Grenadine perambulation

Oriole
Sat 13 Dec 2003 19:55
From Chatham Bay we had a short but fast sail up to Canouan which is now the
main base for Moorings Charters.  We anchored well away from the charter
activity.  The enormous catamarans which go out on charter with quite
obviously very inexperienced crews makes them loose canons.
We have seen some really awful and dangerous behaviour and try to keep well
clear of them.  A large part of Canouan is being developed as a glorified
Butlins for Italians but at the moment is closed for a year while it is
handed over to Raffles to do a major renovation.  From Canouan we had a
close reach to Bequia and as we approached its western extremity had a
luffing match with an Oceanis 50 which had been slowly catching us up. They
failed to get through to windward and then failed to sail through us to
leeward, and we heard later they had a professional skipper on the helm. All
                     Impromptu Royal Cruising Club Meet
 
very good for crew morale. Bequia has been frightfully sociable with three
RCC yachts in the anchorage.  We took Liz on a long hike to the Turtle
Sanctuary where a lovely retired fisherman is doing his best to prevent the
extinction of the Hawksbill Turtle.  He collects just hatched babies from
the small islands and then nurtures them for 2-3 years. They do not breed
                                 The premature baby unit.

until they are 25 years old, so are extremely vulnerable.  We said a sad
farewell to Liz who returned to Edinburgh on Thursday.  We had tried to give
her an easy time, but she complained that we had not given her enough
sailing.  You can't win.  Today we have had our most spectacular dive to date
with some lovely coral and fish colours and great water clarity.  The colours of
the rock face and the coral against the white of the sand was rather reminiscent
of snow and skiing. 
Yesterday afternoon a much larger British yacht anchored close in front of us, but not quite
close enough to object.  After dark a short but extremely vicious wind squall caused
it to drag its anchor to within spitting but not quite touching distance.  The skipper finally
agreed to move, but not until he had been gratuitously unpleasant.  Paradise can be
momentarily marred by British yob culture which has even permeated the yacht owning
fraternity, (and sorority for Lynn).