47-48. Back to the Boat!

The past two weeks have flown by.  Our last update left us unsure we were ready to be back aboard Abby.  We are pleased to report that we very quickly re-acclimated to our boat home and have had an amazing few weeks we can't wait to share.

    A beautiful view down Grenada's coast.

The day after we got back to Grenada we went on a “Cutty tour”.  Anyone visiting Grenada should do the same.  Our guide’s name is Cutty and he loves his country!  We spent 8 hrs with him showing us all around the island.  You may wonder how, after being here for 2 months there is anything left to see, but Grenada’s natural resources are so vast that it takes an experienced eye to point out all the variety.

Cutty would pull off the side of the road and have us step to the edge of the lush greenery, he would crumple a cluster of leaves he just pulled from the nearest tree and say “do you recognize that smell?”

 We each took turns sniffing and would find ourselves intoxicated by the smell of cinnamon, all spice, clove, lemongrass, ginger, turmeric, mint and could even detect the subtle differences between the lemon and lime trees based on the smell of their leaf.  We tasted the bark off the cinnamon tree and learned how it is harvested,

we picked passion fruit,

papaya, cocoa plant, and fresh sweet banana,

and fell more deeply in love with this beautiful country.

    Finding red berries for jewelry making.

We loved our private tour of the Grenada Chocolate Company and, of course, the free samplings at the end :)

Cutty arranged a beautiful meal at Rivers Rum before our tour of their traditional rum distillery.  The Rivers Rum tour was a highlight of our day.  The big water wheel was turning, powered by the flowing water channeled down out of the mountains.

The wheel powered the crushing machine that squeezes all the sugar juice from the cane.  The sugar flowed down a pipe to it’s first holding tank

while the crushed cane moved on a conveyor belt to a large discard pile.

They later use the discarded cane to fuel the fire used to heat the rum in it’s final stage, loved how nothing was wasted.  The entire process hasn't changed much since the 1800s, the sugar moves from vat to vat while fermenting, and finally into large holding tanks where it reacts to the yeast in the air

before moving to the final stage where it is heated.  

They were ingenious in the design of the factory, minimizing the labor needed to move the product.  After learning all about the process of traditionally making Rum, we got to sample some of their product.  Since we all did the tour it seemed right to have everyone sample the goodness.

Notice the disapproving looks of the tourists as the girls cheered their Rum punch :)

The entire day was an amazing lesson in the beauty and diversity of Grenada, the perfect way to say goodbye.

Pulling away from La Phare Bleu Marina was bittersweet.  We were excited to get back on the water and moving again but it was hard to say goodbye to all the staff who had become like family.

Andrew was a ball of nerves being at the helm for the first time in three months.  We headed around the southern tip and up the west side to stop for the night and snorkel the sculpture garden in the morning.

The sculpture garden is a seemingly random selection of statues that have been placed on the ocean floor to help promote coral growth and support the natural reef in the area.

There are multiple circles of people holding hands, various mermaids,

abstract art, and a man on bicycle, playing poker and typing.  It is eerily beautiful but my honest first impression was how creepy it was

to see people with barnacles and coral growing all over their face, like a scene from Pirates of the Carribean.

But we checked it off our list and continued our trek north.

    Boat life: Paige reading as the sun sets, Sky prepping seeds and beads as the sunrises.

It was cool to pull back into Tyrell Bay, Carriacou again; our first time to return to a port we have previously visited.  The familiarity was comforting.  We had a few repairs we needed to tend to before heading west so we were scheduled to be hauled out overnight while in Carriacou.

We were the last hauled at the end of the day, spent the night in the slings being super productive

and were dropped back in the water first thing in the morning.  

After checking out of Grenada and its Grenadines, we sailed into St Vincent & the Grenadines and flew our “Q” flag.  One night in Union Island, a quick snorkel in the Tabago Cays, dinner with our friends aboard Grateful in Bequia, before an amazing sail up the East coast of St Vincent.  

We spent the day outrunning storms.

    Sunshine on the left, dark storms on the right.  That's how quickly your day can change!

It was beautiful until we had thunder and lightning, which is my favorite thing in the world but Andrew says is no good on a boat :) We were very thankful for our new dodger Andrew sewed while in Grenada.  It kept us realitively dry in the cockpit when the skies opened up.

We finally rounded the southern tip of St Lucia as the sun set and were treated to the most spectacular bioluminescence we’ve ever seen!  We were safely on the ball between the Pitons enjoying dinner when the strongest gust front we have ever experienced blew in from behind the mountains, luckily it was short lived.

