We have gone Dutch!

Bonaire

Welcome to the Dutch Caribbean! Bonaire is 400M west of Grenada and 50M north of Venezuela. First impressions are of a Dutch town, the style of buildings, the layout and ordered arrangement of things, quite a contrast to the Eastern Caribbean with its slightly chaotic and mixed development. The feel here is very European; the majority of people speak Dutch and Papiamento (the local patois). English is widely spoken together with a spattering of Spanish from those of South American descent.

Bonaire is another volcanic island, the whole of the east coast is a national park and fringed with a coral reef. This makes it a diver’s paradise with many shore and boat dive sites not to mention the island of Klein Bonaire with its own reefs.

The weather here is pretty dry even for the ‘wet’ season, the wind blows from the easterly quadrant most of the time and while we have had a few showers it is mainly dry but occasionally cloudy but very warm, 32 degrees during the day only dropping to 28 at night so no relief in the evening from the heat of the day.

By chance we are moored opposite a dive centre so it is a 2 minute dinghy ride to get our cylinders filled. There is no anchoring anywhere off Bonaire, you must use a mooring, even to dive from your dinghy. There are moorings provided by the National Park Authority at all the dive sites and they are free to use. A yearly diving permit is charged of US$25 per person to dive in Bonaire, it costs US$10 to swim or snorkel.

View from the boat

While we are here we will have our wind turbine fitted and hopefully solve our lack of battery charging. We also want to tour the island which reminds us of Lanzarote with the arid landscape and cacti. Almost forgot we plan to dive a bit too!

Having taken a few days to get ourselves organised, we arranged a scooter hire and took a tour along with another couple we had previously met in St Lucia.

Born to be mild!

The history of Bonaire is all about salt production and piracy. The early settlers built the first town of Rincon inland so the town couldn’t be seen from the sea (avoiding being attacked by pirates). Rincon is a small town, the main town is now Kralendijk, but the people of Rincon consider themselves the ‘true’ Bonairans! The latest new attraction there is the Cadushi Distillery where a Dutch couple now make the cactus liqueur. They also do whiskey, rum and vodka and we had a few tastes. We preferred the liqueurs to the spirits.

Old church Rincon

 

 Later, slaves were imported from Africa to work in the salt producing industry. Salt is still produced here on an industrial scale with large salt pans and piles of drying salt waiting loading onto the ships waiting offshore for a berth on the dock. The salt pans provide a rich feeding ground for Flamingos, Black winged stilts and other wading birds.

Saltworks

Slave hut

We felt sorry for the slaves who had to walk from Rincon to the salt pans in the south. It was a 10 hour walk so eventually they built themselves huts which in the 1800’s were replaced by the huts we see today. The salt was graded into different qualities and coloured obelisks informed the ships where to load the quality they required. The obelisks were red, white, blue and orange (very Dutch).

How it was done in the old days!

After a very sunburnt day on a scooter we had seen most of the island. The south is very low lying and windswept, the beaches on the south and east coast are littered with driftwood and other debris from the sea. As we travelled further north the vegetation was thorn trees, scrub and tall thin cacti. Cacti is cut by the locals to make fences, also you can make cactus soup and now of course the cactus liqueur.  Further north are the hills of the Slaagbaai national park (referred to as mountains by the locals!).

The hilly north

The Park is only accessible by 4x4 so we will do that another day.  Feral goats and donkeys roam everywhere which is part of the reason that the island has such poor vegetation. The islanders are trying to find ways of restricting the animals to help the trees to re-establish themselves. Now and then there was a fenced off area and the difference was marked with bigger trees and more lush undergrowth.

Island vegitation

There are beautiful green and orange parrots and parakeets that fly overhead, calling raucously, even right in town. As we drove around we would see them sitting on top of the cacti – a strange sight as one usually associates parrots with lush jungle. I have not yet got a photo because the roads are quite narrow and winding, so we did not feel safe stopping except in the occasional passing places or viewpoints.

Windmills - of course!

