This is one of our favorite anchorages in the BVIs, well protected and nice and flat, shore tieing with friends and a nice sandy bottom to land the anchor in.
We had a BBQ and bonfire on the beach. Burgers, salads, lobster, and steak.
We have had a lot of fun on SUPs and dinghies in this little bay, but we recently added fenders to the club for in-water beers.
One new addition to the dinghy fun was the invention of dinghy baseball. We were all playing so have no pictures, but let me try and paint a picture.
Take 1 SUP and 3 dinghies. The batter has a dinghy and uses a dinghy paddle to hit the ball with. The thrower is on a SUP tied to a shore tie line. The ball must be hit out into the bay and the batter must then untie and drive the dinghy around a boat and a bouy coming back to the shore tie line. The team of fielders has 2 dinghies and must retrieve the ball and get the batter out by making the ball hit them before they get back to the shore tie line. Probably not the safest sport, but very fun!
We were all running rather low on beer, but managed to grab a free 6 pack from a nearby charter catamaran 🎉, all it took was a little dinghy trip (with Tomas being towed still in his fender chair). They were however Bud Lights…
More great food was also had, we probably ate a whole pack of bacon in a day and a half across three meals. With freshly baked bread we made a magnificent breakfast sandwich. Also a bacon salad, and a tasty potato bake thingy.
The snorkeling in the bay isn’t super interesting, but the water is still, very clear and there are a few things of interest.
One thing we have recently been spotting is a turtle missing a leg!
But also these interesting little jelly things, known as “Crown Jellies”.
One not so great moment of the week was when Kathryn went into the aft cabin to get some chocolate M&Ms, and spotted a large cockroach on the ceiling. We managed to quickly catch it with a boat hook and a bowl and kill it off the boat, and while looking closely at it in the bowl we are pretty sure it was a male, so we shouldn’t have any future cockroach problems. Our only guess is that while filling up with fuel and water at the fuel dock a day or so prior it must have hopped aboard 😓.
We are writing this on the 7th May at 8am, and we have not yet checked the weather this morning, but last night it looked like we would be leaving on the 8th May (tomorrow).
It’s not ideal, with high pressures and low wind zones dominating the first week of sailing, but we should have enough wind to get going, even if we lose it in a few days. The forecasts are still quite changeable, so we will see how it goes!
The weather routing on Predict Wind still doesn’t look ideal, but at least one route on departure planning for tomorrow takes us in the direction we want to head.
Time for one last trip to the shop in Road Town, then heading to a Marina for 1 night if they have space, showers, laundry, a meal out perhaps, and then checking out and setting off in the morning!
We have been watching the weather looking for the right window to start the Atlantic crossing either to Bermuda or the Azores now for some time now, but no apparent window presented itself. So we must spend some more time exploring the BVIs!
The Little Harbour anchorage that we still occupy was slowly transforming, from our monohull haven to a catamaran party.
In fact, once our 3 monohull friends had left, they were replaced by an 80ft catamaran (that slightly blocked our sunsets 🥲)
Continuing to snorkel the bay, we had one of our best octopus encounters to date.
Octopuses can be difficult to see while snorkeling because they are masters of camouflage and have the ability to change the color and texture of their skin to blend in with their surroundings. They are also able to contort their bodies into tight spaces and hide in crevices or under rocks, making them hard to spot. In addition, octopuses are generally nocturnal creatures, so they may be less active and visible during the day when snorkeling is most common. Overall, the combination of their camouflage abilities, hiding behaviors, and nocturnal nature can make octopuses challenging to observe while snorkeling, but with patience and careful observation, it is still possible to catch a glimpse of these fascinating creatures.
Just as we were about to hop back onboard Hannah after a snorkel session, we saw it! This is a Brazillian Reef Octopus.
As the day drew to a close, the folks on the 80ft catamaran next to us cracked out their electric hydrofoil board to have some fun on too.
Over the next few days, we would sail all the way around the island of Tortula, head off to a little snorkel spot for 1 night, and arrive back in Little Harbour some days later.
We once again met up with Blue Note, Extress, and now also Atlas in Brewers Bay, where we once again enjoyed a floating SUP bar near the beach.
No evidence of this SUP bar, however, there is evidence of other beach and boat-related antics.
We spent a few days in the bay, relaxing, having a beer or 2, and snorkeling around.
