Island hopping

Nickanddenisesailing
Fri 20 May 2016 15:42
16.77.52 N 62.22.75W

So despite the excitement about getting underway we had realised that we needed to make some serious ground south and east to get to Guadalupe in time to meet Jo. We had decided that we didnt want to sail at night so planned to do a bit of rushed island hopping.
Unfortunatley the wind wasnt really playing ball and had swung around to the south which meant that we were doing a lot of upwind ‘lean-y over sailing’ (some technical sailing terms for my non sailing friends  ).
We had our first night in a rolly anchorage off Saint Eustasias – a strange oil/petrol storge island – nothing very exciting. The next night saw us getting into a nice calm bay on Nevis. I went ashore to find some wifi to contact Jo to explain our upwind struggles and therefore our delay. On my walk around I even stumbled across a troop of monkeys. I left Nick on the boat dealing with a dirty fuel issue that had arisen after beating into the wind and waves.
Another early start saw us heading ideally for Guadalupe, however conditions were against us again and with the fuel issues we decided to stop in and overnight on the island of Montserrat. Of all of the islands that I had previously visited in the Caribbean this one and Dominica had really stood out for being so interesting. Sure there are lots of nice white sandy beach isalnds but these two are adventure central.
Half of Montserrat was covered in a massive volcanic eruption in 1997. The whole of the old capital is still there abandoned and in parts burried in ash and lava mud flows. Now thats a place I would like to explore! However due to the constraints the best we could do was some spearfishing on a really nice reef near the boat.
Nick having previously lost 2 lures fishing off the back of the boat had vowed to ‘find the bastard’ and jumped in with his new (second hand $40) speargun in hand, only to loose his spear when we finally located and fired at the offending Spanish Mackrel. Nick 0 Mackrel 3.
We were sad to leave Monsterat after such a short stay but had promised to return on the ‘Rum Tour’ when we come back to the Caribbean and do it again properly.
After another hard upwind slog we tacked our way up into the north west of Guadelope. We arrived just before sunset and headed into town for a mind blowing ice cream and wifi to try and find Jo who had just landed.