The dive sites here are all marked by a yellow painted stone with the name on and there are over 60 on Bonaire and another 30 or so on Klein Bonaire. Most are accessible from shore so everywhere there are parked pick- ups (Bakkies) with divers in and out of the water. You do not have to dive with a guide here, so once you have paid your Park fee and had a little lecture on marine conservation, you are free to dive as much as you like. Many people go self catering, hire a vehicle and dive, dive, dive! There are dive centres all over the town so air fills are easy. We paid $107 for 20 fills (in advance) and have a card at Yellow Sub, ”our” dive shop.

We have been diving off the back of the boat or going by dinghy to different dive sites. There is usually a sandy area close to shore where the moorings are laid in about 5m then the reef begins and drops off to about 30m where there is sand again. So you get to see a good variety of life. The reef is all wonderful, huge corals and sponges in all different shapes and colours. There are so many different fish rushing around that we can no longer record all the fish we see on a dive. Now, we just mention the unusual ones. Meter long parrot fish, French Angelfish the size of dinner plates, schools of blue and brown Chromis, Creole wrasse racing each other in apparently mindless circles, Bar jack hunting and hundreds of Damsel fish are now dismissed as “all the usual reef fish”. We note Hawksbill turtle, lionfish, spotted scorpionfish, different eels, spotted drums, soapfish, Sand tilefish, Fairy basselets, Hamlets , Moharra, and anenomes with their different attending shrimps. All the creatures seem unbothered by divers and we can approach them closely. As we are diving on our own we go slowly and have time to watch trumpetfish using parrotfish or angelfish as cover, juvenile Spanish hogfish and other fish at cleaning stations and tiny gobys peeping out of holes in the coral.

We have seen Tarpon about 2m long, 1m Tiger grouper,1.5m Black groupers and a great Barracuda, about 1.5m, swam past me about 30cm away! The dive shop told us yesterday where a frogfish (purple!) has been found, so that will be our next dive. It is under a boat, 3 moorings away from us! Not even an official dive site. Quite often we hear the bubbles of divers going up the side of the boat and many evenings we see the lights of night divers around us. That is another dive we still have to do!

If I had my camera I would have had some amazing shots. Hopefully we will come back.

The town, which is a dinghy ride away for us, has pretty buildings, a lot of construction and many resorts and hotels. There are lovely shops, some very upmarket, because cruise liners call in and Gio’s does delicious ice cream, coffee and iced coffee. There are many restaurants with cuisine from all around the globe, Happy Hours and live music at the weekends.

There is a supermarket in town, and just outside is Van den Tweels which is a Waitrose type shop. They provide a complimentary bus from the marina and back on Tuesdays and Fridays, so new all go in and buy things we have not seen for a while – ready cut up stir fry, fresh Tapenade, great beef sausages for the braai (BBQ), grapes and cherries. The local laundry will also collect you whenever you like and bring you back again at no charge, so its all nice and organised.

We will stay here until the beginning of September when we will sail to the nearby island of Curacao (about 40miles). We have been told that Curacao is very different to Bonaire with more development and industry. We will see. We will leave the boat in a marina in Curacao for a month while we fly back to England to visit family and friends and pick up the inevitable boat parts we always seem to need. It will then be a rush to get ready for the start of the sailing season proper.

Where we go from Curacao really depends on the wind. There is often a ‘wind reversal’ which would allow us to sail back east, if not we will sail north, the beauty of cruising!

Grenada

We had heard so much about Grenada, the cruisers summer hideout.

Entering St Georges

We had taken a berth in the yacht club marina, an ideal place to refuel, water up, do our laundry,

Yacht club Marina from the Bar terrace

shop and sightsee. 

This time our marina visitor was a Green Heron fishing!

 

St Georges is an interesting town, many of the Georgian waterfront buildings have been restored – it reminds us a lot of Royal Clarence in Gosport.

Georgian waterfront

 

The harbour is separated from ‘downtown’ by a steep hill. . In the late 1800’s a tunnel was dug to enable traffic to access both sides without having to climb the hill, but only women were allowed to walk through it. We walked through a few times, no pavement or anything so when a larger truck comes you have to flatten yourself against the wall! I found it quite scary, but the locals just stroll through quite nonchalantly. The tunnel is still very much in use today although much of the town is a one way traffic scheme. It must have been chaos 100 years ago! It is still very hilly!

