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Martinique, take 2

Martinique, take 2

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We sailed back to Martinique after dropping both Daisy and Anna in Saint Lucia, once again arriving straight into Le Marin and St Anne.

This time the sail was much easier and the motor was not needed at all, although the crossing was a little rough and took its toll on Andrew’s stomach!

We once again met up with Danae and Artemis who had now overtaken us in our adventure since we hopped back south for a few days.

They let us know that some Carnival celebrations would be happening in St Anne, so we went to investigate with them! Little did we know this would be the start of a month of carnival for us.

We couldn’t ignore the amazing supermarket that was Leader Price, so once again headed there for another trolly full of supplies for the coming week.

We probably bought more Brie than we would normally eat in a year during our short stay in Martinique.

Our next stop was Marigot du Diamant, a less visited anchorage in Martinique, according to reviews it can be a little tricky to navigate and anchor in, but we had no problems.

As we approached the anchorage, Kathryn managed to catch a Cero Mackeral which made for a perfect sunset dinner cooked Mediterranean style in the oven for three. This is the biggest size fish we can fit whole (minus head and tail) in the oven 👌

It’s always nice catching a fish, but it can be a lot of effort in the Caribbean due to the amount of sargassum seaweed floating around and the risks of ciguatera toxin poisoning which comes from fish that eat reef fish, particularly as we near and pass Guadeloupe.

In this anchorage, we got Andrew out on the water for his first-ever SUP experience, and we all (one by one) explored the bay ourselves, including to try and catch a few small waves that were breaking on the central reef.

Next, we aimed to try and find some mangroves and headed all the way into the Fort du France Bay to Petit Ilet.

We anchored just in the lee off the island in mud. Researching the island we knew there were some picnic benches and knew that people came on little tours here so there must be some things of interest over there.

After cooking up some pesto pasta, we headed with the pot in the dinghy to eat on the island and then have a little walk around. The first bit of wildlife to come to our attention were the 2 friendly chickens that wanted some of our pasta. But there was more to see too.

The following day we moved anchorage to the other side of Petit Ilet to be slightly closer to the entrance to the mangrove-sided river, just on the edge of a no-anchoring area.

We took both the dinghy and the SUP up the river to see the mangroves and wildlife that lived in and around them. To our surprise, the most common animal here were the mangrove tree crabs, which are normally bright yellow and seemed to cover every single mangrove we could find, even way up in the canopy, and always hiding on the other side of the branches.

We had to move back to our previous anchorage as a local came passed in his boat and told us that apparently, we couldn’t anchor overnight where we were even though the chart said it was fine. We moved mainly to avoid any further confrontations 😲.

Before we knew it, it was the 12th of February, and Andrew had less than a week left with us.

The next stop was one of the most northern anchorages in Martinique that we were destined to explore near Saint Pierre.

First on the tourism list for Saint Pierre was the zoo which was literally a stone’s throw from where the boat was anchored, the zoo’s landscape and environment were lovely, based within the ruins of the oldest habitation in Martinique, the main house and its outhouses, including a small hospital and waterwheel were put to ruin by the volcanic eruption which we found out more about in the museum we went to the following day.

Further into the town was a fairly nice and modern museum covering the history of the island, particularly the Saint Pierre area which was dramatically impacted by a volcano eruption.

Saint Pierre was once the thriving cultural and economic capital of Martinique, known for its bustling port, vibrant arts scene, and luxurious lifestyle. However, in 1902, the town was completely destroyed by a massive volcanic eruption from nearby Mount Pelée, which killed almost all of its inhabitants. This tragedy left an indelible mark on the town and its people, and today, the ruins of Saint Pierre serve as a powerful reminder of the town’s rich history and the devastating impact of natural disasters.

Andrew loves a good meal out, so once again we headed to find some delicious food after the museum.

Keen to start heading back toward the airport (a short taxi ride from Fort du France) we started heading south once again, choosing to anchor at a place called Four a Chaux.

