11-04-02 We are back in Carriacou again (scene of our brush with TS Lili just over a month ago). Fortunately, this time the weather is much better. Pat's Grenada visa expires on Friday this week, Nov 8th, but Colleen received an extension since she exited/entered the country again via aircraft. In any case. we will be leaving Carriacou for Union Island Wednesday or Thursday. Union Island is part of the country of "St. Vincent and the Grenadines". We will probably stop at Union Island, the Tobago Cays, Canouan, and Bequia in this country before we leave for St. Lucia, the next island on the way north.
11-12-02 We've made our way up the Grenadine chain and are now in Bequia (Lat 13°00'N//Lon 61°14'W). On our way here, we blew out our mainsail with a wind bullet off the northern tip of Canouan island. A wind bullet is a gust of wind accelerated off a mountain peak. The tear is at the back edge of the sail and "L" shaped - 5 feet long by 1.5 feet high. One of the local sail lofts will repair it for us, since it is too large and complex a tear to patch ourselves. Poor SIMMER's sails are getting a bit tired after 30,000 miles and the strong, gusty upwind sailing here in the Caribbean doesn't help. The mainsail material is actually in good shape, we're keeping our fingers crossed that it gets us home. The island of Bequia (pronounced BECK-way) is the northernmost of the Grenadines islands and just south of St. Vincent. We are anchored in Admiralty Bay off of the main village of Port Elizabeth and we're looking forward to exploring this little 7 sq. mile island of "sailors and whalers". Bequia used to be an active whaling station and many boats are built here on the beach under the shade of the palm trees. The traditional boats include small two-bow fishing boats (pointy at both ends like SIMMER), small model boats, and grand schooners all built by eye using simple hand tools. We've seen some beautiful craft resting on the beach in the shade, but none sailing yet. Bequians are descendants of settlers who came from North America on whaling boats, from farms on Scotland, from French freebooters and from Africa. The island's architecture reflects some of the Nantucket (New England, USA) gingerbread - fancy, cut-out woodworking. The cottages are lovely painted in soft Caribbean pastels with bright white gingerbread and the green hilly terrain with surrounding turquoise waters enhances their beauty. Even the bus stops are quaint with shingled roofs and gingerbread trim. Bequia has a small, intimate feel about it - quite different from the other flash and fancy resort-type islands in the Caribbean. We think it's one of the Caribbean best-kept secrets. The only downside is the increasing expense, as we travel north through the islands. For example, we just paid $6.00 US for 4 small tomatoes. That's $1.50 a piece! Ouch. All of the fruit and veg is expensive because it is imported. There is some local produce - especially bananas, but not in the quantities sufficient for all the tourists.
11-17-02 We are in our 4th Caribbean nation - St. Lucia (Lat 14°05'N/Lon 60°57'W), and starting to check-off islands on our list as we travel north. St Lucia is a high, green island with a mountainous interior, sandy beaches and a fairly large island with land area of 238 sq. miles. The most dramatic scenery is in the south where the twin peaks of the Pitons rise sharply 2,500 ft straight up from the sea. The Pitons form one of the eastern Caribbean's most distinctive landmarks and sailing past them was reminiscent of the majestic Marquesas in the South Pacific. St. Lucia has a population of about 150,000 and a mix of African, English, French, and Caribbean cultures. About 85% of the population is of pure African descent. In the last few years St. Lucia has become a tourist destination with many resorts along the beach fronts, especially along the northwest coast where we are anchored in Rodney Bay.
11-20-02 We've been in St. Lucia now 5 days and almost 4 and a half of them in rain showers. Haven't had a change to see much ashore. Been working on a few projects on the boat instead. Remember that saying "cruising is maintaining your boat in exotic ports"? .... How true. Pat had to replace the exhaust elbow on the diesel engine since a fitting cracked and caused sooty salt-water to spray all over inside the engine compartment and steam to pour out of the cockpit lockers! Luckily we were able to sail into Rodney Bay without the engine, tack into the beach and drop the anchor. And we had the spares onboard to rebuild the system. Just a mess to clean up. Also experimenting with our engine starting system. The engine has become more difficult to start (glow plug/starting switch combination). Pat replaced all the wiring in Grenada thinking that may be the problem, but no difference. So now we changed the switch and it is definitely better. Hopefully we'll get ashore to see more of St. Lucia in the next day or two before we leave for Martinique.
11-28-02 Happy Thanksgiving to our family and all our American friends. We are in the French island of Martinique and have much to be thankful for this year as we are healthy, happy and back in our home ocean ... also our family is all well back in the States. We are anchored in St. Anne, Martinique (Lat 14°26.2'N/Lon 60°53.2'W) and will be having mahi-mahi, turkey and all the trimmings later today with our good friends George and Susi from Vienna on "Tortilla Flat". We caught up a few days ago when we arrived in Martinique. We haven't seen them since we sailed out of Cape Town, S. Africa together 8 months ago. They sailed onto Venezuela while we stayed in Tobago and Grenada for hurricane season. How great to see them again. We are loving Martinique - a breath of civilization with quaint villages, great food, cheap French wine, baguettes and a scrubbed-clean look. An interesting tidbit of Martinique history: Napoleon's beloved Josephine was born and raised here on a slave estate. The island is very French with a bit of Creole mixed in. We've only been in the southern end of the island so far (8 days) and will move northward up the coast in the next week.
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