    Beautiful rainbow as we left the Pitons.

We were so happy to find ourselves back at Marigot Bay and Capella Marina.  And even more overjoyed to meet back up with some La Phare Bleu friends aboard Corpse Pounder and Nightingale Tune.

   Our favorite little Corpse Pounder!

The girls and I relaxed by the pool

while Andrew was busy installing our new solar panels.  It would have been easy to stay indefinitely in the beautiful resort paradise

but we were excited to pick up our new water maker in Rodney Bay.  It was like Christmas morning with Andrew opening our new toy, reading part of the instructions :) and dreaming about where we would install it.

We did one last large provisioning run to prep for our trip west and some last minute wifi for weather, etc.  Then it was time to head out into the deep blue.

Things learned aboard this week:

We were pleasantly surprised by falling comfortably back into life aboard.  I was being very honest last time when I mentioned the apprehension at being back.  We had such a great visit home and life aboard is not always easy but we found our groove fairly easily.  Go Team Abby Singer!

I’m saving the story of our crossing for the next blog but I can tell you it had each of us in tears at different points in the very difficult journey so be sure to catch the next leg of our adventure - Bonaire.

    This beautiful double rainbow appeared as we pulled away from St Lucia.

    I took it as a sign of good things to come 

    but in hindsight I think it was meant to remind me we weren't alone out there :)

49 - 50. Bonaire Makes Everything Better!

33-34. Happy Birthday, Abby Singer

    Celebrating our third year with Abby.

    Pic from our first day aboard 3 years ago on our maiden voyage home with Abby.

 

If you had told me three years ago, when my hubby talked me into spending almost twice our budget on a sailboat when we'd never even sailed before, that I would be living on her full time now for over seven months and traveling all through the Caribbean, I would have laughed in your face!  But our life is one adventure after another so I guess I shouldn't be surprised, just really grateful.  

So, Happy Birthday, Abby!

We’ve had an action packed week!  

3 islands, new anchoring scenarios (including a drag), bucket list experiences, lots of marine life and mosquitos - lots and lots of mosquitos!  

Although we were sad to leave our new friends in Rodney Bay, the beautiful amenities at Marigot Bay and Capella Marina quickly eased the pain :)

    Girls in their natural environment - they wish!

We spent our days relaxing by our private pool (not really private but we were the only ones there :) 

 

    Our dnghy access to the pool.

And spent our evenings watching the Caribbean Olympic coverage.  It is exciting to recognize so many foreign flags and feel a connection to the island athletes, as well as our American competitors.

We made new friends aboard Warvall.

    The girls made a Lego cube tower.

Even though Rodney Bay has lots of amenities, Marigot Bay has the beauty!

   That's Abby in the center of the pic.

It is a palm tree lined cove where the original Dr Doolittle was filmed.  Beautiful little restaurants and the kindest marina staff we’ve found.  When we asked for a recommend on where to watch the Olympics they quickly had staff turn on the outdoor tv at an already closed restaraunt just for us, pretty great customer service!  

We didn't want to leave but the Pitons were calling our names.

    My goofy girls with the Pitons as our backdrop.

At many anchorages we have had “boat boys” approach the boat.  They are usually there to "help" you pick up a mooring ball for a small fee.  Some have fruit or fish they are selling, others want to sell their services as guides to local attractions and a few are just begging for a hand out.  But nothing could prepare us for the aggressive behavior of the boat boys at Soufriere, St Lucia!  Two small boats sped out to meet us before we were in the cut.  They took turns zigging in front of our boat at full speed.  Meanwhile, we have our sails up and have to turn on the engine and drop our sails to be ready to avoid them if necessary.  They were yelling back and forth at each other and paid no attention to us telling them both we wouldn't need their services.  We stayed polite for the first 20-30 minutes of their pursuit but it took being pretty forceful to get them to leave us alone.  We spent an hour just motoring around the bay, looking at all our options before deciding to drop the hook in front of the Hummingbird and one of the locals grabbed a line tied to our stern (back of the boat) to tie to a tree on shore.

