Grenadine perambulation
Oriole
Sat 13 Dec 2003 19:55
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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).
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