After splashing on Tuesday, 19th March 2024, and saddened at having to wave goodbye to Time Bandit (Anne and Stuart), we were left wondering if and where our paths would ever cross again. A definite downside to our vagabond lifestyle, but setting that thought aside, we motored the short distance around to Prickly Bay.
After we were safely anchored, we dinghied ashore to visit Budget Marine in order to get a refund for the products we hadn’t used during the haulout and to purchase the items we need for the upcoming hurricane season’s maintenance ritual.
While Elaine got comfortable in the lounge seats of One Love, Roy walked to the chandlery. However, Elaine had barely got settled, when a familiar face and voice appeared; it was Anne. Her and Stuart had got a taxi to Budget Marine for odds and ends they needed, not knowing we needed to visit the same shop. What were the chances! If we’d arrived five minutes later, we would have missed each other. Needless to say, it was a wonderful surprise and made the parting a little easier.
Sadly, it was the absolutely putrid coffee we had at One Love later that left us scratching our heads. It was barely a week ago that Elaine had complemented the establishment on the great coffee they served, but what we got that morning can best be described as lukewarm dirty dishwater. They’d certainly lost our patronage after that.
The following morning, we were both up early, after another rolly night, to complete our provisioning, purchase a few South African favourites at the marina’s mini-mart and by mid-morning we’d weighed anchor and said goodbye to Grenada Island, deciding to head straight to Carriacou Island for some much needed R&R. Although we could have enjoyed a great sail, unfortunately we had to motor, given that it had remained far too windy to hoist our headsail and neither of us felt like dealing with the mainsail flopping around in the swell.
It was just after sunset by the time we dropped the hook and got settle on our third attempt; finding a sandy patch between the rocks was a tad difficult in the fading daylight. Thankfully, though, we were back in a quiet, comfortable anchorage, where we enjoyed a barbecue with a tasty fresh salad for dinner, topped off with a nice long chat to Keenan and Brooke after receiving a video of the twins riding their bicycles for the first time without training wheels. Needless to say, they were very chuffed with themselves!
By 21st March 2024, not only did we get to celebrate Elaine’s dad’s birthday on a Zoom family get-together; he’d reached the grand ol’ age of eighty nine, but it felt like the first day of settling back into our sailing life. Everything that needed to be done was done and we had nowhere in particular to be. We could simply enjoy the rest of our sailing season. Our relaxing day was topped off with a lovely surprise of Michelle and Drew, off Pyxis, who were our floating neighbours in Rodney Bay Marina, St Lucia, popping by. They’d been out lobster diving and happened to recognise Paw Paw as they were returning to Pyxis. Over a sundowner, while savouring a beautiful sunset and moonrise, we caught up and made plans to see each other over the coming days, before they hauled out and returned home for the summer.
Since Roy had spent most of his day cooking the huge ham we “won” at the supermarket in Grenada, based on the amount of money we’d spent on our groceries, dinner, not surprisingly, was sliced ham with a fresh garden salad. Given the size of the ham some was diced and frozen for omelettes and pasta dishes, while the rest was sliced for future dinners and sandwiches. His efforts were definitely worthwhile as it was quite delicious.
The rest of our stay on Carriacou Island involved a number of coffee mornings at the Iguana Café, walks on the beach, exploring the little village, including the surprisingly well stocked new supermarket, a dinghy excursion through the mangroves of the nature reserve and enjoying time with Michelle and Drew, which included a dinner outing at the Slipway restaurant and a Sunday afternoon of Mexican train dominoes on Paw Paw; another cruising couple were hooked!
However, while Carriacou is a reminder of the “old” and indeed more authentic Caribbean we remember, even in this little slice of paradise, there’s always those individuals who society could do without all together; inconsiderate imbeciles.
An incident with yet another smoker, who decided to sit down in a café amongst all the nonsmokers and light up a cigarette, upwind of everyone, was the straw that broke the camel’s back and moved Elaine’s tolerance needle to zero. She’s decided to start getting even after it occurred to her that it’s always the nice, ordinary, considerate, kindhearted people of the world, who, at the micro level, are permanently accommodating idiots rather than cause a fuss by working around situations, like moving to another table or simply breathing in the smoke that has been expunged from the smoker’s lungs together with heaven alone knows how many germs. Unfortunately the only result is that the decent people have been accommodating this behaviour for so long, the morons are now running the show; they’re simply everywhere!