Sendall Tunnel

 

For us Grenada was never going to be a long term summer stay (some never go away). We were always going to move on to the ABC islands (a little bit of Holland in the Caribbean



The Careenage from Fort George

 

 

Dock at the Careenage

 

We spent a couple of days exploring St Georges, the fort and the town, markets and Supermarkets, chandleries and hardware stores, finally moving  to the bays on the south coast.

 

Clarkes Court Bay

There are several good anchorages and marinas to choose from. Prickly bay is popular with easy access to buses to town and local shopping plus many restaurants, bars etc. Mount Hartman bay is a little more secluded as is the anchorage off Hog Island (a favourite hurricane hole). We chose Clarkes Court Bay, partly because ‘Vivace’ were there but also because it seemed to be a little quieter with a bit less of the hectic social whirl that seems to be the cruisers Grenada.

Every day the morning cruisers ‘net’ would announce social activities ranging from ‘Mexican train dominoes’, water aerobics, yoga, to tai chi, even a cricket match! Shopping buses every other day to take you to the town or out of town shopping malls, wherever you needed to go. In addition there were half price pizza nights, various ‘happy hours’ lunchtime specials, evening entertainments galore. Sometimes It was exhausting just listening.

We managed to avoid most of the activities but did use the shopping bus which was very good and also the local bus from the nearby village of Woburn to St Georges. It is a good service Monday to Saturday during the day.
 

Maurice Bishop

We arranged an historic sightseeing tour of the island with CB Historical tours - at US$20 per head for the day it was good value. Clement Baptiste was very knowledgeable about the islands history and he shared some of his personal experiences in the events that lead to the murder of Maurice Bishop, the then Prime Minister, and the US invasion in 1983.These events are still very close to the hearts of most Grenadians and Maurice Bishop still remains a hero of democracy.

Distillery Furnace

 

 The Rivers rum factory was very much as it would have been 300 years ago with a water wheel used for crushing the cane and wood and cane stalks used in the furnace for the boilers. The 50% ABV and 75% ABV white rum they produce is lethal! It is a drink you inhale rather than sip as it vaporises before you can swallow.
 

Cane Press

The day was finished off with a drive through the rain forest and a visit to a waterfall surrounded by many coloured flowering plants and trees.

View from the rainforest

 

 

We finally managed to learn how to play Mexican train dominoes, (any thanks ‘Secret Smile’) so we now feel like real ‘Grenada cruisers’!

Grenada is a real meeting place for those cruising the Caribbean, we managed to meet up with people we hadn’t seen since the Canary islands along with new friends we had met out here. We had plenty of stories to swap over several beers! Whisper Cove is a tiny marina which was closest to us. They have a good butcher on sight in a tiny well stocked shop, laundry, water and daily lunch specials, Happy Hour every evening with free wifi and quite often, live music. A really pleasant little hide away.

Enjoying the ambience at Whisper Cove

 

We  had heard so many good stories of the ABC islands as the best place to avoid tropical storms in the summer so we were looking for a good weather window (no storms or tropical waves) to make the 400M passage west. We also didn’t want to stay too long as we would have to renew our cruising permit (they last for a month).

Our passage west would take us directly through 3 islands off the Venezuelan coast so we would head slightly WNW then gybe and head WSW to reach Bonaire.

We left on Monday 29^th July  at 14:30  and were tied up on our buoy here in Kralendijk at 18:00 on Thursday 1^st August -402 miles in 3 days and 3 ½ hours – a moving average of 5.3kts. We are here in a divers paradise for at least a month – a nice feeling knowing we are going to be settled for a while.

 

 

 

Carriacou

Carriacou

Hillsborough is the main town. It is a really busy place, the dock is a real hive of activity. From ferries coming and going, traditional Carriacou sloops with a real mix of cargoes to the modern hydrofoil ferry. Yachts checking in and fishing boats buying diesel from an old fuel barge anchored in the harbour.

