Not to worry – I am alive and well. Been slowly getting used to cruising life and not feeling like writing. So let me catch you up:
I arrived in Carriacou’s Tyrrel Bay on Tuesday just before sunset. I wake up to a cloudy and windy morning. No matter; I had already decided to stay here for a full day to recover from the long sail, do a bit of reconnaissance and then carry on Thursday.
I have great news: my really good friend Matt, my grad school roommate in Madison, is going to come visit! I am so excited. It’s a bit lonely onboard and I look so forward to having his company for a few days. He will fly in on Thu in two weeks and spend a long weekend. It’s a long way from Michigan and he is not exactly a sailor but rather doing this for me. What a sweetheart he is! I better make sure he will have a great time here on JACE.
I need to renew my Grenada cruising permit and it takes me two trips to the customs office to get that done. I need a letter documenting how long JACE was out of the water and thanks to the little printer we have onboard even that bureaucratic hurdle does not cause issues. And I discover a very good supermarket and buy some more yoghurt on which I have been running low. Me, low on yoghurt!
The weather says iffy, quite windy and lots of rain showers coming through, during the day and night, which interrupts my sleep a bit – close hatches, open hatches, close hatches. Eventually I decide to stay one more night until the weather turns sunny again on Friday. To compensate, I follow my friend Aaron’s recommendation, go to dinner at Anne’s Gallery Bistro, and enjoy delicious Indian food. Hmm so good.
To stay fit I have started to either do a long morning swim or some stretching and strengthening on the foredeck. The latter is quite tricky with the boat swaying and rolling underneath. Great core muscle workout. But today is swimming time and I do a nice 1.5km loop all the way to the beach and back.
Just before I am about to leave, I get a visit from local fishermen who sell me some fresh fish. A red snapper and something else, they claim is also a red snapper, but I have my doubts.
In any event, the same evening they go on the BBQ (first time using that, works great) and turn our delicious.
On Friday I weigh anchor, which I slowly get better at and require fewer trips back and forth between the helm and the bow. My destination is L’Esterre Bay just around the headland and thus not worth setting sail for. It is blowing fairly consistently at 15-20kn and this bay is more open and thus has a slight swell. To avoid an uncomfortable night, I tuck in as far as I dare until I have less than a meter water under my keel. It’s nice here, at least for one night.
Another swim the next morning, to the beach and then a long walk along this gorgeous white sand beach with lots of palm trees and other lush vegetation. There is a restaurant here called Paradise Beach Club which is aptly named, I find.
Across from me is a famous place, Sandy Island, that everybody recommended. But it is windy and the anchorage open to the east and it is very rolly here and I decide to come back another time when the winds are a bit lighter. Instead I pull up the canvas and enjoy a lovely sail up Carriacou’s west coast and then tack to windward to two small islands just north: Petite Martinique (PM) and Petite St. Vincent (PSV).
Days ago I had researched both and looked a marine charts and satellite imagery to identify what should be safe and beautiful anchorages. But the reef that I thought protects my “dream anchorages” does not fully break the swell that washes over the reef and makes those spots very unsettled and not good places for an overnight. I am a bit disappointed. I stay for an hour to have lunch but don’t dare leave the boat to go snorkeling. I will have to try that by dinghy tomorrow morning.
Instead I find a nice spot in the main anchorage of PSV where I enjoy a quite afternoon and finally find time and headspace to write again. So, now you are up to date.