There wasn’t a whole lot to see snorkeling this time, but there was a wonderful Hawksbill turtle! (We do love them, especially when the visibility is great!)

Hawksbill turtles are sea turtles found throughout the world’s tropical oceans including the Caribbean and are known for their beautiful shells and important role in maintaining the health of coral reefs by feeding on sponges and other reef organisms. Unfortunately, they’re critically endangered due to threats such as habitat loss, pollution, and over-harvesting, so it was a blessing to see a young one.

Continuing south we entered the Fort du France bay but once again headed deep into it to anchor somewhere new at Les Trois-ilets.

We had already prepared to have a couple of BBQs toward the end of Andrews’s time with us. One just the three of us and another with Extress as once again as they would be catching up with us.

With plenty of BBQable food aboard, Andrew set about making burgers and we lit the BBQ which hangs off the back of Hannah.

Sausages and bacon went on first while the burgers were being prepared. The burgers came out and looked delicious and gigantic, and on they went. Unfortunately upon flipping the burgers, the weight of them had bent the inner BBQ (which is just a disposable BBQ), and the entire thing slipped into the sea.

It’s probably one of the saddest moments so far aboard Hannah, seeing 4 delicious and gigantic half-cooked burgers drifting away downwind to become fish food. 😭 At least the sausages and bacon were already cooked and off the bbq so we got to eat those.

Anyway, the next day we headed back to Fort du France to anchor once again. Extress arrived a few hours later and we brought a bag of BBQ supplies to BBQ aboard Extress so as to avoid any more BBQ disappointments.

Our sailing with Andrew was complete, with Martinique part 2 being the final set of hops.

Andrew decided to spend his final night in a Hotel to freshen up on stable dry land before his cross-Atlantic flight back to Europe. 👋👋

Carnival struck once again, and although the big day would happen once Andrew had left, there were some pre-carnival carnival events to go and see.

The first being the introduction of the carnival queen.

And the second that evening being a show of floats and cars.

Before the two of us could contemplate continuing on to Dominica and then to Guadeloupe where we had arranged to get hauled out in a boat yard for some repainting, there was a little more carnivaling to do. But that will have to wait until the next post, as its quite intertwined with the crossing to and being on Dominica itself.

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Until next time!

Saint Lucia again (by land)

Saint Lucia again (by land)

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We have already been to Saint Lucia once at this point, but both Daisy and Anna had a travel plan home leaving from Saint Lucia, so we sailed back to drop them both off.

The easiest place for us to do this was the Marina in the north called Rodney Bay Marina. This time however there was no space for us in the Marina apparently, as ARC January boats were just about to start arriving. (Even though when walking past the marina, our old spot was available for the duration of our time back here)

Anyway, we saved some money by anchoring… Much more beautiful than a marina anyway! (and the marina still had the same shower block codes ;P )

Beautiful piccy from Daisy

We hired a car for the 2 days we were planning on staying in Saint Lucia again.

On day 1 we would be dropping Daisy off back in the south of the Island, so wanted to explore the west coast some more on the way down and drive back up on the east coast. So roughly 1 lap of the lower part of the island.

Our first stop was Castries. The port area here was filled with numerous cruise ships. We explored a vibrant local market and indulged in some shopping. We couldn’t resist picking up some locally made soap and materials for making hot chocolate (the local way) for use back on Hannah.

Looking online while writing this post, its actually Cocoa Tea that we bought a kit for with a Cocoa stick. You can see a how to video on YouTube that goes above and beyond what we have tried.

A short drive further down the island we found a little view point that overlooked Castries.

Next we reached Marigot bay once again, this time from land! We stopped at another viewpoint for some nice cold drinks and snapped the below picture which really shows off the mixture of boats in the bay (including some sunk / grounded). You can also see why this bay is a hurricane hole for boats, as its nice and enclosed.

