Fai Tira Blog 16.00 UTC  Monday 18th January

Fai Tira in Tobago Keys    12:37.96N 61:21.40W

  Flowers from the botanical gardens on St Lucia.

We arrived in Bequia whilst it was still dark having had a great overnight sail along the east side of St Vincent which happens to be the windward side off the island, the wind being a constant 15 knots all the way down.  The group of islands we are now visiting are called the Windward Islands as opposed to Antigua, Dominica and Guadeloupe which are called the Leeward Islands. Having arrived in the dark we hove too and waited the half an hour for the light to appear from the east as the sun rose.  We headed in to a very busy anchorage and spotted some other BWR boats who had arrived the day before.  After a couple of hours of sleep we headed into town and the Customs Office where we met up with the crews of Scott Free, Enchantress and Camomile.   After checking in we walked a around this little but busy bustling community and then decided to find a bar.  The Scott Free and Bionic crews joined us and we had a nice lunch time drink before heading to the fresh vegetable market and supermarket to top up our supplies. We got invited onto Enchantress for drinks at six and then hit the sack quite early as we were both tired from the previous overnight sail.

  Bequia anchorage.

The next day we set off for Tobago Keys accompanied by Jackami, Bionic, Blue Magic and 

Camomile.  We had a great sail covering the ground between 6.5 and 7.5 knots.  When we arrived at the Keys the water changed from a dark blue to a Fai Tira turquoise blue, we virtually blended into the back ground.  The waves were breaking over the reef and we anchored in paradise. 

Tobago Keys was declared a marine national park in 1997.  We are anchored in a lagoon enclosed by a 4KM long Horseshoe Reef in which there is a sea turtle reserve situated just yards from our boat.  As soon as we got here I donned my snorkel and jumped in to find a turtle swimming under the boat.  I was joined by John and we swam to the beach encountering numerous turtle sightings.   I decided to swim around the small island we were anchored next to and came across lots of different fish species and beautiful corals. John spotted at Barracuda stalking a shoal of fish. We returned to Fai Tira in ore of this wonderful place.

Sunday saw us heading out to the outer reef to enjoy the delights of the corals and reef fish there.  On the way in our tender we went past numerous turtles.  The park authority had placed pick up buoys there to save the reef from anchors so we tied up and snorkelled away.  We saw large shoals of colourful fish as well as parrot fish in all their different guises.  We were then joined by the other crews from the BWR boats and we went off en mass. I was swimming next to Derry when she grabbed my arm and pointed to a white tipped reef shark just swimming away from us.  Wow!!!!

Lunch saw us all with picnics on a deserted beach overlooking the bay and reef with the Island in the distance being the one used in Pirates of the Caribbean when Jack Sparrow got marooned.   Mark and Chris invited us all back to Blue Magic for evening drinks and nibbles which went down a treat and rounded off a fantastic day in paradise. 

Video Diary  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNjhhS7a-Vo

Bye for now.

Pete and John