 

This sounds if-y and we’ve never tied to shore before but it is pretty common this far south.  It freaked us out a bit to be in 100+ feet of water and approaching shore when you sail over the shelf floor and the depth jumps to 40 feet and decreasing rapidly!  We quickly drop the anchor then put her in reverse to swing her bum around and now we are probably 20’ from shore where everyone is swimming and having fun watching us.  It proved to be very comfortable but as night fell we found out why we were the only ones there.  The karaoke blasting until 3am might have been enough to keep away others but that wasn't our issue.  As the sun went down, out came the mosquitos in force!  There was no escaping them and we know all the scary diseases they can be carrying onboard with them.  I slept completely under the sheet with my visor on to make a tent over my face.  We all got eaten up but Paige took the worst of it.

    Talk about winning the bad parent award!

We woke early to move away from the bugs and with the heavy, overcast skies, had the entire snorkeling area to ourselves!

    Quite the view!

We saw lots of fish, some great swim throughs and the largest patch of fire coral I’ve ever seen.

After seeing all we could underwater, we settled in between the Pitons to enjoy the sunset.

It was amazing.

It felt like the horizon stretched on forever and glowed an amazing red long after the sun went down!  

Andrew checked hiking Petit Piton off his bucket list while the girls and I waited for him safe at sea level.  You’re not “officially” supposed to climb it but he had no trouble finding a guide willing to take him up.

    His guide even hiked with no shoes!

With rain falling sporadically and the last summit a bit sketchy, Andrew's guide did not want to continue, but Andrew would not be deterred.  And the reward was great!  While at the summit the clouds broke and gave him spectacular views in all directions!

 

Having accomplished what we came for and not feeling particularly comfortable in Soufriere because of reports of crime, etc, it was time to move south.  

To break up our longer sail to Bequia, we decided to Q flag it in St Vincent, which means flying our quarantine flag, not being able to go ashore and not checking in to St Vincent.  We found ourselves in a similar situation as at the Hummingbird with depths of 100+ feet until within 50’ of shore where they immediately jump to less than 20’.  Dropping our anchor was no problem.  But waking at 3am to find the winds gusting to 30 knots and us dragging right off the shelf so now our 50lb anchor and 100’ of chain are just dangling in the depths below the boat, not securing us to anything, was much more excitement than one would usually like to wake to.  Needless to say we were up repeatedly through the night to double and triple check our holding.  The sun wouldn't rise fast enough for us to pull anchor and be done with that night!

But Bequia was a beautiful respit from our crazy.  The girls always love when we leave before they’re up so they only have a few hours of passage left when the wake.  We had a beautiful sail and multiple pods of dolphins visit us; we haven't seen dolphins since our passage to Puerto Rico.

    Dolphins swim right under the bow.

 

We even entered the harbor under sail only which can get a bit tricky with current and wind adding to the excitement.  But with the help of a friendly local, we found the perfect spot to anchor in white sand under the clear turquoise water, reminiscent of the Bahamas.

We loved our time in Bequia.  The people were friendly and welcoming.  Visiting in off-season was nice because we hear it is a mad house when all the tourists and charter boats are in port.  We found a few great places to watch the Olympics and enjoy some great food, Bequia Marina and Maria’s Cafe.  

    Andrew was securing the boat in this.

    While we watched this :)

And enjoyed the highly recommended Mac's Pizza.

    Yummy!

But most importantly, we got to do laundry!  Trust me when I tell you, on land we took for granted the convenience of washing whatever whenever!  We have not done laundry since Guateloupe, before I went back to FL, we were all down to the last sets of essentials and it is really sad when you compare smells on the shirts to pick the least stinky.  But no worries, after six loads, every item onboard is fresh and clean thanks to the help of my girls!  We even cleaned Abby’s hull.  So we are clean all around.  

    Sky scrubbing the rudder.

Things learned aboard this week:

Just being reminded, there is good everywhere!  Even in the sketchy areas where the reviews warn of theft and boat boardings, we have found wonderful people.  We try not to frequent places where safety is an issue but we also aren't guided by fear.  If we have to visit somewhere a little shady, we use wisdom to not make ourselves a target.  But even among the begging and aggression of some, we always meet those who are genuinely ready to help.  Soufriere, which is notorious for theft and a recommended "no stop" had one of the nicest customs officers I've worked with.  And St Vincent, also with a bad rap, had people on shore waving us off as we approached a shallow shoal and the guy on the paddle board selling fruit tried to recommend a safer place to anchor.  Had we heeded his advice we may have avoided dragging - live and learn.

    Love some sour sop for breakfast!  ;)

We are heading into the Tobago Cays, islands we never knew existed until a few months ago, which is really cool to discover new parts of our world.  Can't wait to tell you how it goes.

35 - 36. Look At Those Digits!