St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Part 3
Shelly On The Beach, Chatham Bay
After all the excitement of the first half of the trip, things settled down a bit. We had become familiar enough with the, ah, nuances, of the La Paloma to be comfortable in most of the sailing situations we would encounter.
One of the cool things we saw at almost every island were these big, multi-mast sailing ships. Everything from three to five masts, some of them were cruise ships that had accommodations for maybe up to 100 people or more. The really big ships would anchor way out at the entrance of the bays and most of them would have their masts lit up at night. Also, I guess Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed on St. Vincent and one of the Gaff rigged ships used in the movie was anchored at Tobago Cays.
We also met some interesting people over the course of the trip. One family from New York had chartered a mono-hull and 
went through the briefing the same day we did. They anchored near us in the Cays (actually too close to us) and invited us for happy hour one night. We also met a group of Canadians, eh! They were in the cat on the right. We met them at a lobster barbecue at Chatham Bay. They were having a good ‘ol time and invited us to sit with them for dinner. After dinner we were “treated” to live music that consisted of one guy singing reggae songs while strumming a painfully out-of-tune guitar. The next day we both sailed to Saline Bay on Mayreau Island where we were invited to their cat for happy hour. It was amazingly large and modern compared to our boat and cost about twice what we were paying. We prefer mono-hulls though, they can sail more directly into the wind.
The most interesting couple had been living on their small, 34-foot sailboat for 7 years. In that time they had circumnavigated the world, among other things. Their boat was called the Coromandel. They were British and so between them had a bunch of experience prior to living on their boat, but they told us that sailing around the world is quite easy. You follow the trade winds that continuously blow in the same direction all around the globe.
The last two days of sailing were tough. We sailed from Mayreau to Bequia, about 25 miles upwind, in one day. It was about 7 hours of having the boat heeled to one side while riding bumpy waves. The following day was only about two hours back to St. Vincent but the seas were of course a bit rougher in the Bequia Channel.
All-in-all a great trip. Our goal was to sail somewhere a bit more challenging than in the past an we got what we asked for. As a matter of fact, I think we’re going to have a difficult time tolerating winds less than 20 mph, they’ll seem much to wimpy!
Posted in Sailing by Mark with comments disabled.