We enjoyed our time in the waterfalls in St Vincent, so went on the hunt for some more in Saint Lucia. A quick online search on our drive brought us inland to Anse La Raye Falls.

We parked at the end of an unpaved road and started hiking toward the falls. The cascading waterfalls tumble down a series of rocky tiers, creating a serene and tranquil oasis perfect for swimming and cooling off from the Caribbean heat, BUT there are signs that say not to go in the water as its used for drinking water, so we just went to look around.

Next stop of the tour was a choclate factory that we just happened to see as we drove past. The tours were pretty expensive, but we did enjoy browsing the shop and buying a few tasty treats. Anna bought a little thank you present for the 2 of us, and we can confirm these choclates were all delicious!

Nearing the south of the island, we stopped off at a few more view points and beaches before reaching the airport and having one final drink before wishing Daisy goodbye. 😘🙋‍♀️👋👋

It’s been quite crazy, but also great having 5 people on board once again, but it’s time to start reducing crew and speeding up our little adventure.

The first task of the second day was to say fairwell again and drop Anna at the more northern airport of Saint Lucia first thing in the morning. Its lucky that the airport was tiny as we got there much later than planned, Anna was the last one through check in. Who would have known there would be such traffic jams in the Caribbean! 🙋‍♀️😘👋👋

Now down to 3 crew total, we spent an awful lot of time driving aroud the north east of the island trying to find our way to a little beach and generally having a look around.

Google maps isn’t the most accurate in these parts so it took us several hours to find the right road to take us there and once there the route back to the marina would only actually take us 15 minuites.

The beach had a small resturant for a quick drink while we watched the kitesurfers go back and forth and generally thought about the plan for the coming weeks.

Also there was a rather cute dogo…

We returned the car in the afternoon, had one final meal out, picked up a few more provisions from the shops and headed back to the boat ready to sail back north to Martinique.

It’s also worth mentioning before moving on, Saint Lucia is one of those places that is quite heavily influenced by a love of signs, many of which seem to be irrelevant or ignored.

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Daisy comes for a Birthday treat (Saint Lucia)

Daisy comes for a Birthday treat (Saint Lucia)

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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.

You can see more pictures of the squid on Instagram.

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.


The Grenadines, Mayreau resort

The Grenadines, Mayreau resort

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In the last post we said about a resort day.. Well here we are! We decided to go all out and have a fully inclusive resort day with lunch and dinner and all the cocktails we could drink!.. 10am cocktails here we come.

We made friends with the manager, and after dinner he took us to Dennis’s Bar where we learnt the lyrics to “Rock your sexy body” by Dennis himself. There were goats sleeping on the road on the way back so of course had to give them a cuddle and one last custom cocktail in the resort bar before heading back to Hannah Penn for the night.

Dennis’s Bar near Mayreau beach resort

It was a very relaxing and enjoyable day and night, though the night resulted in a very lazy next morning!

But here began the next round of dinghy pains 🙁 And a fix that unfortunately didn’t hold. The three of us paddled home in a very sad dinghy that night, because at some point during the day it had got caught under the jetty and punctured a tube, luckily we found the hole with some soapy water and repaired it quickly.

All patched up

With our dinghy fixed, we went to explore a wreck nearby to the resort

That strange looking fish is a porcupine fish, a particularly big one, they can puff up their bodies much like a puffer fish can. This was the first time we’ve seen lobsters too 🦞
We have since been to clearer wrecks so more pictures to come!

Next we are heading around to the east side of this island to anchorage only protected from the Atlantic ocean by an underwater reef, fingers crossed we get some sleep!

Find out more next time…

The Grenadines, Tobago Cays

The Grenadines, Tobago Cays

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The Grenadines were a beautiful group of many islands that we managed to explore for just over 2 weeks, although the same amount of time again would have been even better. There were lots of Islands that we didn’t manage to see. This post is only the beginning!