Traditional Trader

You can sit here and watch the world go about its business for quite a while.

Sunset Hillsborough

 

There are many Pelicans, Boobies, Laughing gulls and Frigate birds and we regularly get to watch their feeding frenzies. One of them spots a school of fish and as soon as it starts diving they all come to join in, dozens of birds at a time. The nasty Frigate birds soar above and dive down to try to take another birds catch. The Boobies know what to do – they just land in the water to enjoy their meal. The Frigate birds cannot take off from the sea so they swerve off and try to take another bird by surprise.

Pelican Fishing

We are anchored close to ‘Exit Strategy’, so the social round of ‘sundowners’ and some water aerobics continued.

Carriacou Museam

While in Hillsborough we took the opportunity to visit the local museam. Although small it was really interesting with artifacts dating back to the Arawaks and the Caribes.  The enthusiastic young curator told us that the local population could track their ancestry back to the tribe they came from in Africa from their European surnames which they took from their owners upon the abolition of slavery, and how many African traditions were still preserved on the island.

View of Pettit Martinique from Windward 

 

We took the local bus to the village of Windward where the traditional sloops are built. There was no boatbuilding going on at the moment but it was interesting to note the large number of Scots surnames buried in the local graveyard. Many were boatbuilders or schooner captains, some living to well into their 80’s as long ago as the early 19^th Century.

'Windward' Cottage

 

Pizza shop Windward

 

One of the things we like here is the lack of ‘hassle’, no constant “do you want a taxi” or “can I look after your dinghy”, I’m sick gimme some money” or “can I give you a tour of the Island”.  We can just walk around, do our shopping,  catch a bus to visit other parts of the island in peace.

Shopping in Hillsborough has pretty much everything you need, including a really nice delicatessen and some interesting souvenir shops, local café’s, and a lovely restaurant run by a South African woman who sailed to Carriacou and just stayed. It is easy to see why.

After a couple of days in Hillsborough we are moving on to Tyrell bay. There is no wind for the 5 mile trip so we motor.

Carriacou Marine

Tyrell bay is one of the most sheltered anchorages in the area, and the mangroves make a good ‘hurricane hole’. There are lots of boats in the anchorage and quite a ‘boaty’ community. People here really make you feel welcome and look after each other. After our first evening here we ended up looking after a lovely Spirit 55 (Spirited Lady) while her owner was away for a few days on a camping trip!

Laughing Gull sheltering in the Mangroves

 

Wreck in the Mangroves

Ashore there are a few small grocery stores  giving a good selection including frozen meat and chicken and fresh bread every day. There are two vegetable stalls but the best is on Saturday when Rufus brings his own fruit and veg, eggs and fresh chicken. There are also a few souvenir shops, 2 dive shops, 3 laundrys (!!) and several bars. With the boatyard offering quite a range of services and a sailmaker too, it is a good spot to hole up and do repairs as well.

Every morning we listen to the Grenada cruisers net on Ch 66. It is all the usual stuff, the weather, arrivals and departures, sales and wants, social activities and local business giving themselves a plug.  We also learn that Grenada seems an endless social whirl – not that sure that we will be able to take the pace!

 Not to be outdone, the weekend here is going to be hectic with Friday at the ‘Lambi Queen’ and a steel pan band, Saturday is the ‘Fisherman’s Birthday’ celebrations and Sunday a local ‘Oildown’ cooked by the veg stall. We may miss out on the Sunday as you really can have too much partying!

The steel band at Lambi’s was excellent, attended by locals and yachties alike, as was the fishermens celebrations with excellent fish dishes, tug - o - war and other games just on the street. As Rowena is not keen on fish we walked up the side street to ‘Miss Luckys ‘ a BBQ chicken shop where we met the crew of ‘Sea Schell’, ‘Kaya Moya’ (a South African boat) and ‘Celtic Spray’.

Every evening we seem to be invited to something either on another boat or ashore. We met 2 other South African boats here as well, Lycaen and Stingo. Together we had a great evening on Sweet Chariot (USA) who we had met on Sea Schell (USA) with some great guitar music.