Flat fishElkhorn Coral – Endangered species
On our last day in the bay, a catamaran that had anchored nearby came over and gave us a bunch of their leftover food from their 2-week trip, as they were about to return the boat (what lovely people). This included desiccated coconut, wraps, red cabbage, numerous limes, potatoes, onions, sauces, seasoning, wine, sparkling wine, some tins, pasta/pasta sauces, crackers, and more…
We took these supplies and tried to split them up a bit among the other monohulls so everyone got something🙂
Even since leaving Portugal, we have had a jar of francesinha sauce that we have been meaning to use. Finally, we had all of the components together, freshly baked bread, the sauce, a strip of steak, eggs, cheese, and some other meats.
Now our creation doesn’t quite live up to the one we ate in Porto, the presentation was hard, but it was damn tasty.
Continuing to sail around Tortula we anchored near Blue Note for another night, sharing the free wine from the catamaran and finally sharing one of our “famous” tinned Fray Bentos pies with them, along with roast carrots, peas, cheesy mashed potato, onions, and gravy.
We then had a leisurely sail around to Norman Island which we had heard had some good snorkeling.
The next day we had another short sail back to Little Harbour, and the total calm and stillness of this great anchorage.
Quite unplanned, but a few minutes later, both Blue Note and Extress arrive in the anchorage as well, with Atlas arriving the following day.
Time for some more relaxing time in Little Harbour, waiting for the weather to do something… Currently, there is very little wind for multiple days on the trot, we might however be able to use this to our advantage and have a break a few days into the sail.
After our little beach party, we all wanted to move anchorage to find somewhere slightly flatter and to explore the BVIs some more. Some of our boat friends such as Danae and Vela had already spent quite some time in the BVIs and had recommended a spot called Little Harbour, come to think of it SV Zoe whom we met back in Portugal also recommended this anchorage to us, as we have a waypoint set form them.
So our little convoy set off to Little Harbour.
Despite our best efforts, Blue Note, Extress and Escapade all beat us to anchor, but no worries, there was plenty of space to anchor and tie to shore (though that wouldn’t be the case in the coming days).
Escapade put their drone up and got what might be one of our favorite shots from the whole trip so far…
The water in the BVIs is super clear, as you can see in the drone shot above. The one downside of Little Harbour is there is not much beach, and what beach there is is rather stoney.
To get around this while enjoying the cooling sea we created a floating SUP bar for 8!
Little did we know, this was the start of a magical 4 days anchored in Little Harbour, including joint meals switching between the 4 boats, and 3 day trips out all on 1 boat per day.
Outing number one took us to The Indians aboard Extress where we picked up a buoy and snorkeled around some lovely rocks. There wasn’t much wind so motored there and back again, so taking one boat really made sense!
The snorkeling here included a bit of a drop-off filled with sea life, and a cave that we could swim through.
The second outing took us to Salt Island to snorkel around a wreck. The weather for this sail wasn’t so nice, and we ended up sheltering down below aboard Escapade to hide from the rain for most of the journey to the moorings.
Once getting in the water at Salt Island we found a fairly strong current dragging us past the wreck (just about okay to swim against), but snorkeling on the wreck was quite a bit of effort and it was fairly deep.
The wreck is of the RMS Rhone, which was a Royal Mail Ship that sank in a hurricane in 1867. The size of the propeller on this wreck was rather insane.
Thirdly we headed to Road Town aboard Blue Note to visit the chandlery, throw out some trash, do some shopping, and fill up a bunch of water jerry cans. To make this easier, as we would be shopping, we actually took 3 dinghies with us!
We even managed to sail on the way back to the anchorage!
That night the dinner was Paella aboard Hannah Penn for 8, one of the largest paellas we have had to make ever, let alone on board Hannah with smaller hobs and pans. It was delicious, but we were also apparently enjoying ourselves too much to have any foody pictures.
Fun was had, and as the night continued many hats came out…
Escapade were the first boat to leave Little Harbour, setting sail once again to Saint Martin where they would be restocking, picking someone up from the airport, and also leaving for the crossing from.
Extress and Blue Note also headed off to other anchorages one by one over the coming days.
For us aboard Hannah, it’s boat job time…
Rig check
Fitting the water flow switch for the UV light
Adding string to mast steps
etc…
Some of this will be covered in future posts, and we can wrap this post up with the great turtle we saw with a shark sucker on its back in the bay.
We also went snorkeling and saw some Yellowhead Jawfish under the boat. These little fish swim backward into their holes in the sand when you approach, but also have these funny little faces.
