12:43.00N 61:21.00W Canouan

Lotus
Thu 24 Dec 2009 23:37
Onwards to Kingstown on St Vincent, where we managed to find a secluded anchorage in an otherwise busy port, the snorkelling  was fantastic with fish of all shapes,sizes and colours, the town had more fruit and veg stalls than you could shake a stick at and the best tasting spicy chicken wings.  After one night we were ready to move on and set sail for  Bequia, a lovely sheltered anchorage; unfortunately hundreds of other people thought so to, but the town was great, cheap cocktails right at the waterfront and more friendly green grocers.  We waited an extra day to get gas so we took ourselves off for a dive on Devils Table a brilliant dive on a shallow reef system with fantastic corals and abundant fish life.  Next onto Mustique, a privately owned island that certainly knew how to charge for the privilege of anchoring off their pristine beaches, at £50 a pop, we had lunch, a King Mackerel that John had just caught, then moved on to Canouan.
 
 
 
Canouan was a fairly tatty but pleasant enough place.  We were feeling rather lethargic so we left Duncan and Caroline propping up the bar whilst we went for a bike ride, which took us to a lovely beach, with a primary school immediately behind it, I'm sure you'll agree it's a fantastic view to look at whilst learning the three R's.
 
    
 
 
 
We weighed anchor and we thought it was exactly the weight it should be (boom boom!) and whilst Duncan and Caroline motored around the bay we went for a dive on Gibraltar Rock, a coral encrusted rock, look as we may we couldn't find any Gibraltans on it, however we did see shoals, consisting of thousands of fish which were wheeling about us in the sunlight and we found TEA!!!!!; 6 very large lobsters, we decided to leave them where they were so that future divers could  enjoy them (it might have been that we were scared of them too!).  
 
It was Christmas eve afternoon so we hot-tailed it out and crossed to the Tobago Quays, a bunch of small islands and extensive reef systems.  On our arrival we were greeted by the local lobster seller who promptly sold us 4 lobsters, alive and kicking, we intend to have them Christmas day.