventeen years ago and by his count has released over 900 turtles that have hatched on his watch. He raises them until they've grown large enough to release and have a better chance of surviving in the sea. There's no enforceable protection for the hawksbill turtle in the Grenadines and he's on a mission to save as many as he can and help rebuild the population. 

Brother King gives Skip the scoop
A few of the babies
Old Hegg herself whose mutated shell doesn't allow her to swim well enough to survive in the wild. She's been here since she was born
One way to tell that you're on the windward side..
Other days we hiked to Fort Hamilton just above the anchorage and looked down on the crowd.... 

Saralane is the boat above the trimaran just above the treeline in the center
... and hiked to Bequia head ALL the way at the north end of the island. 

Our view on this windy day... the southern shore of St Vincent in the distance. 
Bay rum trees... we haven't seen these for a while. We caught their scent before we spotted them.
There seemed to be more vendors per capita on this little island than we've seen anywhere else and though we're still mourning the end of avocado season, we found some very fresh produce that's helping us get past it. The lettuce doesn't get much fresher than this. We asked for two bunches and two slashes of the machete later we had two very fresh bunches. Wouldn't it taste great with some avocado in it?


There are only a few streets in the main town here and in addition to loads of vendors along the street there are loads of places to get an inexpensive tasty meal. Though no one can be accused of overly creative mis en place here, this roti sure filled us up. With this meal we almost broke my friend Linda's nonna's rule not to eat anything bigger than your own head... but not quite.


The local beer
We've since moved on to Mustique and have spent the past three days in a rolly but pretty anchorage on this very exclusive island. We'll probably move along again south today and will say goodbye to friends Tony and Judy on s/v Lime'n, at least for a while, as they're heading north.

Lime'n settles in on her mooring
Other friends are coming up from the south and we're sure to cross paths with them in the next few days in the Grenadines. And big news on the centerboard blog front.... we took a few more photos so we're getting closer to writing it. Maybe a Mustique blog first and then the centerboard blog?