We are sitting on our anchor in the Tobago Cays of St. Vincent & the Grenadines. The time is sunrise.
The last few days have been a real gift. We FINALLY left the wonderful island of Grenada (and I cried like a baby when I said goodbye to my great friend, Marti) on Friday the 25th and had a lovely sail to Sandy Island, a spit of beach 2 miles away from Hillsborough, Carriacou where we checked out of Grenada. We spent 2 nights at Sandy and were blessed with friendship and social activity on each. We met up with Audrey & Mike of Serenity on their beautiful and oh-so-comfortable 60’ Morgan on which we had dinner al fresco in their great cockpit.
We brought vegetables and rice and Audrey cooked up fresh Mahi Mahi that Mike had caught.
In the late afternoon on Saturday (which we spent mostly indoors because of very big, gusty winds and periods of downpours), we heard “Ahoy, Ilene” and it was Michelle & Manu of Teepee who left Grenada on Saturday (which I’d wanted to do instead of Friday because I hate saying goodbye!) They looked like they had been through the wringer…and they had. Their sail, which we had done the day before in such pleasant conditions, was very uncomfortable and difficult. They were so glad to see us. Roger picked them up in our dink and brought them over to us at about 6 where we enjoyed some cheese and crackers and then a very good dinner of rabbit in a mustard cream sauce with rice and vegetables. And after dinner we played a few hours of cards. We actually stayed up until about 11 PM…an almost unheard of activity on ILENE.
Before we left on Sunday, we finally got a bit of snorkeling in at Sandy which is a playground for fish, and on our walk on the beach met Patty and her husband Chris who live in Vermont. They keep their boat, a beautiful 43’ Shannon down here and when they can get away (he is an Oncologist) they come down here and get a few weeks in sailing. We actually rescued them as their dink engine died and so we towed them and their friends, “Salty” and her husband Ernie back to their boat. We saw them again briefly yesterday at the Cays and will meet them again in Bequia, our next destination which we leave for today. Hopefully we can get to spend more time with them. We liked them.
We arrived at the Cays after leaving Union Island where we sailed when we left Sandy Island on Sunday to check in to the nation of St. Vincent & the Grenadines (here after referred to as SVG). It was another beautiful and short (just the way I like them) sail. I really like Union Island although Sunday is a very dead day on any of these islands. Almost everything is closed. However, on our way back to the boat on Sunday late afternoon after checking into SVG at the local airport, we decided to visit Happy Island, a unique bar and restaurant located in the middle of the water approachable ONLY by dinghy.
Janti owns Happy Island and built it from scratch. It sits inside the reef which creates the harbor. We sat there with him and his cook, a beautiful young lady who Roger mistakenly thought was Janti’s woman because they both live on Happy Island. This is quite a small island with an estimated 40’ diameter.
The front of the establishment is the bar/restaurant and the back is their living quarters. Janti is quite a philosopher and we enjoyed the 90 minutes we spent drinking and conversing. Here is a view of the boats anchored in the harbor through a window of Happy Island.
BTW, the smell of “ganga” is everywhere. It is smoked quite openly and I still just love the smell! We did go back into town on Monday AM for some fresh fruit (we finally got mangoes…yay) and fresh bread and then sailed for Tobago Cays. We left Union at about 8:45AM and arrived at 10 AM. Before the day was out we had at least 6 visitors from the ever present boat boys selling us whatever we needed or wanted. Here are a few of them hanging out on their brightly colored boats.
We have a fresh baguette being delivered at 7 this morning (I am writing this at 6AM having gone to sleep last night at 8:30 PM), we bought 2 hand painted T shirts from “Mr. Quality” who when I commented how big his boat was, he told me it wasn’t a boat…it was The Caribbean Floating Mall.
And, we agreed to let the entrepreneurial Hethlon, and his assistant, to the right, prepare for us a fresh charcoal grilled lobster dinner.
But, before dinner we took our dink to the little beach and got into the water to snorkel, and we were rewarded. Just like our last visit, we were able to follow the underwater activity of the giant sea turtles. They are such beautiful, unique creatures.
Dinner on the beach was magical. Like at Happy Island the floor is sand and shoes would get wet. Over my right shoulder are lights shining from the tops of moored or anchored boats.
The grilled Caribbean lobsters were amazing. Roger, who is not a big lobster lover declared it the best lobster he had ever eaten.
The Tobago Cays are awesome, and love Bequia almost as much. Don't rush through this gem of the Caribbean too quickly!
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