It’s the 7th of January and from where we were in Clifton harbor where we caught up with some of our boat friends from the other side of the Atlantic, we are off to the Tobago Cays. From our own research and some local knowledge from a very helpful cafe owner, we knew this was going to be a great experience and the underwater life did not disappoint!

On the way from Union to the Cays we caught a barracuda, and I genuinely didn’t think I’d ever eat barracuda but it was one of the tastiest fish we’ve caught so far!

We had the barracuda for two main meals including tempura battered fish tacos with couscous and peach salsa.

Fully reefed sailing towards Tobago Cays
An excellent Baracuda catch, we tie a string through the tail when filleting so we don’t lose it overboard
Battered barracuda tacos

We picked up a mooring buoy in the channel just north of Petit Rameau island, anchorage fees here are the same as a mooring buoy so we thought it best not to risk damage to the underwater ecosystem and get a mooring. On arrival, we saw Danae had already got there and Artemis came in just behind and to our excitement, there were 3 buoys all in a row which Danae got an excellent picture of with their drone.

We got in the water to discover what couldn’t be seen from above, right under the boat we had turtles and more barracudas and further away we saw turtle after turtle after turtle, all totally relaxed about us being in the water with them, then came sting rays, Eagle rays, and beautiful fish. Anna even spotted a reef shark!

Sting ray with trunk fish all around
Same sting ray!
Spotted Eagle ray foraging
This little one had an itchy face as he swims away! Rather cute

Whilst at the Tobago Cays a boat came by to talk to us about a place with free moorings (not a common thing around here) at a resort with 3 pools, multiple bars, and a lovely beach, we decided to take them up on the offer of free mooring and pool use when we were definitely in need of a real shower!

But that’s for the next post 😉

Barbados

Barbados

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Barbados was the first Caribbean stop for us.

Arrival

Celebrating with a cocktail

We were very happy to see land and flat seas to anchor in on the west side of the island after our 20 day Atlantic crossing.

The first stop on the list was Port St Charles in the north, where we anchored upon arrival, and had the first full night of sleep in 20 days!

We started the check-in process that day and also headed to the closest restaurant to spend some relaxing time on land celebrating our achievement.

Nothing like tasty fish and chips, and a fancy pizza after 20 days at sea, the last few of which we mainly ate easy food like instant noodles.

Christmas

The next thing on our minds was how to celebrate Christmas, which was coming up in a few days time.

In style of course! We booked an AirBnB that we could dinghy to from the boat for 2 nights and started preparing for a sunny Christmas celebration.

We had decorations, a beach view, air conditioning, Christmas movies, but most importantly a full roast dinner, with all the trimmings, homemade of course!

Exploration

After Christmas, there was exploring that had to happen ahead of the arrival of our next guest, Anna, who would arrive on new years eve.

You can anchor down most of the west coast of Barbados, but you’ll find most people stopping for the night either in the north at Port St Charles, or down south in Bridgetown.

Needless to say, our exploration took us into the water with snorkels, masks and fins, and we found the water temperature to be lovely, and the snorkeling to be great!

We were seeing coral for the first time, lots of tropical fish, and the visibility is great! (Though writing this 1 month after being there, there is much better snorkeling to come!)

Best of all, some turtles, busy eating right next to our anchored boat!!!!

Our explorations were not only water-based, and we headed to land one evening to go and watch the new Avatar film in the cinema which we loved 🙂

New Years

We discovered that with our RYA membership, we could get a 1 week reciprocal membership at the Barbados yacht club. They also happened to be throwing a new years eve party which we decided to attend.

Anna arrived on new years eve, and after a little trouble getting a taxi to the right place, we were celebrating in style with a DJ on the beach and enough rum punch to drown a small goat.

Best of all, fireworks at midnight (though one of these did slightly melt part of our dinghy)

Off we go

We explored the coast more with Anna, and on the 4th of January after around 2 weeks in Barbados, we put our sails up again and headed on to St Vincent & the Grenadines.

