Grenada:

We checked into Grenada at Prickly Bay and had to sail around the corner to Secret Harbor the following day. We hadn’t told anyone of our plans to come to the “other side” however, even before we had our anchor set in Secret Harbor two dingys full of our mates happened by on their way back from a fuel run and Bronwen was coming back from looking at a sail repair job so they all joined us onboard and were as thrilled as us with the coincidence of being there to celebrate with us that we had “crossed our line” and completed our global circumnavigation on Shenemere at that exact point and time in Grenada!

In Grenada we were reunited with a lot of our buddy boats…Trinity, Eleanor, Joanna, Tara, Nuka-Alofa, Vito Dumas & Destiny. What an amazing group of unique people from all walks of life “The International” Venezuelan, Brazilian, New Zealand, South African and Danish. We made our own fun exploring, keeping the braai tradition alive, celebrating Christmas & New Years and making new memories with regular dingy drifts in the mangroves and of course the regular afternoon football/ soccer games whenever the weather permitted. Such a great time as we did “day sails” often changing it up and sailing off packed with lots of people in just a few boats to day trip on the next island. Unfortunately, we have an itinerary to get back to Miami, so we had to peel away from our tribe and start heading North.

The Grenadines: Union, Mayreau, Bequia & St. Vincent Islands

The Grenadines is a chain of small islands in the Lesser Antilles.

Union Island and Mayreau Island are considered the Southern Grenadines and were our first stop on our way up the islands. Union Island has gorgeous clear water and is visually stunning however there wasn’t much for us on land as it’s a bit of a tourist pit, so we did our mangrove nature hike and a few snorkels and set off to Mayreau Island to escape the masses. Mayreau was just right, a small safe bay to anchor in and we could walk around the entire island which is what we ended up doing for a few days. We met up with our friends Mariola & Henryk (Polish/Canadian) that we had met back in Carriacou so we had some fellow adventures.

Bequia and St. Vincent are the Northern Grenadines. We have always loved Bequia for its quaint somewhat eclectic town center. Waterfront cafes with great beaches are good for people watching, Ok snorkeling and stunning hikes. We managed to hike an entire day to the highest point and back around to the other side of the island. We had been told to be on the lookout for Michael a Czech transplant that owns a bar and is very good friends of Pepe and Blanka. So as we were walking now 6 hours into our day we see Michael’s bar but it was closed and Michael wasn’t around but we were offered a ride back to the harbor and wouldn’t you know we passed Michael on the road (it’s a small island everyone knows each other) so we just stopped in the middle of the road and got out of our taxi and jumped in with Michael to spend the afternoon with him as he showed us some scenic sights and took us back to his bar for a cold drink before dropping us back at Port Elizbeth.  

I enjoyed a visit to Mauvin’s model boat shop and the Batik fabric shop for a bit of local culture and a girl’s afternoon with Mariola.

Our next stop at St. Vincent Island isn’t a popular cruisers destination because the rumors of thieving and the “boat boys” (locals that approach the boats hassling for the purchase of fish and curios) gets tedious. However, we are committed to visiting islands we hadn’t visited so we gave it a chance and were remarkably “underwhelmed”. First of all, you have to tie to the palm trees stern-to because it is too deep to anchor which was a unique experience for us but also meant we were parked within an arm’s length from the boats on either side of us. The anchorage was stunning; more in keeping with something you would see in the South Pacific and that was all St. Vincent had going for it. St. Vincent is the polar opposite to its sister island Bequia; where Bequia has the mega yachts, cruise ships and tourists to boost the economy St. Vincent had nothing. We were mostly accompanied by children that probably should have been in school but would spend the day “showing us around” while begging for money, food and shoes the entire time. We certainly took care of our local ambassadors but have to be cautious as to not encourage them to see us visitors as “dollar signs” and expect money from all the folks passing through however, I am pretty sure that ship has sailed.

St. Lucia, Martinique, Dominica & Guadalupe:

Northeast of St. Vincent is the island St. Lucia, it is part of the Winward Islands of the Lesser Antilles. We anchored in a huge bay just off of Pigeon Island and spent a few days hiking and exploring Pigeon Point while we waited for a good weather window to head on to Martinique.

Martinique Island is an overseas territory of France, so the food was great however quite expensive. The best thing about Martinique are the cute little towns with historic cobblestone streets and shuttered windows, always a historic church as the town’s central focus. The highlight of this visit to Martinique was our hike up Mt. Pelée in Saint Pierre: 1,397 meters we hiked hours and hurt for days afterward but it was well worth the effort. Our next Island stop was Dominica which was highlighted by the cruisers we met “The Vikings” a group of Danish, Norwegian and Dutch sailors we toured the island with exploring waterfalls, lakes and rivers while we waited for a wicked Northern swell to settle down so we could carry on to Guadalupe. We set sail to Guadalupe just in time to catch the start of Carnival in the smaller Southern Island of Terre-de-Haut, a cute tourist island that was vibrant with the costumes and music celebrations of their annual Carnival. Their Carnival was modest and in good taste compared to some of the other more “authentic” Caribbean Carnival’s I have been to in the past.

Antigua & Barbuda:

Martin and I had only been to Antigua once before in 1996 when we were both working on charter yachts, so we didn’t get to see much outside a view from either an engine room or galley respectively back in the day. This time we made sure we played our tourist card and visited Nelson’s Dock Yard: a cultural heritage site in English Harbor that was built in the early 18^th century and abandoned by the British Navy in 1889. We hiked up Monk’s Hill a site of an old fort and apparently a good place for metal detecting (I’d been told soldiers buttons could be found) however, I only found a few old nails with my metal detector. We made it to the famous Shirley Heights Lookout and blew our entire weeks budget on transportation, entrance fee and dinner $$$ we feel like we got our money’s worth just to enjoy the fun crowd, amazing steel band and amazing views. We left the next day for the Southern coast of Antigua: Green Island. Green Island is known to be a tricky entrance that should be attempted in good light so you can follow the deeper zig zag path through a narrow channel dodging submerged coral heads. It was worth the brow sweat of the channel entrance and we ended up spending a few days snorkeling the vast reef systems around the island. Martin got some good drone footage of the kite surfers that flock to the island.

I was a bit hesitant to go to Barbuda only because I had heard that it had been wiped out after a series of hurricanes and the locals have been since been unfairly relocated while the mega wealthy bought up the beach front property for development. Martin was however eager to go and again keeping with our plan to visit unchartered territories we went on to Barbuda. I will say the scenery is stunning in Barbuda; gorgeous beaches and we saw a lot of marine life on our snorkels but the hurricanes had damaged the reef too so that will take some time to come back. There was literally only a beach front bar where we anchored but it worked out to be the local place everyone gathered in the afternoon to have a chat and you could order BBQ lobster. We enjoyed a lot of time in the water and long walks on the beach and again stumbled into a few yachties that we have been seeing from island to island as we have been on the same basic Northern trajectory. With only a thatch roof beach bar and gentle lapping waters in the background we enjoyed some laughs with our fellow cruisers at sunset. We are so very truly grateful for the friends we have made and the experiences we have had this season as we have made our way up the Caribbean. Next stop St. Maarten and USVI.