This inconsiderate attitude sadly expands to so many other aspects of every day life in this post-pandemic western culture we live in now; people vaping in crowded areas, people pushing in front of you in a queue, people almost knocking you over on the sidewalks rather than pass politely, people pushing passed you to squeeze through a door or to get on/off public transport ahead of you, people literally leaning over you to get to a grocery item without as much as an “excuse me”, people zipping into a parking spot you’ve been waiting on so you can use it, people blasting out their hideous choice of music at all hours of the night and, let’s not forget our all time favourite of the Caribbean, cruisers anchoring on top of us. The examples are endless, including people making rude remarks about Elaine wearing a mask; comments like: “Doesn’t that stupid b*t+# know COVID is over” or deliberately coughing in her face. The ignorance and ill-mannered behaviour is astonishing and bewildering, especially given what the world had to endure through the pandemic. You would think kindness, consideration and respect are behaviours that would’ve come to the fore, but we’ve actually experienced quite the opposite instead.
While Elaine knows she has to walk away from these situations for the sake of her health, rather than confront them as she has done in the past, she’s working on a more subtle, but should be effective retaliation rather than accepting the behaviour of these morons any longer; itchy powder, sneezing powder, stink bombs, chewing gum, spilt drinks or fake vomit comes to mind. She’ll have to think of a few more legal tactics for the various scenarios we encounter on a daily basis, but these are a good start. Now to source the items!
By Monday, 25th March 2024, we’d cleared out of the country Grenada, although this was no easy feat, given that everyone and his dog had the same idea, taking us nearly two hours to get the paperwork we needed to enter St Vincent and the Grenadines. Regardless, by early afternoon we were anchored off Union Island, a new pasture for us.
Our chosen anchorage for the night was the beautiful Chatham Bay and a walk along the beach revealed a number of quintessential Caribbean eateries and bars, as well as a boutique resort. A swim and a sundowner at Sunset Cove followed by a beautiful sunset, accompanied by a “green flash”, which we hadn’t seen in ages, as well as a stunning full moon, wrapped up our stay.
Our next destination was the very swanky Sandy Lane Yacht Club on Canouan Island, although we enjoyed the scenery of Mayreau Island en route. Unfortunately with the strong winds continuing to blow while we were in Carriacou, we were still unable to hoist our headsail, but the period of calm weather we were patiently awaiting eventually descended on our anchorage off Union Island overnight. This meant we could hoist the headsail at last while berthed at the yacht club.
This yacht club was built by an Irish billionaire for suoeryachts, but accommodates the likes of us for a rather hefty price tag. However, we’d heard from more than one of our cruising friends that this was well worth the visit. Celebrating Elaine officially becoming a retiree and spending her first social security payout was the perfect excuse. Being the only yacht in the entire facility, though, reminded us of our stay at the IGY superyacht marina in Malaga, Spain.
Since the clearing in facility at the resort in Chatham Bay was inoperable and getting a taxi for the bargain basement special rate of $100USD to cover the 5Km drive into Clifton, was a price we were definitely not going to pay, we opted instead to clear in at the small airport on Canouan Island. This involved a golf cart ride to the gates of the property, compliments of the yacht club, and a short walk to the airport Customs and Immigration offices. Although it was hot, we enjoyed the return walk too, given the beautiful gardens, excellent walkways and stunning views.
Then, after clearing in to the yacht club and getting the scoop on the property, we decided to dinghy over to Shenanigans for lunch on their terrace, followed by a beach afternoon and a swim. A shower in the awe inspiring bathrooms was a far cry from the facilities at the Clarkes Court Boatyard and Marina and returning to our air-conditioned abode was priceless, given the scorching temperatures.
The next morning, before setting sail for Bequia, Roy enjoyed a morning exercise walk, his first in ages, we’d walked to the bakery for a morning coffee and freshly baked French pastries, we’d got our laundry done and washed the decks. We’d certainly enjoyed a very pleasant stay with a huge dollop of luxury.
By Thursday, 28th March 2024, we’d returned to Bequia Island, cleared out of St Vincent and the Grenadines and set sail northwards, taking advantage of the continuing calm weather to get as far north as needed to avoid beating to weather in stronger conditions.
Since we made good timing to reach Rodney Bay, St Lucia, we decided to continue on to St Anne’s, Martinique. Although we hadn’t undertaken a nighttime arrival in an anchorage in forever, by 2000 we were safely anchored, thankfully in a calm St Anne’s we know of old.
With that we’d like to wish everyone a very Happy Easter. Enjoy those Easter eggs, particularly more expensive this year due to the price of cocoa.