The weather still wasn’t perfect, but in this anchorage, we made another boat friend that we would spend the next few days on St Kitts with. Sailing Yacht Zora.
Interestingly while we had some severe westerly winds the night before, they had some severe easterly winds that had actually caused them to drag anchor out to sea a little. We can only assume that the small stormy system passed right in between St Kitts and St Nevis, causing the swirling wind on both islands.
In theory, there was a wreck in the anchorage to snorkel on, so we headed out together, but couldn’t locate it. But the snorkeling was still pretty good.
This seems as good a post as any to say that you can actually follow along with most of the nature stuff that we see on a site called iNaturalist on adams profile.
From this snorkel session, for example, we have all of these observations, and more, recorded…
We sailed with Zora to a new anchorage, had a walk around a town, did some shopping, and had some lunch. The anchorage was horribly rolley giving us memories of Montserrat, so we all agreed to head somewhere else to allow for a better nights sleep.
Here there was actually a wreck, but in the 2017 hurricane, it got washed up onto the shore.
One of the best parts of this snorkel session was the small group of Caribbean reef squid that seemed to like hanging out near the rudder of Hannah.
We had some sundowners aboard Zora where we also met 2 other boats and chatted about all of our very different travels through the Caribbean.
Wanting to move on to St Martin so that we could also move on to the BVIs we headed to another anchorage a few days later so that we could check out and set sail.
As often happens in the Caribbean there was a festival of some sort going on as we were walking through the town, which included some plank walking! Who can get the furthest?
The anchorage was even more rolly here than we had had in the previous week or so. So we decided to spend as much time on land as possible, using up our remaining XCD currency which we would no longer be needing in a nice restaurant. We made sure to have some leftovers to being back to Hannah for our night sail on to St Martin.
Here you can see how rolly the boat was, no chance of sleep on that.
We arrived in jolly harbour on the … after a slow motor sail from Guadeloupe with about 2-3 knots of wind.
Check in here is very strict and it’s the first place that’s actually asked if we have a courtesy flag, luckily we had one already and after a while of doing paperwork and $80XCD we were free to explore the island.
The anchorage at jolly harbour was picturesque with turquoise waters but the water was actually pretty murky so we didn’t go in the sea at this point. But we did go out and have a nice lunch, explore a beach and generally walk around.
3 of our friends were due to fly in to Antigua for a weeks holiday onboard Hannah Penn with us so we set sail for the eastern side of the island to be closer to the airport for pickup.
With fairly strong winds we flew round the northern end of the island tacking every 10mins or so to stay inside the reefs. Another boat was doing just the same and we were able to catch up with them in a little unspoken tacking race before entering a shallow and narrow channel which took us into …. Bay.
After a good boat tidy and clean we went to pick up Tom, Harriet and Ollie in the dinghy, somehow we managed to fit all 5 of us plus luggage, including the extra hold bag of things they’d brought for us from home in our 2 person dingy and got everyone back to the boat without getting wet!
Some spag bol, garlic bread and a catch up later we all hit the hay ready to start a fun week of sailing.
The first day was exciting and memorable, starting off by sailing off anchor in very little wind in very protected waters, then the wind went from 5knots to 20+ in a matter of seconds as we left the bay, we quickly put a reef in the main and Genoa and dropped the mizzen.. this was the expected wind for the whole week, but after turning down the east coast we levelled out on a broad reach
Out of nowhere Adam spotted a huge splash to our starboard side and to everyone’s surprise it was humpback whales! A mother and baby we think, breaching and tail slapping over and over. I don’t think we could have had a better first morning.
By lunchtime we arrived at ‘StingRay City Antigua’ which is a semi captive population of Southern Stingrays (fed for tourist attraction)
We didn’t want a tour but did want to see some rays so went for a snorkel when the tour boats left.
The same day we sailed a little further south to a protected bay on green island as we knew some big swell would be rolling in from the northeast.
We took the free mooring buoy there and I decided it was in acceptable condition if we put a back up line down to the stake itself in the seabed as the buoys chain was in a poor state and lashed together with rope!
After a windy but stable night we braved the swelly ocean to get to Falmouth Harbour on the south of the island, it was an uncomfortable sail where at one point Adam who was on the helm got thrown across the cockpit by a wave hitting us side on, he stayed mostly upright and still holding onto the wheel so no harm done.
