Up with the sun again, and a quick battening of the hatches as a small squall went through. The plan is to depart around 10:00 for the Cays. Leaving at this time gives us the morning light from the east on ‘Mopion’ and ‘Pinese’, making it easy to see disturbed water etc, and also gives us western light when we go into the Cays.
The ‘Allo Allo’ channel came in crystal clear for about 10 seconds this morning, courtesy of the German-crewed charter catamaran on our starboard quarter. A pleasant way to start the day.
Watched the dinghy from the American-crewed catamaran ahead of us head for the dinghy dock, and then start paddling half-way across. The ladies hopped off and went for a walk, while the guy paddled the dinghy back to the catamaran. Suspect dirty plugs or water in the fuel.
Ladies are back on the dock, and no sign of their engine working. Mum and I took our dinghy upwind to the catamaran to see if they’d like us to collect their crew/passengers. Received an affirmative, and zipped across to the dock, collected the two ladies and delivered them back to the catamaran. As we got to the cat, they got their engine working – water in the fuel.
Spent 10 minutes with Dad, looking at the charts and plotting the course we’d need to:
- get out of the anchorage,
- past the sandbanks,
- into open water,
- across to the Clifton harbor entrance (avoiding the Grand de Coi reef),
- tack up between Union and Palm,
- run behind Mayreau avoiding Grand Col
- get above Mayreau
- and enter the Cays through the northern approach.
There is a southern approach to the Cays, but in a foreign yacht, and with the sun in the wrong place, it’s not one we wanted to try.
Came up around Grand de Coi reef without incident, and noticed another yacht going between Palm and the reef – the channel is marked as ‘difficult’, and is quite shallow in places. On the ‘Sailing’ channel, we saw a wonderful example of a 5-mast tall ship, under full sail, heading in from the east (she might be the Royal Clipper, but I couldn’t see her lifeboats). Last seen all sails down bar the ones between the masts, heading behind Union.
That yacht that crossed high on Grand de Coi? We chased her up past the lee of Mayreau, and watched the skipper blithely ignore the marker for Grand Col reef, splitting it and Mayreau. Well, almost ignore. She couldn’t have been more than 100 feet off of the reef (ie, 3 boat lengths) when someone threw the helm hard down. Crisis averted, possibly time for new underwear.
Picked up my second wound today; kicked the centre table leaf with my heel attempting to get outboard to drop the mainsail. Not a good sailing trip unless you get a few wounds and bruises.
Came into the Cays easily, though the channel markers were a bit hard to see (they really need to be painted in fluorescent orange). Dropped anchor in about 9 feet of water and as is normal in the Cays, the anchor pretty much vanished under the sand. Bought 3 t-shirts from the same vendor as last year; the shirts say “Sail More, Work Less” and “Sail Faster, Live Slower”.
The blue dive yacht from Bequia is here, compressor running.
The “Nature” channel is well tuned, with a small turtle spending some time around our stern, and a mid-size ray going past somewhere around 14:15. Reception on the “Allo Allo” channel is up to the normal standards – dons and madonnas, in a variety of shapes. I’m quite preferential to the madonna on the 42′ to power, nary a tan line. Quite a bit of activity on the ‘Sailing’ channel too. Cays have held steady around 23 – 25 yachts, with a steady exchange of yachts.
Some lovely 2-mast/2-jib yachts; a 61 foot catamaran with flying bridge; a 40′ monohull that took 3 tries to pick up a mooring, losing their boathook in the process and then tying up with a piece of rope that I wouldn’t trust to hold her weight; and a powered twin-hull tourist trap that showed passengers on the ‘Ocean Village’ what the Cays look like.
Went snorkelling at 15:30, over in the turtle sanctuary off of Baradal. Visibility wasn’t too good compared to the vacation in 2008, but the turtles there, grazing away with their attendant wrasse (mostly Slippery Dicks).
As I sit on deck, watching the sun go do, I can see (starting in the East, going clockwise):
- Sail Rock
- Petit Tabac (where Pirates of the Caribbean filmed)
- Petit Martinique (where we re-provisioned)
- Petit St. Vincent (where we anchored)
- Petit Tobago
- Carriacou (couldn’t go there, that’s part of Grenada)
- Palm Island (expensive resort)
- Union (Chatham Bay is hidden by the island)
- Jamesby
- Mayreau (we anchored in Saline Bay)
- Petit Bateau
- Petit Rameau
- Canouan (turning into a resort island, lots of construction)
- Baradal
- and Mustique
Quite impressive view, maybe 50 miles.
Time for the nightly engine run to keep the batteries topped up; they’re showing 11.5 volts at the moment. Whipped another rope by deck light (a car headlamp bulb).
Small show of lightning in the north; dinner was pork chops in barbeque sauce, rice, carrots, christophene and green beans.