Grenada to St. Lucia 2009

We left Grenada more than 2 weeks ago to spend the next few months visiting the Windward and Leeward islands of the Caribbean. We apologize for not providing more frequent updates. Good internet access has been sporadic.

Here I am the day before our departure scrubbing the anchor chain. I would scrub a section, then Jim would pull a length of chain up and chip out the barnacles that had avoided my brush and formed inside the links. Even though I had scrubbed the chain every few weeks for the entire time we were in Grenada, that really only took care of the plant life and small barnacles on the outside. A coral reef had formed on the 20 feet or so of chain that hung suspended in the water from the surface to the bottom. The rest of the chain laid buried in the sand and was virtually clean.

Here's what the chain looked like before Jim started in on it with a screwdriver.

Once we left Grenada, we moved quickly up the island chain stopping for the night in Carriacou and Union Island before arriving in Bequia in the Grenadines. The sailing was not great. We had confused, sloppy seas north of Grenada. The winds at this time of year are E-NE so we are always close hauled, beating into the wind and big seas. Note to self; do this leg of the trip in November before the Christmas winds start to blow. They won't settle down until March, if we're lucky!

We were struck by how busy all of the anchorages were. Of course we came through here in June last year which is off season. But there are so many boats everywhere! Carriacou was packed. When we sailed past Saltwhistle Bay, Mayreau we counted 18 boats in a bay that seems crowded when there are 8. Bequia was packed and the moorings in Souffriere, St. Lucia were full. There is no such thing as the undiscovered Caribbean.

It was great to be back in Bequia! We love it there. It's a beautiful little island with a picturesque bay, lovely beaches, great restaurants and more.

In Bequia we met up with our friends Joe & Becky (Half Moon). It's been great spending time with them again. One of the highlights of our week in Bequia was attending the jam session at the Bequia Music Festival. This group was a Dixieland Jazz Band from New Orleans.

This are local artists from Bequia.

The jam session was great. I'm always amazed at the talent, how musicians who have never played together before can sound this great. We were lucky to be in Bequia when this was going on.

The next day we left early for St. Lucia. We did not recheck the forecast before we left and it had deteriorated. The winds and seas were fine in the channel between Bequia and St. Vincent although we did get some showers. Then we had the predictable no wind in the lee of St. Vincent. Out in the channel between St. Vincent and St. Lucia it got nasty. We had 20-28 kt winds with gusts in the mid-30's. The swell increased to 10 ft and the wave interval was not 9 seconds as predicted. It was more like 5-6 seconds. So we had 4 hours of big wind and seas as we guided Merengue up one side of a wave and down the other. The rail was in the water a lot and spray kept flying in on us. We arrived in St. Lucia tired and salty.

A few miles off shore the seas started to settle down and we had this rainbow beckoning us to come to St. Lucia.

In Souffriere, we picked up one of the last available moorings that was situated off the south shore of the bay near town. The first time we visited Soufriere was 20 years ago and while there are many more tourists visiting, little else has changed. We are always struck by the poverty here. Most of the houses are shacks with no plumbing. We saw children heading off to school but many more remained to play by the ocean all day. We were told that families have to pay to send their children to school. If this is true it's easy to see that most cannot afford to do that.

We think this is a pig-pen along the shore. During the day, the pigs roamed the rocky shore in front of the houses.

Just across the bay, a beautiful schooner-style cruise ship.

Jim couldn't resist a shot of this boat moored behind us. Hinano is one of his favorite beers because it comes from Tahiti. Hey, can we come over for happy hour?

Only about 15 miles north but about a million miles away from the poverty in Souffriere is Rodney Bay where we are anchored now. Named for Admiral Rodney of the British Navy this is a beautiful bay with beaches, hotels and restaurants. The only down side to this anchorage are the jet skiers who seem to like to use the anchored boats as an obstacle course. But hey, they're on vacation. Let them have their fun.

On Saturday we hiked up to the fort where Admiral Rodney kept an eye on the French in Martinique and then continued on up the hill to take in the view. You can just barely see the ruins of the fort at the tip of this peninsula.