On arrival we all had a break and then decided it was a good time and place to do a little belated birthday celebration for Tom and Adam by going out for dinner at a place called Cloggy’s
The next day we moved from the northern part of the bay to near the entrance to go snorkelling, the water was nice and clear and we got to see a spotted eagle ray and some colourful fish, even got an underwater selfie.
Sunday came around and we’d heard … lookout in English harbour puts on a bbq with music a couple nights a week, so we upped anchor again and set off on the very short journey to get to English harbour ready for a big hill climb to get to the lookout in the evening.
After anchoring in the most popular outermost anchorage and not being happy with the bay we moved further in to find an alternative and what a great one we found, we shore tied to the mangroves and had a wonderful peaceful spot.
The view over the bay from the lookout was stunning even if we were a bit late for the sunset, the bbq was tasty and the music was fun, a lonely evening spent with lovely people.
We spent some time exploring the area and Nelsons dockyard and went for breakfast at a local cafe as well as getting part of the Genoa re stitched by the sailmakers of a good speedy job done by ….
Next we snorkelled at Cade reef where we saw more rays and some fish called ‘shark suckers’.
Our goal was to circumnavigate the island in the week so next we pushed on to Jolly Harbour and then to Deep Bay where we snorkelled an interesting wreck of a British three masted sailing boat which was carrying barrels of tar to Chile when they started to overheat, the boat caught fire and sank in …. All crew survived and the wreck is in outstanding condition, you can see the bow sprit, whole hull super structure and masts with intact lookout point.
<We might insert a wreck dive video here soon, but we are currently at our daily YouTube upload limit…>
With our guests due to leave in two days we headed back to the first bay to climb up bird island for one last spectacular sunset and some scheduled ‘dicking about on a boat’ time where we SUP boarded behind the boat. Tom took this opportunity to look like he was walking the boat like a dog on a lead whereas Ollie had more of a water boarding than a paddle boarding session.
We had completed an entire Antigua lap, and that was quite satisfying, even if we forgot to turn the Garmin on to track the route sometimes….
The following day we said farewell over a last lunch and waved them off in a taxi to the airport.
We had just had a lovely light wind sail over to Marie-Galante, which is a round island just south of mainland Guadeloupe, on the lookout for some crystal turquoise waters we went to Anse de Mays, an anchorage on north west of the island.
It looked very picturesque so after anchoring I took the waterproof camera and jumped in. Immediately I was greeted with some of the most inquisitive fish I’ve come across. Later I found out they are juvenile Highfin Amberjacks and all they wanted to do was say hello and follow me around🐟 they were so friendly I could almost touch them.
There was also a huge shoal of Bigeye Scad, and swimming through them I was engulfed in little fishies! It was really quite cool.
A few other things were starfish, a gold spotted eel, and a perfect sand dollar.
The next day we went for a sail, probably in the least wind we’ve ever sailed in! Was about 3knots of wind, we were able to pull up anchor without the engine, hoist sails and get going though, probably thanks to our ultra clean new antifouling gliding through the water!
We pootled along at 1.5knots and really enjoyed the tranquility, we could see every starfish on the bottom and Hannah Penn’s shadow on the seabed was really cool too.
Even had a go standing on the bowsprit whilst sailing.
During the sail we kept hearing loud splashes but could never see what was making them, I had to go and investigate, Adam kept sailing I leapt in with snorkel and flippers, it didn’t take long to see huge sea turtles swimming around, I took hold of a line out the back of the boat and got towed along whilst looking at these magical creatures 🐢
We eventually arrived at the next anchorage, which was only about 3miles away and I think it took us about 2.5hrs and got ready to go to land, there wasn’t much to do there but there was a fun looking bar which had some very tasty fruit cocktails 🍹 We took a table in the sunshine and the bar dog came and laid down next to us in the sand, a few moments after getting our drinks a brave little Bananaquit bird came to try and steal the sugar off the rim of my glass!
We realized Björn and Linda off SV Sirena were in the bar sitting behind us, we didn’t really know them so thought we’d say hi, and had a lovely time chatting before heading back to Hannah for dinner.
The next day our plan was to go to an anchorage called Petite Terre.