Rasta Cannon Tyrrell bay

 

The talk here is of the first tropical storm to be named in the Caribbean, Chantal is its name and the track is being closely monitored. When in Bequia we met Lubin who used to be a schooner skipper trading under sail, he told us that any storm ‘named’ north of 9 deg north would always miss Bequia. Chantal was named at 9.9 deg north.  A few boats here have moved into the mangroves although we are not even on a storm watch let alone a storm warning, windspeed is predicted to be 15-20kts with gusts up to 25+Kts. As it turned out, Chantal passed between St Lucia and Martinique with minimal damage just some heavy rain. A couple of days later the boats that were hiding away crept out of the mangroves, as for the rest of us, well we just continued to party! Looks like Lubin was right.

Paradise Beach Carriacou


 

Sunset Tyrell Bay

After a week here we are ready to move on to the main island of Grenada. We will go down the leeward side as we want to spend a few days in St Georges. We have booked into the Grenada yacht club marina where we can get fuel, water and electricity and they have a laundry. Town is a short walk or a dinghy ride away, we can tie our dinghy right outside ‘Foodland’.  At EC$54 (£13) a night it is good value and we are right in the centre of town.

Sailing to Grenada

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Southern Grenadines

South from Bequia

Wednesday 19^th June was spent doing laundry and filling the water tanks. This involves calling Miranda on Ch68 who sends her man to collect the laundry and brings it back later washed, dried and folded. Water is calling Daffodil on Ch67 who comes over with his barge full of water. He also supplies fuel and they both do ice! Bequia is really well organised for the yachting community. With Joseph coming  around with vegetables and his own fresh baked bread on Wednesday and Saturday you hardly need to leave the boat!

We had planned to leave on Thursday but it was still blowing more than 20kts in the bay so we decided to wait one more day. This was quite nice as ‘Capisce’ had arrived, fellow Cruising Assoc. members who we had met first in the Canary Is and then again over here. So, we had one last sundowners on the beach with them and ‘Trudi Mae’ our new Canadian friends.

We upped anchor at 10:00 and set off with one reef in the main and the full genoa in easterly 3/4 having to turn to avoid a turtle on the surface near the edge of the bay. We are seeing new birds now, ones we had first seen on the way down from St Lucia. I think they are Audobons shearwaters and blue footed boobies, but need to see more to be sure.

We sailed past several small islands as well as Mustique, where we shook out the reef. We did want to visit Mustique, but now you have to take a mooring ball and pay US$150.00 for up to 3 nights. Since there is very little you can really see and do there, we decided the charge was outrageous and gave it a miss.

Entry into Charlestown Bay, Canouan is very easy with a wide channel clearly marked with red and green posts, but of course here, it is green to port on the way in. By 14:15 we were anchored in 5.5.m with three other yachts – 21miles in 4.1/4 hours.  I pulled the engine stop cable to turn off the engine, but it just kept on coming and the engine kept on going! Richard went below and turned it off manually.

The cable had broken just before the fuel pump, but ingeniously Richard rejoined it using an electrical chocolate block connector, and it seemed to hold. Of course, this is now something we will have to find, but unlikely on Canouan, (population 1200). It will have to wait for, hopefully, Union Island. Martin, a spearfisherman, arrived with fish to sell, a stoplight parrotfish, a doctorfish and a big squirrelfish. We declined and then asked if we would like lobster! He was on his way to get some for another boat.

We were in a small bay with a rocky shoreline in the north becoming a lovely long sandy beach to the south with wooded hills behind. Pelicans were sitting on a big rocky outcrop, frigate birds, boobies and laughing gulls in the air and turtles in the water. We had a quick snorkel to check the anchor. It was a bit murky but we could see the anchor on the bottom from the surface, nicely dug in. There were sandy bits and lots of turtle grass, a few fish, probably Porgys, and many Short Spined sea urchins.

We enjoyed not having to rush ashore to check in. This is the first time we have sailed from one island to another in the same country since the Canary Islands. Later we watched a yellow crowned night heron land on the rocky shore looking for his supper.

