Our trip was enlivened by a small pod of porpoises (dolphins?) who stayed long enough for us to get the camera and get it rolling. The video of it is at the end of this post. Watch carefully the beginning of the video and you can see the splashes of the dolphins.
We were met by our friends, Rona and Tabou. Rona became our chauffeur, and Tabou our cook, in addition to their providing laundry service, charging our electric devices, and they let us use their internet and take showers. In other words: full service hosts.
Here is their 10 week old kitty, Nutmeg, called Nutty.
Our first call of business upon arriving on every island is checking into customs, just as the last item of business is checking out. It was at the point when we readied our paperwork for a trip to St. Vincent customs that we realized we had made a very big error. Do you recall our hoisting the dink aboard at Soufriere, late in our last posting, in anticipation of a long sail the next day? Well we completely forgot about checking OUT at St. Lucia customs. We learned that this cannot be done by email or fax and that before the end of our 24 hour grace period in St. Vincent, we faced the need to sail back to St. Lucia, pay the fine that awaits us there, and then sail back to St. Vincent the next day. We are still stateside sailors; we do not think of checking in or out of customs when leaving any US port before heading for another, even one in a different state. Luckily, it worked out so we were able to enter St Vincent and do not have to pay our fine to St. Lucia until we return there, though perhaps a written offer to pay in advance, by mail, will further show our good faith in this matter.
We ate at several restaurants at the water's edge but our best food was Tabou's home cooked chicken, one night and mahi-mahi the next, with tasty accompanying vegetables and rice dishes. Rona introduced us to Tabou's Dad, his Mom and various friends, including Bren and her husband, who returned to St. Vincent after bearing and raising their three adult kids in London and who fed us and introduced us to ginger syrup, which, mixed with water and ice, makes a delicious refreshing drink.
Another day, we drove around the coast of the southern half of the island, to above the new airport under construction on the windward coast with big breakers on its rocky shores and then, retracing our path back, up the leeward shore to Wallilabou Bay. Wallilabou is yet another Pirates of the Caribbean site, but is devoted to a museum of the movie and is a nice lunch spot. Lunch was after a swim. They moor boats here, or anchor them, with the locals taking aft lines to shore or to pilings of a former dock. The only problem with this was that the boats were too close to each other and were in danger of touching. Roger saw several fending each other off while he was swimming and swam over and advised them to tie their dinghys amidships to serve as large fenders.
St Vincent has one major road that runs around the edge of the island, except on its northeastern third. This road in several spots is only two narrow lanes wide, just enough room for cars or trucks to pass each other in opposite directions. There are several parallel streets in Kingstown, and several alleys off the main road where people live in the urban center, but one narrow road for the rest of the island and no roads at all in the northeast or the interior.
One lucky "break" occurred on the morning of our third day: we "broke" off our mooring. We used one of our dock lines, running it from one bow cleat and chock, through the eye of the mooring bridle and then to the chock and cleat on the other bow. We have been doing this all along. Well, the line chafed through where it came in contact with the bridle and we were drifting away. Lucky? Yes; because this occurred when we were planning to leave for a day's excursion rather than either at night, when we would have been sleeping, or after we had left the boat for the day's adventure. Roger noticed, yelled to Lene who started the engine and called our mooring provider and we were back on the same mooring, but with two lines, one tighter than the other, within 15 minutes. If the tighter one chafes through, the other one will hold the strain.
After three nights on St. Vincent, we passaged from St. Vincent to our first Grenadine, Bequia (pronounced Beck way), which is more of a yachtie place than St. Vincent itself. The trip was about 90 minutes, line of sight, with full main and no head sail, in winds that were around 15 but gusted to 22 knots from off our port beam on a course of 210 magnetic. Rona was our guest. We connected with the Bound family with who we met in Iles des Saintes and Dominica, and will attend a Jump Up (steel band party) and barbecue at Frangipani, a beach bar and restaurant associated with a hotel. Best food in quality and quantity on a non-french island since Tortola, with a table, far enough away from the band to hear the music but not impede conversation.
Here is Rona relaxing on ILENE.
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