Adventures of Navigator: Almost there!!!!!!

St. Vincent and the Grenadines

About Boat Boys:

Wallilabou, St. Vincent

We noted via the cruising guide and first-hand experience that boat boys can be a bit of a nuisance when entering strange harbors. They usually “fly” up to us in all versions of speed boats, dinghies, wooden fishing boats, paddling boards etc. offering to help us pick up the moorings of their choice. So, by this time, Cliff and I are quite leery of this help especially since I have become rather proficient at picking up moorings. So, when Alex approached our boat and offered to help us in Wallilabou, St. Vincent, we were a bit reluctant, however, since he seemed rather cleaned cut and mentioned that he was a designated Wallilabou tour guide and managed to not only tie us up to a mooring but also extended a line from our stern to what was left of a dock where Johnny Depp’s ship in Pirates of the Caribbean was sunk, we warmed up to his help. We even accepted his offer as tour guide to the local waterfalls. So, after settling in, we dinghied ashore and explored the left over movie set where scenes from Pirate’s of the Caribbean were filmed.

Movie Set for Pirates of Carribean

We had dinner in the open air restaurant (the tavern in the movie) and were treated to pictures of Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, a dummy pirate hanging by his neck from the rafters, a trunk full of fake treasure, and other pirate things.

The next morning, we met Alex for the waterfall tour and were surprised to find that there would be no car to take us part way up the mountain as this would be a walking tour with tidbits of information about identifying, nutmeg trees, birds and basic island info.

After a time, we finally made it to the little park where we would see the waterfall. Since by this time, I was extremely warm, the pool below the falls looked so inviting that I decided to follow Alex in and showered beneath the rapid flowing water. Surprisingly, Cliff hesitated for a bit before he finally decided to join us as well. This proved to be a really fun adventure and we were so glad that we met Alex, the official or, maybe not, Wallilabou tour guide.

Alex and Kathy cooling off under the Wallilabou waterfall

Bequia ( pronounced Beck Way) was a delightful surprise. A very neat inviting town with lots of restaurants, a boardwalk of sorts and water so clear that you could see red starfish at the bottom near to shore.

Among the places to eat, we were surprised to find a Gingerbread House in the Caribbean. This one was complete with ornately carved woodwork attached to the roof line and was especially nice to have breakfast in its open air facility overlooking Admiralty Bay.

We also visited the Frangipani Hotel which was written up in our cruising guide as The Place to meet up with fellow sailors and find out the scuttlebutt of the area. Unfortunately, though the food was good, we were out of season for most cruisers and therefore not privy to the latest happenings.

One evening we ventured to the Fig Tree restaurant where we met Cheryl Johnson the owner and cruisers net announcer.

Home of Vivacious Cheryl in Bequia

She entertained us for some time with her stories of Bequia and her dancing. Seems everyone knew Cheryl and all had some stories to tell about her vivacious personality.

We found that we shared Admiralty Bay with at least four other cruisers that we met along the way and thought it would be a good opportunity to rent a taxi (truck with wooden bench seats in its bed) and see the sites. So Cliff and I plus 3 other couples ventured out in the open air truck, “Fatman Taxi Service” to climb yet another hill to the local fort. We were stunned to find a sign there telling us a bit of history on Alexander Hamilton.

FATMAN Taxi Service

After seeing the fort and descending a huge hill, we set off to find the Whale Museum in Friendship Bay whose emphasis was on the boating skills of the men who were known whalers in the area.

Whaling Musuem

We left Bequia after a week to travel on with Slow Dancing

for the.........

Tobago Cays..

Wow! what a beautiful anchorage.

Tobago Cay

We were assisted with a mooring by a most personable “boat boy” who turned out to be a “entrepreneur” named Simon who just happened to have a beach barbecue business and smoothly solicited both boats to participate in the feast that evening. For the record, the food was inexpensive, really good, and the beach was spectacular. What a treat!

Cliff and I dinghied over to the neighboring anchorage (very rolly) to view the incredible reef and turtle beach. The views were terrific but water was really rolly.

Granada

One of many waterfalls in Grenada

Off to Granada which was the final stop for Slow Dancing. But first, we needed to go to Customs and Immigration in Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou at the marina. Highlights of this visit were that we ate lots of pizza at the the Turtle Dove restaurant and that Cliff purchased water from the marina in a large barrel and used the marina’s battery powered pump to fill Navigator’s tank. Very interesting to see Cliff piloting the dinghy equipped with a huge water barrel . We stayed in Carriacou for 3 days while waiting for a weather window to move on to St. George’s, Grenada.

During the passage, we gave a wide berth to the underwater volcano. Called Kick 'em Jenny, it is thought to be the only 'live' (likely to erupt again) submarine volcano in the Eastern Caribbean. It is also the most frequently active volcano in the region, erupting at least 13 times since it was discovered in 1939. The most recent eruption of Kick 'em Jenny occurred in July 2015, which thankfully was about two weeks after we arrived in Trinidad. Frequent alerts go out to all boaters to insure that they keep a safe distance from Jenny at all times.

We arrived at Ft. Louis Marina in St Georges, Grenada on June 17^th. Ft. Louis is a relatively new marina with restaurants, pool, cold water showers and mostly med moorings. Of course, only med moorings were available to Navigator. This crew person almost opted to stay on the boat permanently rather than climb over the bowsprit and drop down two feet and across one foot of water to disembark. However, with a little innovation using the dingy folding ladder, I was safely delivered to the dock without episode. This enabled me to join Cliff for a walk in town to St. Georges, shop at the local grocery store and make arrangements for a rental car.

The next day, armed with a map, and my portable auto GPS, Cliff and I set out to visit two rum distilleries. The first was relatively easy to find and after a short tour, rum tasting and buying, we set off for the next one which was less than 5 miles away. 2 and ½ hours later, passing the same traffic circle made from 4 truck tires piled on top of each other, we found ourselves completely disoriented and frustrated. There are no (that is zero) road signs in Grenada. The GPS could only tell us to make a right on road and then right on another “road” etc. etc. etc. Maps had no road name labels either. Seems that when Grenada won its independence from Britain, part of their rebellion was to remove all of the cement road name markers and simply never replaced them. We were enlightened to this fact by a most interesting tour guide at the Westerhall distillery (yes, we finally found it) where included in the tour was a small museum of interesting artifacts from old sewing machines to one of the concrete road markers disposed of during Grenada’s independence.

Cooking Class

Our next excursion was by a Taxi driven by Shaveman… to a cooking class at a local hotel where several cruisers were entertained by a taste testing experience and watching the two cooks arguing with each other on what ingredients worked the best. Pretty sure their disagreements were staged but it did add to the fun.

A day later, we took a taxi driven by George to the IGA food store and had lunch at Umbrella’s Beach restaurant. This was a popular beach side hangout for Granadians and offered hearty sandwiches, and drinks for reasonable prices. George came back later to pick us up and drive us back to our dinghy at Secret Cove Marina. We were quite surprised to find that George also had a dinghy there as he was a live aboard and his boat was moored very close to Navigator in Hartman Bay.

During our stay, we also visited the Aquarium restaurant for dinner and were awed by the restaurant ‘s open aired setting overlooking the beach and an incredible sunset.

Steep but gorgeous entrance to Aquarium restaurant

Hartman bay proved to be an excellent and calm anchorage which allowed us to explore the area by dinghy. During one exploration to the Hog Island area, we found Le Phare Bleu Marina, (French for Lighthouse) and liked it so much that we decided to check into the marina for the last two days before we left for Trinidad. Nice place to end our trip in Grenada.