Saint Somewhere

Jimmy Buffet says it so well if I just change one little word. “I need to sail to St Somewhere”. And we did plus a few more of those warm Caribbean islands. 

St Martin, St Barts, St Kitts, the Saints, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines. They stretch like emeralds on a turquoise sea. A perfect curve dividing the Atlantic Ocean from the Caribbean Sea. Trade winds blow, palm trees wave and the Southern Cross hangs low in the sky telling you why you came this way. 

The islands are just far enough apart that as one sinks out of sight on your stern the other is coming into view on your bow. In general the weather gods have been good with 18-24 kts of ESE winds and 3-5 ft seas. This usually had us motor-sailing on a close reach with just the Genoa flying. The seas often made for a bumpy passage but in 4-5 hours it’s done and you’re in another part of Paradise. 

After Nevis it was Antigua & Barbuda with visits to our favorite places in Falmouth and English Harbor. We also made our first visit to Antigua’s sister island Barbuda known for the frigate rookery and her pink sand beaches. Unfortunately an unexpected West wind made landing the dink too difficult but we enjoyed an island tour with a visit to the rookery, some caves and lunch.

Baby Frigates at home on Barbuda, literally hundreds of Frigates nest here

Most of the European wars of the 16th, 17th and 18th Century affected the Caribbean as England, France and Spain vied for control of the vast wealth brought in not only by silver and gold but also by sugar. Nowhere was more wealthy than the sugar islands of Jamaica, Hispaniola, St Kitts, Guadeloupe and Martinique. The British found a way to keep their fleet in the Caribbean without having to return regularly to Europe for repairs. The Island of Antigua had a perfect harbor, deep enough and situated so that it gave protection from hurricanes and also hid the fleet from the French and Spanish. That harbor is English Harbor.

Pillars that once supported the sail loft for the British fleet.
Long boats came in to this slip and sails where lifted into the loft for repairs

 In Antigua we had fun in the sun with our friends on Seascape and Symphony including some beachy days at Pigeon Beach including Roy’s birthday lunch at Catherine’s right on the beach.  Dinner overlooking Falmouth Harbor at Cloggy's during the golden hours had us enjoying the moment but also remembering similar evenings with sailing buds Jane and Dave in 2015 and 2016. Of course, we had to re-visit Shirley Heights for the 20 piece Pan Band. 

Coggy's with Shane & Tanya from Seascape

Birthday Oysters

View of English & Falmouth Harbors (English in foreground)

Time moved on and so did we. As is the way with cruising life our departure for Guadeloupe meant going three separate ways as both Seascape and Symphony had guests arriving. We knew somewhere down island our waves would cross again.

Next Island Guadeloupe First stop Deshaies, a seaside French village so perfect it’s the home of “Death in Paradise”. This is a BBC production popular enough to be in its 12th season. Here we missed an opportunity to swim with dolphins. On arrival we saw an entire pod had decided to come into the harbor and play with the cruisers. Can’t believe we were too lazy to get the dinghy down and join the fun. (Is this what happens to septuagenarian cruisers, yikes!!!) Roy coined the word “ertia” as oppose inertia and we have been making sure we have more “ertia” ever since.

The restaurant where everyone gathers
 both on the show and in realty

The rectory doubles as the Honoré Police Station on TV

A green flash in the making

We ended our Guadeloupe visit by heading to The Saints, a group of tiny islands on the Southern tip of Guadeloupe. Such a beautiful place, with everything you want from a French Caribbean beach town. We enjoyed every moment and  more “ertia” finally got us to have a pretty good snorkeling trip. 

Endless rivers and falls 

Titus at the PAYS BBQ

 Next stop was Dominica, this is NOT the Dominican Republic. It’s the most undeveloped  and rugged of the islands. So fun to meet up with Titus again. He has been our PAYS guy there on every visit. We were delighted to see him and have him take care of us once more. The PAYS (Portsmouth Association of Yacht Services) guys do a superb job of taking care of the cruisers in Portsmouth Harbor even to having a floating water station for those of us without water makers.   Their ability and foresight in 2009 rescued Dominica from its frightful reputation for crime which used to make it an island every cruiser skipped. Nowadays, it's a favorite  stop on everyone’s agenda. 