The following day we go ashore to look around the village of Charlestown. On our way to the dingy dock we pass over a 1m wide stingray on the sandy bottom.  Ashore there are numerous small groceries and a fruit market, a few small eateries and bars. All you need really. Canouan seems to be in the grip of a building boom, the north of the island is being developed into a ‘caged development’. An exclusive tourist resort at US$1500 a night! The rest of the island is slowly being rebuilt on the back of this development with new houses and apartments being built. When the building boom ends will the island be plunged into recession?

Conch shells by the fishing Co-op

For the time being everything seems rosy. We hiked over the hill to the windward side to see the reef and its’ pool. It was not very well sheltered at all. The few moored fishing boats were rocking in quite a swell. In a couple of hours we had walked most of the locals’ end of the island.

Wildlife on Canouan!

 On our way back we stop at the Mangrove bar on the beach for a welcome cold beer. Slightly tourist prices at EC$6 for a beer but nothing compared to the price of lunch in the Tamarind Beach Resort where we are anchored off - US$100 for a traditional lunch for two of baked chicken or fish with steamed provisions, rice and peas. In a local café where this is what they always serve, you can get the same for about EC$15 each (about US$6!). Thankfully they didn’t charge for the use of their dinghy dock.

A couple of days here and we have really seen all there is to see. Our next stop is Mayreau about 6 miles away, as we are picking up the anchor we saw turtles close to the boat, we motored slowly out so hopefully not to disturb them.

 Mayreau (pop.400) has a couple of anchorages on the leeward side, Saltwhistle bay and Saline bay.

A Deserted Saline Bay

Saline bay is the main anchorage and in the season, cruise ships visit discharging their passengers for beach BBQ’s. We have the place to ourselves, apart from the daily ferries that always seem to pass 20 feet off our stern at 15kts! The walk up the hill to the village and church is rewarded with great views over the Tobago Cays and the rest of the Grenadines.

Tobago Cays

We have lunch and are the only diners at the Combination Café. I cannot imagine what it is like when there is a cruise ship in the bay. We are off to Union Island where we may be able to get our engine stop cable replaced.

Mayreau church and Hurricane shelter

 

Righteous and de Youths Bar!
 

The sail to Union is about an hour from anchor up to entering the harbour! The main town of Clifton has an interesting approach, surrounded by a reef and with a reef in the middle of the harbour. Careful pilotage is required. The main anchorage is facing the reef and the prevailing easterlies, you are sheltered from the waves but as for the wind you are in the lee of Africa! We sat here while a tropical wave blew through, hum!!

Our view from the boat. Clifton Anchorage, the reef then Africa!

The Anchorage

 The town is pretty and has a feel of a border town (which it is). Pretty much everything is available here. There is an interesting ‘new’ island built on the reef by a Rasta called Janti, constructed of all the old conch shells the fishermen were dumping on the beach.

Happy Island Bar

The 1st Mate with Cap'n Harris - Janti wasn't the only 'pirate' on Happy Island

 He called it Happy Island. It is his home and also a Bar/restaurant. We are sure that he preys on the tourists as we went there for a beer (at EC$10 a beer it was only one).

Mulzac square Clifton, Union Island

Who was Mulzac - Google Captain Mulzac to find out!

Sign outside the pool in the Anchorage hotel

 

They wern't kidding!

 In the morning, we found the mechanic and with his help managed to engineer a workable solution to our broken cable. Somewhere we will be able to find the correct one, until then our fix seems to be working ok. Union is the last of the SVG islands so we check out with Customs, Immigration and Port Control and set sail for Carriacou, part of Grenada.

Off the wind we set the genoa and mizzen, dial in our new autopilot and before we know it we are there. On arrival we checked the log, was it really only 8 miles to here from Union?



Hillsborough dock- Not a flat cap or Whippet in sight!

Hillsborough is the main town and the Port of entry. We dinghy ashore to check in and find ‘Exit Strategy’s’ dinghy tied to the dock. I can feel some socialising happening here!

Looks like the sun is over the Yardarm again!