2 weeks of fun in Mindelo

2 weeks of fun in Mindelo

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We weren’t planning on spending 2 weeks in the Mindelo marina, but we ended up deciding to do a bunch of boat jobs, including fitting a new solar panel, while also waiting for a weather window that started off with some days of less than 2.5m swell.

We also planned on heading out to the anchorage to wait for this window, but with everything, we were doing aboard, the extra convenience of being able to walk off the boat onto the dock was amazing. And the marina was too expensive.

Mindelo marina, pontoon B, featuring Extres and Danae

Turtles

A short taxi ride from the marina on the south side of the island was a little bay well known for its turtles.

We are not sure if the turtles naturally like coming to this bay, we heard that the locals of the beach treat them a little bit like pets feeding them etc (not ideal), which probably explains why they are always there and why the spot has touristy “turtle tours” etc.

Nonetheless, we went to check out the beach and turtles without the tour, and we were not disappointed, getting some of our best underwater turtle pics and vids yet.

This beach and experience were slightly ruined by a “crazy lady” that was at the beach swearing at people and even throwing rocks at 1 group of girls… No idea what was happening here, but everyone left the beach safely at the end of the day…

Santo Antão

Santo Antão is the westernmost island of Cape Verde. We didn’t anchor there (not sure if you are actually allowed), so instead got up early in the morning with a group of Dutch friends to get the ferry over to the island.

We were once again following other folks to and around the island, meaning we would have to do less thinking for ourselves! Great!

Arriving at the island we headed for a coffee before then hunting around for a decent price taxi to get us to the top of the island.

And it was a great idea to get this taxi, as the journey took us up rather high and would have taken hours to walk or bus to etc.

The road up to the top of the island was rather beautifully paved but was cobblestone, so riding in the back of a pickup truck was interesting at times.

As we got higher the air began to cool, it was wonderful.

Once at the top of the island we could walk up and out of the canyon, an down the other side of the island, where the same taxi would be waiting for us at the beach.

The walk was absolutely beautiful, the canyon was full of greenery, and as we descended the far side of the island we were surrounded by irrigated fields, trees, plants, and animals.

We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant in a town before the beach where we had spaghetti for 10. Realizing we were slightly behind schedule we had to grab another taxi for the last 45 minutes of walking, down toward the beach we were being collected from.

Spotting our actual taxi (the pickup truck) halfway toward the beach, we got out and switched over.

The journey back around the island was just as beautiful. We would see the rather small swell coming in from the north, ideally, this is what we would be setting off in in the coming days.

General shenanigans

While we were in Mindelo, the world cup was in full swing.

This led to multiple trips to the local Irish sports bar to watch the Netherlands play with our friends (and England of course).

Just up the road, there was a very tasty ice cream shop.

We also had multiple meals out in various groups, and many many many beers at the floating bar in the Marina.

São Nicolau, Cape Verde

São Nicolau, Cape Verde

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Leaving Sal Rei, we set off just behind Danae on the way to São Nicolau. Our friends on Extress at this point were still on the last island but were also going to meet us in São Nicolau.

We stopped at 2 anchorages on the island.

South East

The first anchorage was at the foot of 2 hills that seemed to channel the wind down from 2 alternating directions in large gusts.

A review that we had seen on the Navily anchorage app spoke of a small community-run restaurant ashore, so we went to investigate!

Happily, we found it, and found Anna as the sign instructed. They opened the restaurant for us and we had some lively rice, veg, fish and beers.

The menu did include many other dishes, but perhaps they don’t stock for these very often.

Once again the snorkeling in the anchorage was fantastic!

Such clear water, and such great wildlife.

Here, I (Adam) had an opportunity to borrow the windsurfing kit aboard Extress, which I jumped at!

Second windsurf of the week, brilliant!!! And this time with some pictures and videos!!!