The witches house, a leftover artifact from Pirates in the Caribbean (filmed partially in Dominica)

 

After 3 weeks it was on to another French island, Martinique. Oh boy, oh boy, we arranged to meet our friend Harvey Atkinson on SV Almacanta as he sailed up the island chain with a friend from his home on Carriacou. We met up in St Pierre in the shadow of the volcano, Mt Pelée. It's devastating eruption destroyed the town and killed most of the inhabitants and also destroyed many of the ships in the harbor where we were quietly swinging  at anchor.

 We had met Harvey (middle) and Rita, shortly after their arrival in the Caribbean from the UK, back in 2015. We became fast friends and together with SV Baidarka and SV Caribbean Dream spent hurricane season together in Grenada and Classic Sail Week in Antigua. Great times and still good friends. 

Shrimp from Louisiana came all the way from New Orleans - only the best for our friend.

Mt Pelee's eruption in 1902 destroyed the town of
St Pierre, the Paris of the Caribbean

This the remaining staircase to what was once the theater and 
opera house in St Pierre.

Ruins are still visible in the town

We skipped the capital of Fort de France this time and spent time gunk-holeing the various Anses (bays) in Southern Martinique. We eventually ended up in Le Marin and Ste Anne and rented a car for a day of inland travel that included rum!!

 

Habitation Clement!!

Owners House where Presidents Mitterrand and Bush met in 1991 after the
Gulf War for a Franco-American Summit.

Another 5 hours of sailing and we arrived in Rodney Bay, St Lucia and for the first time in over a year we took a berth in a marina for a few days. Boat work took all of our St Lucia time and all we did was say hi as we sailed past the mighty impressive Titons on our way to St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Weird!

The Mighty Titons

 

 

For once we skipped the big island of St Vincent and enjoyed an overnight sail to the first and largest island of the Grenadines, Bequia.

Sunsets while at sea are extra special

Every island is special in its own way. Picking a favorite is a fool’s task but Bequia is something else. Maybe it’s because your sailing season is either at its end in the late Spring or at its beginning in the Fall. But the easy breezy days in this island make me think of the long days of summer vacations when I was young. I always feel they will go on forever. 

I think I'm home

Admiralty Bay, Bequia

Finally! We met up with Billie & Joanna,
great friends from our last go round.

Bequia has a whaling tradition 
so naturally we visited to the museum

 

Drone photo of Wahoo in Bequia, thanks Todd from Symphony
Yes, Seascape and Symphony showed up while we were there.

Turtles are a thing throughout the Caribbean. All islands try to conserve habitat in Bequia there's a scantuary. We visited and here's an incredible little video that Tanya from Seascape took showing a 3 month old baby turtle trying to eat a fish. These are green turtles, they eat seafood until about 5 years old when they switch to a vegetarian diet.

The cool thing is when they do end you still get Tobago Cays, Union and any of the other tiny islands of the Grenadines you feel like stopping in. Much like sailing in Belize, these are just a short hop-pity sail away. Soon we will be in Grenada, hurricane hole for this sea.

Below are some scenes from the Grenadines.

Blue Tang schooling at Tobago Cays

Roy & I at Happy Bar - Union Island

                        Green Turtle -Tobago Cay

  

Arrival in Tobago Cays

 

 Is it Spring Yet?

Hard to believe but this year even in the Caribbean its been, well cool let's say. We sleep with the portholes closed and no fan on. We cover with  a sheet and absolutely find it hard to go for a swim. Yikes, where are we, Ohio? Would the rest of the US kindly keep their weather closer to home. Down here besides nights in the lower 70s we have screaming high winds, a humongous North swell and wind from who knows where. It's well past the weeks when we understand the idea of Christmas Winds. Chris Parker is saying to look forward to March and we are!!

St Martin is all about boat chores.
One of my favorites was raising the  stanchions and life lines to make it safer on the foredeck. 

Stell and Snugs at Lagoonies

Jamming on Kalunamo 

Driving around St Martin and oh what a view!

Finally Carburetor install

Seven weeks in St Martin and there was time for friends, music and many many boat chores. But once the "traveling" carburetor for the dinghy motor finally arrived (after its two trips to Paris and one to Japan) we started our goodbyes. 

We found a few days of calmer weather and knew it was time to leave St Martin behind, sigh sigh for those crusty warm French baguettes and the mussels, ohhh the mussels, mounds of them nestled in wine and garlic sauce with plenty of aforementioned bread to soak up the juices. 

Hard to get unstuck after so long but it was time. A day of checking out and passing through bridges, then an overnight in Simpson Bay and the next morning saw us on our way to St Bart's. 

