At last, in Grenada!

Ernie, just waking up from for his watch at midnight: “What did you do?”

Nati, with her I-din't-do-anything face: “Umm, nothing...”

Ernie: “Why is our speed less than 3 knots?”

Nati: “I'm not sure”

Ernie: “You should've let out more sail”

Nati: “OK...”

Ernie: “Oh, we have the current against us now...”

Nati, huge smile on her face: “See, it wasn't my fault...”

Meanwhile, Louise and Stewart were having a similar conversation on Skylark. Just by coincidence, both skippers were sleeping when we hit the current against us. Also by coincidence, both of them assumed the women at the helm have done something wrong. Yes, we should have known we had the current against us but we haven't done anything wrong and so both skippers have apologized. It is now a laughable anecdote.

And that's how our overnight sailing trip to Bequia went. Overall it was very good, but we saw a little bit of everything: a little too much wind, no wind at all forcing us to start our engine, favourable current and unfavourable one.

Our time in Bequia, the first of the Grenadine islands, was relaxing. It's a small island with a beautiful beach, where the kids spent hours upon hours playing. There was some snorkelling, quite a lot of SCUBA diving and a few hikes. The kids enjoyed going to the Turtle Sanctuary where we learned a bit about the Hawksbill turtles and what the local team is doing to help young turtles reach maturity.

It is here, also, where we reunited with a lot of other boats that we met along the way. Being so close to Grenada, our final destination for most of us, makes the reunion inevitable. Taking advantage of the nice beach and the number of kids, we even had a bonfire. We all had a great time!

The beach in Bequia

The caves where the kids played.

A very stressfull moment...

On our way to the Turtle Sanctuary. The beach on the east side was full of sargasso weed.

The girls saving the world's problems.

With our friends from Skylark

Baby turtle

After about 10 days, we decided to move to Mayreau, our first stop on our way to the Tobago Cays. There's a beautiful beach there too and we spent a few days enjoying the nice water and playing volleyball and cricket/baseball with a stick Matias found somewhere on the beach. Unfortunately there was too much wind and we couldn't go to the Tobago Cays so we decided to move on to Union Island and wait for better weather. After a few days the wind was still blowing too hard to visit the Tobago Cays and therefore we decided to keep moving south and visit them some time during the summer.

Mayreau's beach

We briefly stopped at Carriacau and then moved to Grenada, our final destination for the duration of the hurricane season.

We signed up the kids to a local sailing school for 3 weeks. The adults are working on the boat and arranging the haul out and bottom paint for Taia.

The sculpture garden in Grenada. Part of the fun is finding where the statues are...

Martinique

After a rather short stay in Dominica, we moved on to Martinique, the last of the French islands.

Our first stop was St. Pierre, the old capital city. The town is quite small but picturesque, with lots of remainders of the 1902 eruption of Mt. Pelée. Very close to the anchorage you can find the remains of the prison where the only survivor out of 3,000 inhabitants lived. Cyparis was imprisoned the night of May 7, 1902, after a bar fight and was spared of the deadly pyroclastic gasses due to the thickness of the prison walls and lack of good ventilation.

We stayed a few days in St. Pierre. We walked around the town, we snorkelled and the kids were introduced to diving. They grabbed some weight and using Ernesto's octopus, they went down about 8 ft. This is something we'll continue doing so they get more and more comfortable with the equipment.

St. Pierre and Mt. Pelée on the background

Walking around St. Pierre

Matias exploring the remains of the prison

Cyparis's cell.

The old theather

View of Mt. Pelée from the theater

The theater with its original floors.

Local fishermen cleaning three really big tunas. Wish we could catch one of those!

Diving with daddy.

After that we sailed to the south and anchored in Anse Mitan, close to Skylark and Almost There. The town there is small but full of restaurants, boutiques and gift shops. There's a nice beach too.

Louise, Shena and myself took advantage of being around in a rather big island (and French!) and decided to rent a car and do some shopping and provisioning. We all needed some new clothes, especially the kids that won't stop growing. The men very kindly offered to pile all the kids together and do school in Almost There (Stewart, from Skylark, being the exception as he was enjoying a cricket game in Dominica).

The next day the 11 of us got on a rented mini-van and went hiking the famous Mt. Pelée. There we met with our friends Arthi, from Brazil, and Wind Whisper, from Argentina. We all hiked for about 4 hours but couldn't get to the very top due to weather. The day deteriorated and it got rainy and cloudy with very poor visibility. All in all, it was a great experience and the fifth volcano we hiked in all. The kids are fascinated with hiking and are learning quite a lot about volcanology.

On our way to the top...

About half way there it got cloudy

Walking around the crater

The whole gang!

Dominica

We got to Dominica a little bit after lunch. About a mile away from the anchorage in Portsmouth, we saw a local boat approach us. They want to "guide" you to the anchorage and become your local guide for anything you may want. They do this as a way of living, of course. And this is how we met Alexis, our guide to Dominica.

We anchored closed to Almost There and soon enough, Robert and Shena were informing us that they had bought tickets for the local beach BBQ. Thanks to them who also paid for our tickets! The BBQ consisted of chicken, rice and salad and quite a lot of rhum punch. We met a lot of other cruisers, all heading south towards Grenada, our final destination. As always, we all shared memories and plans and had a great time.

The following day Alexis picked us up on his boat for a day trip. First we went to the Indian River and, while he rowed, he taught us a bit of history. We stopped at his brother's plantation and were shown to quite a few of local plants: passion fruit, papaya, cinnamon, cocoa, bread fruit and, of course, sugar cane, coconuts and bananas. This is one of the kids' favorite parts as they got to taste everything! We also learned how to make fresh passion fruit juice, something that we're making quite regularly now as we all love it.

Next on our list was a walk down a mountain to get to a small waterfall and 25-foot rock to jump from. As usual, Ernesto was the first to jump and try how safe it was. To my astonishment, Matias climbed next and off he jumped like it was nothing. To the shout of "This is awesome!" he started climbing the rock again. Camila was next and I was, once again, very surprised as just a few months ago they wouldn't have jumped at all. I think all those afternoons jumping from Almost There's arch have payed off.

The last stop for the day was a local chocolate factory. A few years back, a French man was frustrated at the lack of good-quality chocolate on the island and decided to start making his own. He received us on his house/factory, barefoot and shirtless, and explained the whole process of chocolate making (yes, there was some sampling, lucky for me!). The thing that I liked the most about this was that most of what he uses grows in his yard. It can't get any fresher than that!

There's definitely a lot of things to see and explore in Dominica, a land of many natural resources. We had to cut our time short (due mainly to rolly anchorages) but we'll come back again next year.

The start of the Indian River trip. Alexis talking, the kids hopefully listening...

Indian River trip - This is Calypso's house (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Tasting local coconut.

Going down to the cascade.

Ernesto testing the waters.

Matias in action...