It was on a reserve so we needed to book and pay in advance, we sailed over in very nice conditions, not much swell or waves and a little wind, which we thought was going to be perfect for the approach. This anchorage is notorious for dangerous approach conditions due to breaking waves across the entrance to a lagoon like area protected from reefs on the east side
So we arrived and got our sails down and engine on ready to go in about a mile out, we could see though that the little swell that was outside was growing in size due to the shallower waters around the little island and the effect of the wind coming from the other direction whipping up the waves into steep peaks.
We were counting the swells coming in and watching from afar to see if we could get in, in-between the waves which were really quite large, we inched closer to find most of these waves were breaking all the way across the entrance and quickly looked behind us to see what was coming
At that moment we both thought the wave bearing down on us was far too big to purposefully surf down so we quickly spun the boat around and throttled down to ride up the wave, it was quite an adrenaline-filled moment as we both held on as Hannah Penn’s nose rose up, we reached the peak and smashed down the other side dipping the whole bow under the water before popping back up again
And at that point, we agreed it was a terrible idea to continue going in so we put our sails back up and headed out.. this time not back to Guadeloupe but to Antigua!!
Located in the heart of the Caribbean Sea, Martinique is a picturesque island paradise that’s a must-visit destination for sailors. With its stunning beaches, crystal-clear waters, and year-round tropical climate, Martinique is the perfect place for an adventure. From the charming coastal towns to the lush rainforests and towering peaks, there’s no shortage of natural beauty to discover.
We sailed from the marina at Rodney Bay, leaving slightly later than planned as we couldn’t check out at immigration over lunchtime, so after a slow morning we set sail after lunch. We were beating hard into wind and waves, slowing progress significantly, and decided to motor sail most of the way so we didn’t get in at midnight. It was still after dark by the time we arrived but having read the reviews on Navily about the Saint Anne anchorage we knew it was going to be safe to do so, it is by far the biggest anchorage with the most boats we’ve ever been to, it still had loads of room and the whole bay was a perfect 5m deep with a sandy bottom. In the morning we looked out onto the sheer scale of boats we were anchored amongst, hundreds and hundreds on sailboats.
Our search for a cheap food shop finally came to an end when we found a ‘Leader Price’! So we went to town on stocking up the boat, It’s perfectly aimed at cruisers with a dinghy dock right next to the shop which you can take your trolley down to. Martinique is a French island so it’s well connected to mainland France with all its great cheese and wine, after this we had the fridge full to the brim, well for the next week at least as we ate through all the fresh produce pretty quickly with lots of people on board.
We knew one of our boat buddies Vela was going to be sailing into the same bay, Saint Anne after crossing from St Lucia that day so we decided to invite them over for a lasagne dinner, they loved the invite after a long day’s sail. Cooking for 8 on a small boat is always a laugh, I think we ate 5 lasagnas with no leftovers 😂
As a gift in the morning from Vela we got a delivery of croissants and fresh bread from a bakery on shore.
On XXX we went snorkeling on the reef at the channel entrance into Le Marin, this was one of the first times we got to try out our new dinghy anchor which we bought in a Chandlery in Rodney Bay. The anchor was well set and we all jumped in to explore the underwater world, not long later I looked up to check on the dinghy which turned out to be much further away than expected! I yelled to Adam “It’s floating away!!” Adam quickly jumped into action and swam after it, only later realizing he still had his snorkeling weights on which made it hard work, luckily he made it to the dinghy and the kill cord was still in the kill switch, so not long and he was back. Turns out the knot had come undone between the dinghy line and the anchor line, after that, we tied it together with bowlines, not reef knots, and haven’t had a drifting dinghy since!
Despite this, we all managed to have a great look around.
We wanted to explore something land-based so we climbed the hill in St Anne up to a religious shrine/ outdoor church and got some lush views on the way (including the picture of the St Anne anchorage earlier in this post)
In the evening we found a very popular beach bar and got some drinks, when the sun started to set we found out why it was so special, the view of the anchorage in front of the setting sun was spectacular.
Daisy makes a cracking carbonara so she whipped us up a quick dinner that evening with copious amounts of pasta 🤤
The mission the following morning was to pick up our 5th crew member, as Andrew flew into Martinique later that day! We sailed out of the lovely protection on Saint Anne and around the southwestern corner of the island to Anse Noir where we did a quick shuffle around of people and got his bed sorted and then picked him up from the pontoon in the little bay in the late afternoon.
