Grenada to Bonaire

We moved round to Hog Island for our last few days in Grenada. A beautiful and quiet anchorage with just 3 other boats. Wonderful starlit nights there as there was little external light so the Milky Way was visible too. We met with our friends Wendy and Bobby for lunch/dinner at a beachfront 'bar' and had a lovely afternoon just relaxing and having a great time. After a quick visit to St Georges to check out, do a bit of last minute shopping and say goodbye to W & B, we left for Bonaire at about 8am - quite a civilised time compared to some departures!

Our departure was most uneventful as there was no wind for several hours and we had to motor. About midday there was enough wind to put the spinnaker up so we were able to make 4 - 5 knots. Afternoon brought very heavy rain in bursts but strangely little wind came with this. Wind picked up in the night and for the next two days we had 20 - 25 knots of wind and a 2 knot tide in our favour. The wind was dead behind us so we were on a run the whole time and the sea was only just a bit to the side of the boat. Occasional waves would come at a different angle and if you were moving at the time, you really had to grab hold of something or lose you balance! After a bit of experimentation, we settled on just the mainsail held out with a preventer stay. For non-sailors a bit of rope shackled to the boom and used to hold it in position. This worked well and we didn't change things again until we reached Bonaire.

On Day 2 we caught a beautiful Mahi-mahi - a fluorescent green/yellow fish and the best eating in the Caribbean sea BUT just as we were bringing it aboard it got free and swam away. Neither of us were very happy as this was the first one we had caught!!

Day 3 we lost another fish, but didn't get to see what it was! We did have a lovely visit by a pod of Dolphins who stayed with us for quite a while playing in our bow wave.

We arrived at the northern top of Bonaire dead on schedule at about 9am. We then had to spend about 4 hours beating to windward as the wind was from the southeast. Clearly need to put a bit more thought into arriving as we could have come in at the south and had an easy sail IF we had made that decision a day or so earlier!

After spending a few days recovering and sorting the boat we have been doing a bit of exploring. We hired bikes and set off around the southern end of the Island for what should have been a 10km ride. However, the scale on the map is clearly wrong and we cycled about 20 miles! Given neither of us has been on a bike in years this was quite a shock to our bodies! The recovery could take a while!!!!

The island is a one huge dive site. We often have divers under the boat and just snorkeling off the boat we have seen more fish than ever before. Checking the mooring line out we saw a spotted ray and have seen eels, angel fish and huge rainbow and parrot fish. This has tempted us into doing our paddi course which we start in the next few days. Most of the diving is from the beach so hopefully it will be a gentle introduction!

We haven't decided when to move on yet, given how lovely it is here we could be here a while!

On our Way Again!

We left Chaguramas just after 4am on a still and starlight night. After picking our way through anchored yachts and ships, we made our exit from Trinidad via the Mouth of the Dragon narrows just before dawn. On the other side we had little wind for an hour or so so motored on under autopilot while we had breakfast and watched the sunrise. Later, the wind rose to a comfortable 15 knots on the beam and we kept this all the way to Grenada with just a few slight increases in strength. This was probably one our best ever sails with a consistent 8+ knots speed with almost 9 for a short while. Our only problem was that we hooked a fish which was able to break the hook from the lure so we never saw it! Must have been big and maybe something we wouldn't have been able to bring aboard.

We've been in Grenada 2 weeks now and met some old friends and seen something of the island. A full day round the island tour with our friends Nell and Phil from Moondancer was really great as we really got to see almost everything. A swim at the Concord Falls was a highlight and it was also great to visit a nutmeg processing station. Work there is still all by hand in 19th century style although the volume processed is only 10% of pre hurricane Ivan levels as so many nutmeg trees were destroyed. One interesting fact is that if you leave the nutmeg in its shell it will keep for 10 years. So, the ones they gave us will probably still be in use when we eventually return to the UK!

The island is very beautiful and a vibrant green and it's hard to see the devastation caused by Ivan except in the number of new roofs. Islanders are friendly and helpful and not at all persistent in their attempts to sell you something. A change from some of the other islands where 'No thanks' doesn't mean anything other than they need to try harder.

We've also had friends we have previously met up Island aboard for lunch and also for dinner. Needless to say, our wine and beer stocks are going down! These have all been good fun and great to catch up with their adventures. That is, apart from the washing up!

Our plan now is to head to Bonaire, off the north coast of South America and we have been busy buying the right charts plus ordering in from the States the right chip for this area to go in the chart plotter. This has now arrived so I guess we just need to get the weather right before we leave sometime in the next few days.