It's always great when you come into a harbor and see friends you haven't seen in awhile. Here we are with David and Jan (M/V Deja Bleu) whom we haven't seen since Nov 2007 in Luperon, Dominican Republic.

Here are a few shots of ruins from the barracks and other buildings that made up the military complex that dates back to the 1700's.

See the rock sticking out of the water about a mile off-shore? You'll notice the side is hollowed out. Admiral Rodney had his troops use it for target practice.

Well, it looks like we may be in St. Lucia through next weekend if the seas don't settle down. We're getting some weird weather here. There are merging swells according to the weather sites, one from the east which is normal and the other from the northwest which is not typical. Consequently all the normally protected anchorages along the west shore have had about a 2 ft swell rolling through them. That makes cooking, sleeping and just living aboard uncomfortable. It's predicted to last all week but last night it settled down a bit and we were able to sleep well again.

When we leave St. Lucia we'll head to Martinique with Joe and Becky (Half Moon) to do some sightseeing. Then Jim and I will push north to meet friends in St. Martin in March.
Stay tuned!

Goodbye Sweet Grenada

After 6 months in Grenada, it's time to say goodbye. I think when your courtesy flag starts to fall apart it's just it's way of telling you you've been here a long time!

Good sailing weather is sporadic at this time of year. We've had lots of wind and big seas for the past week. The winds have moderated and the seas are coming down but just about the time it starts looking good, wind and seas pick up again. We plan on heading to Carriacou in the morning and then will continue to move north as weather permits. So stay tuned as Merengue and crew visit new places and some old favorites. And thank you Grenada. We're going to miss you!

Bully for Jim!

Happy New Year everyone!

Hope you enjoyed the holidays.

Christmas was followed up by many more get-togethers with friends, aboard boats and at restaurants and happy hours around the island. We spent New Years Eve aboard Bellagio and then watched the fireworks over Prickly Bay from Merengue's bow. Beautiful!

I've also been getting a lot of walking in, usually with a group of women who like to walk several mornings a week. Here's a view of Prickly Bay from the hill on the east side of the bay.

The day after New Years it was back into the Immigration office in St. George's to ask for another 30 day extension. Let's see, what shall we tell them this time? We have a legitimate reason. We're waiting for new passports. Fill out the forms again, pay $25EC/pp ($9.36 U.S.) and we're good for another 30 days.

Since we thought it would be our last trip into St. George's we decided to have lunch at one of our favorite spots, the Carenage Cafe. We love to sit on the patio with a cold Carib Beer and watch the hustle and bustle of the town go by. We also love the rotis they serve.


On every visit we see this sign showing the various fruit punches and milk shakes they serve but we never order them. Jim has always been intrigued by "The Bull", the mix of Guinness, sea moss, oats, egg, peanut and milk so it was time to grab the bull by the horns and try one. After all, you've heard the slogan, "Guinness for Strength!" I was much more conservative and ordered the "Peanut Slide." Both were delicious! Why did we wait so long!

On January 8th we picked up our new passports at the U.S. Consulate. It took 3 weeks to get them, not bad considering holiday delays and the fact that we are more than 2,000 miles away. So we are good to go! What is it they say, God giveth and God taketh away. The day after our passports arrived the winds picked up to 20-25 knots with 8-11 ft seas. No end in sight for a week. So we wait. I guess we have time for another Bull.

Magazine Article

Just to let everyone know. Wendy's new article, The Cruising Life 10 Things They Don't Tell You, is now published in Blue Water Sailing. Congratulations!

Jim and Bailey

Christmas in Paradise

We had a lovely Christmas on this beautiful island. I was asked recently if I missed snow at Christmas? I'm not sure if Jim and I have ever missed snow! But having grown up in the midwest, I do associate snow with Christmas. Also the smell of a Christmas tree, baking cookies with my friend Marcia, singing "Sisters" from the movie White Christmas with my sister Connie, wrapping lots of presents and then spending time with family and friends. But even without that, this was a good Christmas spent with some very special people we've come to think of as our cruising family.