This is the Causeway Bridge that crosses the St Martin/Sint Maarten Lagoon connecting the French side to the Dutch side. Later we went through the Simpson Bay Bridge which is the opening on the Dutch side into Simpson Bay and the Caribbean. 

The Island of SXM(St Martin/Sint Maarten showing the lagoon

Anchoring in Simpson Bay with the mega yachts. Wow!

Turtle

Gustavia shops

Now this isn't the St Bart's when Jimmy Buffet partied at Autour du Rocher or even used Le Select bar as his home away from home and walked in to amaze the patrons with stories and songs. No, Gustavia, the capital and main town is now home to shop after shop with little common names you know the easy ones; Dior, Ralph (Lauren) and even difficult ones like Dolce Gabbana. We can't even afford the bags but, hey, it's fun to look. We soon headed over to Anse du Columbier to swim with the turtles (too cold) and walk the beach(too much N swell to get the dinghy ashore). But we thrilled to be out of the St Martin lagoon and truly swinging at anchor with a sunset to enjoy each evening.

Both SXM and St Barts are filled with Mega
Yacthts. But what's a Mega Yactht
without its helicopter. 

Of course, that got old so we choose a "good enough" weather window to make the 30 NM jump South to St Kitts. St Kitts and Nevis, two islands-one country. Now we're in the "real" Caribbean where we can find road side stands of local veggies and the people say things like "you almost reached" when asked for directions. In St Kitts the roll producing swell pushed us further South to South
Frigate's Bay and one of our favorite beach restaurants, Shipwrecks. The monkeys are still around but seemed better behaved. Probably because the cruise ship folks invade on a regular basis to what used to be a local and/or cruiser hangout. Different vibes now-a-days. So we moved South again and this time were rewarded with two catamarans of friendly cruisers to hang with for a day in Basseterre, Capital of St Kitts, and also plan further adventures. 

Shipwreck w/o a cruise ship in the bay

Monkeys NOT stealing your drinks

We left our mark

The quick motor sail over to Nevis, just 12 miles away went well and other than losing the boat hook when I tried to catch a mooring ball, we settled right in. Hard not to fall in love with Nevis, and on our 2nd stop here we found even more to love. Plus brilliant sunset green flashes nearly every day!! We spent a beach day on the long stretch of Pinney Beach with Sunshine's beach bar supplying burgers and drinks, visited the birth place of Alexander Hamilton which now boasts a brand new statue of the man himself, and an island tour that took us to Hot Springs, Montpelier where Admiral Nelson and Fanny Nesbit got hitched, Nevis Botanical Garden and ended with         late lunch at beautiful Golden Rock.

At Montpelier Great House Where Adm Nelson and Fanny Nesbit wed

The Hot Spring Hotel
First hotel in the Caribbean

Roy & Tanya at one of the springs

In the Botanical Gardens

No photo can do justice to how beautiful Golden Rock is - but lunch was wonderful!

Tomorrow, the calmer winds of March are due a few days early so we'll be off to Antigua 45 miles to windward. (pronounced An-Ti-Ga as opposed to Antigua Guatemala which is pronounced An-Ti-Gua) 

For those of you who like a little history, here goes.

The islands of St Kitts and Nevis figure mightily in the early European history of the Caribbean. St Kitts (Saint Christopher when you're being formal) was visited by Columbus in November of 1493 on his 2nd voyage. For the next hundred or so years it was used by Spaniards, pirates and the French as a place to refill their fresh water supply from its hot springs. In 1607 John Smith stopped here on his way to founding Jamestown in what was to be the US. 

By the 17th Century the English established a colony on St Kitts, eventually leading to the slaughter of most of the native Carib Indians. The place of slaughter on St Kitts, after first inviting them to party and getting them drunk, is named Bloody Point. By 1640 the remaining Caribs were moved to Dominica. A "Plantation Economy" grew on both islands and eventually the nearby islands. The first crops were cotton, tobacco, ginger and indigo but eventually sugar reined as queen as more and more Africans were brought in by the slave trade. The vast wealth created by the sugar islands led to their being fought over by the ruling European countries of England, Spain and France during the ensuing centuries. St Kitts and Nevis remained in British hands and became the point of entry for the entire slave trade in the Caribbean and what's left of the original market is just a few steps from Hamilton's birthplace. It's believed that his early life on Nevis and St Croix led him in his hatred of slavery. (Did you know The New York Manumission Society was founded in 1785 the 31 founders included Alexander Hamilton?)

I'll leave you with a little Caribbean Carnival vibe