Having 5 onboard, where not everyone knows each other/ only one couple was a new experience, it meant Kathryn and Daisy shared the double in the saloon and Adam and Andrew shared the double in the front! Anna got a good deal in keeping the aft cabin to herself 😋
We had organized to go canyoning near Fort Du France the following day so after a very early start we sailed across the bay which only took about an hour to the busy anchorage at Fort du France. Just to add to the time constraint we found the holding to be rubbish so we ended up setting an anchor 3 times which never happens, finally happy that Hannah Penn was not going to drift away after we left, we all hoped in the dinghy and went to land to get a taxi
Andrew had a relaxing day café-ing whilst the rest of us put helmets and wetsuits on and jumped off some waterfalls, abseiled down bigger ones, and climbed and swam through deep canyons, the rainforest all around was gorgeous, so green and vibrant and full of life. It was a welcome change to be in fresh cool water and we all had a blast.
In the afternoon our canyoning guide gave us a lift down the mountain to a shop where we could get some bbq supplies, we met up with Andrew again and went back to the boat for a good old-fashioned BBQ in the sunset.
We heard from some friends that the best snorkeling in Martinique was in a bay called Anse d’Arlets, so we headed there.
On a bouyed-off area (to stop boats from getting anywhere near) there is an amazing little reef, like an oasis of life in the middle of a deserted ocean floor.
We saw all kinds of fish including some super-friendly angel fish.
And we managed to snap this great video swimming behind a Turtle!
I’m the evening we went for cocktails, Adam and Andrew got to talk in-depth about work and the girls chit-chatted in the golden sunshine.
Snorkeling isn’t something Andrew had done much of before so we left him, Anna, and Daisy to go back one more time whilst I checked us all out of the island in preparation for our sail back to Saint Lucia.
It’s now the 1st of Feb and we had an easy downwind sail back from Martinique to St Lucia, so took this opportunity for some boat shenanigans.
We jumped off whilst sailing and you had to swim to a rope dragging behind the boat to get back on board, thankfully everyone got back to the rope in time so there were no MOB maneuvers necessary, getting dragged behind the boat whilst sailing is a fun experience and it lets you feel the power of sails, even when only going 4 knots (any more and you’d struggle to pull yourself back to the steps!)
On the 22nd of January, Daisy was flying into Saint Lucia in the south of the island.
We picked up anchor from our final anchorage in St Vincent and headed slightly upwind to Saint Lucia on the 21st to be ready.
As the evening drew closer, we hadn’t managed to make it as far upwind as we would have liked, so headed to a more downwind anchorage, between the Pitons.
The Pitons are two iconic volcanic peaks located on the southwestern coast of Saint Lucia. The Gros Piton stands at 2,619 feet (798 meters) tall, while the Petit Piton is slightly shorter at 2,438 feet (743 meters). These stunning landmarks offer a breathtaking backdrop.
Photo courtesy of Anna
On the following day, we sailed to the anchorage near Hewanorra airport, paid an extortionate amount of money for checking into the country (as it was a Sunday (oops)), and collected Daisy from the airport! At least the customs officer gave us a ride to the airport…
We sailed from the south, past the Pitons, up to Marigot bay (a well-known hurricane hole on the island).
The anchorage wasn’t amazing, and we had to anchor on a rocky bottom. Adam dived in to make sure that the anchor was adequately secured for our overnight stay, and Daisy also jumped into the Caribbean water for the first time at anchor.
Our boat friends Atlas & Danae were also in Marigot bay, so we had a little catch-up with them. In the evening we headed for some food and drinks on land with Atlas who also had guests on board, so between the two boats we were 8 people.
The ribs here were amazing…
We set sail the following morning to head further north on the island.
On the way the wind was strong and we were tacking into it repeatedly. Kathryn noticed that the headsail winch looked a little wonky and upon closer inspection of the winch base noticed a small crack. So we quickly put the headsail away and motored on to Bois d’orange Bay.
The bay was quiet, and best of all, we were the only boat anchored.
Here Kathryn was left aboard to take the winch and winch base apart while everyone else (Anna, Daisy, Adam), headed to the beach. From the beach, we found a trail that headed up toward some civilization.
We started walking up through woodlands, then down toward a quarry, finally poking our heads out near some houses. Of course, we were initially aiming for a Bar, however, on the route, we found a lovely little Roti shop that was still open at the side of the road and also had drinks.
So we ordered enough Roti for the 4 of us, sat down with a drink while we waited, and then headed back to the boat before dark.
Another thing of note here would be our first sighting of a giant land hermit crab.