Extress also caught 2 large Mahi-mahi on the way to the anchorage which we of course had to help them eat! (but, no pics…)

Tarrafell (South West)

Our second anchorage on the island was Tarrafell, which was near a much larger town in comparison to anchorage 1.

Here we played some games of Kubb with our friends from Extress

Canaries to Cape Verde (a race)

Canaries to Cape Verde (a race)

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Time for the longest crossing yet, the Canaries down to Cape Verde.

In theory, an easy crossing, as you should be able to follow the trade winds that run down the coast of Africa before they head across the Atlantic ocean. These are the same winds followed by Christopher Columbus and are well known.

And it was indeed fairly straightforward.

In terms of the sailing, we set off just before noon and an hour or so just motoring to get out of the lull to the south of the Island.

Blue Note left first, with us closely following behind. Extress needed to go to the harbor to fill up with water and they left roughly 1 hour after.

Blue Note, motoring in the lull

After that, we spent most of the first day on a broad reach while trying to stay in the shelter of La Gomera to avoid swell that was still hanging around in the Atlantic.

On the first evening, we switched to a run using our twin-head sail setup (1 Genoa & 1 Ghoster). We poled the ghoster out on our large spinnaker pole, while poling out the geno using the main boom.

We remained that way until the final day (day 6), when we switched back to a broad reach.

This was the first trip that we were sailing with other boats and tried to stay in VHF contact where possible. We all radioed each other on the first evening to compare positions, but at this stage we could all still see each other on AIS.

Both Blue Note and Extress had headed a little further west than us to start.

On the second day we could no longer see Blue note on AIS or reach them over the VHF. We managed to keep up daily communication with Extress reporting positions. The race was on!

Due to the position reports, we managed to roughly track where everyone was, and although we couldn’t talk to Blue Note or see them on AIS constantly, they seemed to pop up once a day so toward the start so we could also track their course.

In the map below, we are in green, Extress in orange and blue note in Blue.

(Yes we took this race very seriously)

During the last night, Extress crossed over our track and started to overtake us. We saw this coming, but didn’t want to change our sail plan in the middle of the night, so let it happen. This lead to Extress arriving 1 hour before us even though we were gaining on them at some points of the last day.

We arrived just after dark, but anchoring was made easy by a local guy called Jay who came over to us and directed us to a nice little spot on the far side of the anchorage.

Extress, who we had only spoken to over VHF, called us up to invite us over for drinks, so after a quick dinner, we headed over and met the 4 Extress crew as well as 2 from Danae, another dutch boat we had not yet met.

We had a few nice wildlife interactions on this crossing, with a bird coming and landing on deck for a little rest overnight. It found one of the only sheltered places on the foredeck, under the anchor windlass.

We also saw a group of whales chilling at the surface, possibly sleeping. They were only 10-20 meters away from us as we passed.

Once again, cool wildlife brings out the best squeaks from all of us.

La Graciosa

La Graciosa

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After a day of recovery from our rather long crossing (we mainly lay around, sleeping eating and watching TV), we headed to shore to wonder around the Volcanic island.

First, we headed up the closest volcano-like thing, where we got a great view of our part of the island, nearby beaches and anchorage.

We then headed to the north shore to see the breaking waves and the few people surfing them.

The north shore also had many rock pools with all kinds of sea life in them.

The most interesting of which was a collection of hermit crabs all trying to get in line to swap shells. We watched for quite some time, but none of them could decide which one should take the new larger shell that they had found.

There was also a self righting sea snail.

Kathryn was craving pizza, so we headed to the main town of the island in search. There was a pizza place on Google maps that should have been open, but sadly not.

We ended up at the popular local restaurant where we had black squid ink paella.

The walk back to the anchorage took around 20-30 minuites and was lit by moonlight.

We spent much of the rest of our time in this anchorage snorkeling around. The water was so clear and warm we could see to the bottom with ease and didn’t need a wetsuit.

This also gave us an opportunity to dive on our anchor to see how close to the rocks we were.