There were 12 of us together for a potluck dinner. We decided there wasn't a boat big enough for all of us so we gathered at the Prickly Bay marina. As usual, it was a feast! You've seen our friends before, here they are again!

Manon (Le Bete) and Randy & Lynn (High States)

Kathy & Kerry (Bellagio)

Gervais (Le Bete), Marie France & Gilles (Phoenix III) and Yvon (Taima)

Marie France and Gervais. The photographer was busy eating so Wendy had to step in. I goofed and cut Tom (Spiritus) out of the picture. Sorry!

Jim trying to keep all of Gilles baked ham for himself!

While the snow blew back home we celebrated under blue skies with a temperature in the mid 80's. Later, back at the boat it was time for a swim under a star-filled sky. No, we don't miss the snow.

Merry Christmas from Grenada

Once again, we've decorated Merengue for the holidays. This year we've added 12 volt LED Christmas lights which we've strung around the cockpit. It's quite pretty and festive when we're sitting on deck or when viewed from our neighbors boats.
We began our celebrating by attending a Christmas Concert at a church in Grenville. Valerie Daniel, an opera singer from Grenada puts on a concert every year. It was a mix of classical music and Christmas carols. As we sat in the church, looking out through the windows to the view of palm trees and ocean, I couldn't help but think how lucky we are to be doing what we're doing. This is a beautiful place. We have a very good life.

Here we are before the concert with a couple of Kiwi's, New Zealanders Judy and Barry from S/V Bodacious.

A smiling face of Grenada and our usher for the evening.

The inside of St. Andrew the Apostle church. The priest said something in his blessing that was so perfect. "When words fail us, music takes over."

Several videos of the concert appeared on youtube.com. One is of Cecil Bartholomew, an incredible guitar player. The second is of Aixa Miguen, a 23 year old violinist from Cuba. You can hear them via the links below:

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/grenada-cecil-bartholomew-on-guitar/1072509672

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj2X8Lk7254

We'll leave you with this picture of Bailey. As we get ready to celebrate the holiday, we'd like to wish all our family and friends a very Merry Christmas.

Trip to the U.S. Consulate

We've been hearing from more and more people who enjoy reading our blog. Thank you for your comments. We love hearing from you. We know that many of you follow our blog for the sailing and you've probably been wondering when we'll get around to that again. We will, we promise! We're not ready to settle down in just one harbor as of yet! If you had told me that we would be in Grenada through New Years I would have said you're crazy but here we are!

There have been several reasons for the delay. First it was the haul-out to repair the cutlass bearing then it was friends arriving from Trinidad. The latest is the renewal of our U.S. Passports. Our passports expire in 2009 and we had researched how and where we could do the renewal. The U.S. Department of State website listed Trinidad, Barbados and Puerto Rico as the locations in the Caribbean where we could do this. There is a consulate in Grenada but it isn't listed as a site for passport renewal. Several cruisers also told us that they had inquired about renewals but had been told not in Grenada. Then last weekend as I'm doing laundry at the marina in preparation for leaving another cruiser happens to mention that they just had their passports renewed through the consulate. "Quick and easy, only took about 2 weeks." !!%#**!!!What!!! You mean the website is wrong? We've been here for 5 months and could have taken care of this! So Monday morning we called to inquire about the renewal and were given an appointment for Wednesday. With forms and photos in hand we headed off to the consulate. A trip through the metal detector and a search of our backpack (no cameras or cell phones allowed in the consulate) and we were in. The staff was very helpful and we should have our new passports in 2-3 weeks. We are so glad we can have this taken care of here. But still frustrated that we didn't learn about it sooner. We thought we did our research. We thought the website would be accurate. But, I also realize that part of our impatience is a habit or character trait learned from living in the states. We've learned to live slower, take things in stride, just be limin'. But every now and then we regress. 3 more weeks in Grenada is certainly not a bad thing! We love it here. Christmas will now be spent in the company of good friends, another bonus.

So yes, you sailors out there will get to see us sailing soon. When we leave Grenada in January we'll head north through the Windward and Leeward islands going no further than St. Martin and returning to Grenada for next hurricane season. At least that's the plan for now! Stay tuned.