Arriving back, Kathryn has successfully deconstructed the winch and base (but we will come onto this more later).
We ate the Rotis on deck, admired the sky, enjoyed the tranquility, and then headed to bed.
The following day we had a very short sail north into the larger Rodney Bay (Bois d’orange Bay was on the south side of Rodney Bay). We anchored in the north of the bay near Pigeon Island and set out on a snorkel.
This was Daisy’s first Caribbean snorkeling experience (where we were expecting to see some fish etc). We snorkeled around for about an hour and saw all sorts of cool things.
There was an underwater desk with a fake computer on it (some kind of art or monument), fire worms and reef squids.
We had booked into the Rodney Bay marina for a couple of nights to celebrate Daisy’s birthday, so after returning for snorkeling we headed straight to the marina which was also within Rodney Bay.
Because we all wanted some relaxation and celebration, Kathryn headed to the local chandelier with the winch base to see if they would be able to fiberglass in some reinforcing around the cracked area. They obliged and at the end of our stay, we managed to put the winch and winch base back together.
To celebrate Daisy’s birthday we headed to Sea Salt restaurant (an excellent choice). The meal really was amazing and we all had lots of fun. Cocktails, and some of the best restaurant-cooked food we have had in a while. Fancy and expensive.
From here we headed on to Martinique, but that’s for the next post!
And don’t worry, we will be coming back to Saint Lucia too, to drop Daisy at the same Airport.
Sailing around St Vincent around the end of January was a true adventure! From navigating crowded anchorages to discovering hidden underwater caves, we had a blast exploring this beautiful island.
The sail to St. Vincent was enjoyable and only about 10 miles from our last port of call, Bequia. We arrived at our chosen first anchorage to find it already busy with boats. Unfortunately, the boats didn’t shore tie so took up more space than necessary. So, we decided to move on to the next bay around. Although it very was small, we noticed an anchor symbol on Navionics and thought it would be worth checking out.
Adam snorkeled around the bay with a string line with a weight on the bottom of 2m in length, the idea being Adam could swim around with this, and if it touched the bottom it was too shallow. Meanwhile, Anna and I waited on board in deep water outside of the bay for a thumbs-up. We needed to ensure the chart was accurate and there was enough depth before entering as the chart said it might not have been deep enough in some places.
Luckily it was deeper than that chart stated, like many places around here the charts are not particularly accurate as the areas are not well surveyed. So knowing we wouldn’t scrape the bottom we entered the bay and got to work anchoring in the middle and shore tying to a central tree on the beach. It took us about an hour to complete the anchoring and tying procedure, but it was well worth the effort.
It was really beautiful.
The anchorage “Petit Byahaut (Small Cove)” is now on Navily with our review and pictures. 😊
We stayed there for a couple of nights and enjoyed some incredible snorkeling, including finding an underwater cave that we could swim through.
We also discovered bat caves in the cliff, which you can swim all the way through and out the other side however with a lot of swell coming in at the time we decided not to. We did see lots of the endangered Elkhorn coral, and a diverse range of fish and other corals and sponges.
Another boat we know called Vela also tried to anchor in the same bay with us, but unfortunately, their anchor didn’t hold well in the seagrass seabed and it dragged when setting up the shore tie, it was getting too dark to set everything up in time so they moved around the corner to find space for normal anchoring.
Vela got a great drone pic of us though.
After two nights there and lots of free dives through the underwater cave, we sailed on to Walilabou.
Although we initially planned to get help from a local, as the anchorage was fairly busy, to do the shore tie we declined when they demanded an exorbitant fee. So, we set about doing it ourselves, ending up with nearly all of our chain out due to the deep waters. I swam to shore with a big coil of rope and buoy attached to float it before tying it to a tree and bringing the free end back to the boat.
During the anchoring a number of locals on boats or kayaks hung around and finally once we were anchored, the boat was surrounded by locals trying to sell us vegetables, fruit, and fish. We bought some things including some tasty avocados and fish.
That afternoon we walked to some nearby waterfalls in the Wallilabou Heritage Park and paid a small fee of $5 each to get in to enjoy the refreshing waterfalls and natural pool. Whilst there, we encountered giant bamboo, lots of lizards, and the most enormous wasps we’ve ever seen.
Walilabou is well-known for having some of the Pirates of the Caribbean films set in purpose-built buildings in the area, particularly Fort Royale. This set was used for a number of the films.
