We are working our way slowly north through the Grenadines. The last time we spoke we were in Union Island and about to head off to the Tobago Cays. This is a world class reef area and Marine National Park. The main reef is called the Horseshoe Reef and the plan was to go diving /snorkelling there. I haven’t dived for about 25 years and even then it was a fairly casual affair so I had no formal quals but was determined to get my head wet again. I booked up for a refresher followed by a dive on the reef. Pat was going to go snorkelling. The winds over the last few days have been brisk to say the least. The normally placid waters of the reef were disturbed making snorkelling a challenge so Pat missed out but came on the dive boat with myself. The dive was fantastic. Not all of my dive skills had deserted me and I was able to get down to maximum allowed 12m (for me as a novice) for about 50 minutes. We were anchored up in RT on the Cays not far from the dive site so we were deposited back on board after the dive. We could have stayed there but decided to move on to Mayreau Island where we thought it would be more sheltered in Salt Whistle Bay. We were wrong. That night was the most rocky rolly anchorage any of us could remember. We were next to some mad French couple who suddenly decided well after it was dark that they didn’t like the mooring they were on and moved nearly taking us out as they went past. She was screaming a droite, a droite, a droite, to her poor husband on the helm in order to miss us as they skimmed over the anchor chain. We then looked on in amazement as they were joined by and adjacent catamaran who also seemed to have a death wish. For the next 30 minutes there were screams and tenders buzzing around as the mess was sorted out.  Still no idea what it was all about.

 

The following day we had three choices. The nearby island of Canouan, Mustique about 20 miles or Bequia about 25 miles. All up wind of us.  The sea was quite disturbed so we made our way windward deciding to pull into Charlestown Bay on Canouan. This will position us better for Bequia tomorrow with the hope that the wind will have abated and come around to a more normal ENE which will make matters re going north more easy. This anchorage is a bit rolly and it doesn’t look an easy option to go ashore with the dinghy. We noticed a small tear in the mainsail the other day where it had been resting on the cross trees so that is really out of commission for the moment until we can get a reasonable repair done. This is limiting our up wind options. I could repair it but prefer a professional job as we are not stopped by this problem at the moment.