After hiking back down from the waterfall, we went to see if a local guy who we’d spoken to earlier in the day was there, he’d mentioned being able to cook us a BBQ on the beach. He saw us looking but by the time he got there we had gone back to the boat, to our surprise he came over on a surfboard and was very happy to cook the fish we had bought earlier and made us a pasta salad.
We ate and drank into the night, with many of his friends also coming to help and say hello. We also tried the famous “St. Vincent Sunset” rum, which was 84.5%! Anna and I mixed ours with ginger beer but (insert name here) had it with only a chaser of water.
We then sailed to another anchorage called Paradise Beach in Troumaker Bay, where we shore-tied once again and anchored in about 20 meters of water. This time we got help from a kind local fisherman and later bought a big fish from him that we had for dinner.
Anna and I hiked up a hill to Troumaker village, whilst Adam relaxed in a hammock onboard and prepared dinner. We made it to the top of the hill sweaty and hot but the view from the top was breath-taking, and Adam managed to take a picture of us as little specs in the distance.
We went to a bar in the village for a cold drink and got some homemade fudge for $1 in the bar we met a lovely 10-year-old girl who had just finished school for the day and needed to wait for her mum who worked there. She was incredably chatty and talked about all kinds of things, including how they still use the whip for disapline in schools in St. Vincent and the girl’s dislike of the “popular” kids.
That evening, we ate the fish we had bought whilst watching the sunset on deck and it was delicious!
As the sun set, some local fishermen attempted to catch a giant shoal of fish, it was all very excting to watch, but it appeared that they missed their chance, and they came back empty-handed. I hope they caught some the next night!
A short sail on from our last post and we arrived at our first Eastern anchorage on this side of the Atlantic, called Windward Bay. The submerged reef turned out to be quite a good swell barrier and although this wasn’t the best anchorage we’ve been to, it was a fun experiment.
Sailing boat Danae were also there and we were both tucked into the most norther corner of the bay, the only boats there.
Danae at sunset, Mayreau Island
We went for a little drink with them in the evening and also discovered just how bright our anchor light is when there’s no other lights or moon around, we were anchored close enough together that Hannah Penn’s anchor light at the very top of our main mast was bright enough that it gave light to see in Danae’s cockpit! It does make finding her in a busy anchorage at night quite easy.. she’s always the shortest and brightest.
In the morning we couldn’t resist another quick dip before sailing onwards so threw on our snorkeling stuff and found the sea bed full of starfish of all different colours.
A sand dollar, when alive these creatures are fury
We are really enjoying how clear the water is around here and what interesting things we come across on the sea bed when you can get up close and personal.
Being fairly self sufficient on a boat means you’ve got to do some baking if you want bread and tasty treats, going to the store is not always an option, especially here in the Caribbean, many shops are very basic, some don’t even have fridges, freezers or bread. So our latest bake-off challenge were sourdough bagels!
Bagels do take a long time to make, particularly sourdough, but if thought of in advance they are totally worth it. You’ll be able to read about all our sourdough recipes and other great boat recipes in an upcoming post.
Next we planned on sailing to Mustique which was north east from our location, but it turned out the wind was more of northeasterly that day than expected so instead of slogging upwind for hours we decided to miss out that island and go straight to Bequia instead. We still had to sail as close to the wind as possible to make it to the island wich meant healing over pretty far, enough that the deck would sometimes be in the water during gusts. It made for a fun sail.
Getting to Bequia earlier than originally planned was a good decision as we had 3 lovely days there with some land ans sea based exploring and more good food!
There was also a very cool floating bar in the middle of the anchorage, which was so rammed one night that they were scared the whole thing would tip up and we’d be in the sea! So we all spread out evenly after that!
Another walk took us up Hamilton lookout with spectacular views over the bay.
After a little more relaxation we moved on from our first anchor location, to the northern end of the anchorage to make the dinghy ride shorter to a wreck we were interested in seeing.
We went to see ‘Bequia Tug wreck’ on the 16th January after being told about it by another cruising couple who said it was their best wreck yet. Although the water could have have a little clearer that day, it was still very impressive, having been down there for quite some time, sea life had completely enveloped the boats carcass creating a mini ecosystem.
The top of this wreck was about at my limit of free diving depth so you can see in one of the videos Adam helping me down so as to not use up precious oxygen before seeing anything cool!
That about wraps up the Grenadines, and now we are on to St Vincent, but that’s all for the next post.
