St. Lucia and the Queen's Baton Relay

Today March 10 we were present as the The Queen's Baton Relay passed through Rodney Bay Marina on it's trip through St. Lucia. Early this morning four young sailors carried it on their racing sailboat across the bay to Pigeon Point where it was given to a runner to relay to our Marina. We were able to cheer him in and watch the transfer to the power boat Hullaballo that carries it down the coast to Soufriere.
From there new runners will carry it down to Vieux Fort on the southern tip of the island where it departs by plane for Barbados and Antigua.
This is all very similar to the Olympic Torch Relay and occurs prior to the Commonwealth Games, held every fourth year. The Relay was introduced at the 1958 Games in Cardiff, Wales and carries a message from the Queen from one game to another. The Kuala Lumpur 1998 Relay was the first to visit other nations of the Commonwealth, besides England and the host country. The Manchester 2002 Baton travelled more than 100,000 kilometres in 87 days, and visited 23 Commonwealth nations. The Melbourne 2006 Baton travelled an epic journey

of more than 180,000 kilometres in a year and a day, and visited all 71 nations of the Commonwealth – home to almost one third of the world`s population. This year's Games begin in Delhi on October 3, 2010.
The baton will cover a distance in excess of 190,000 kilometres and 71 countries.

For this Game it includes a video camera, audio recorder, LED lights which can be changed to suit the colours of the flag of the country it is in, and can also receive SMS text messages. The 1.9-kg, 66.4 cm baton also contains a GPS facility.
So an exciting morning out of the blue!

We are now tied up to the dock at the Marina next to another boat from Vermont, "Island Time" from
Otherwise we're working, working, working on the boat. Poor Scott has the really hard times. He's trying to fix the leak in the water system and to do so is taking apart a lot of the engine room.

And things won't come apart! That ugly piece of plywood for example, shown here, was under the fresh water pump and all the hoses attached (all of course in a tiny crowded engine room) and had to be removed to get to the water leak in a hose under IT. Naturally we're having a replacement made and replacing too all the hose clamps and questionable hoses. One job leads to another. It's hot as hades here too. There is a drought condition in all the windward islands. Water is rationed. As I mentioned before we're down to hand pumping water out of the galley sink and had little water left. For two days there has been no water on the docks here at this huge fancy Marina but this morning, Hurrah, enough came out to fill our tanks.

We've been having problems getting the main sail out of the mast for years, but have always with difficulty, managed it. On the way up from Bequia we finally failed several times. After hours it made it out almost to the second spreader. See photo. Yesterday at the dock it finally came out completely. It took two strong men, one up on a bosun's chair. The bosun's chair by the way is a canvas sling that one sits in and then is hauled up the mast by one of the halyards by a second person, hopefully with a third holding a safety line. Scott and I have performed this manuever several times - Scott in the chair and I using the winch or sometimes the anchor windless. We haven't always had a third person. Scott sweats bullets! The sail had become entangled. We honestly are not sure we can take it out and put it back on our own. It's either the swivel on the top of the mast or the sail is stretched out - or both (or something else no one's thought of). Just another day in Paradise.

St. Vincent and the Pitons, St. Lucia

As we left Rodney Bay it was very calm but as we rounded Devil's Table, the steep hill guarding the north end of the bay, the wind increased considerably as predicted. We had a really hard time getting our main sail out and in fact only part way. That and a double reef in the genoa still had us moving at 7 knots an hour. That's fast for a sail boat by the way. So it was a pleasant trip over and sailing close up the St. Vincent coast is really beautiful.


This island has rugged green mountains and lovely bays. One main road goes most of the way around the island and not through the middle - at all. It's rugged territory. This first picture was taken as we sailed north off the west coast.
This island was the last to be subdued in the Caribbean. Not until the late 18th century were the Carib/African peoples conquered by the British. We really hope one day to explore it's interior and hike the mountains.

Our destination this day was Wallilabou (shown in the next two pictures), the main set for the filming of the first Pirates of the Caribbean. Some of the sets built remain and it is one of the few real tourist destinations on the island. That said, not a lot of tourists visit St. Vincent.
We've been to Wallilabou Anchorage on St. Vincent before and although it's a beautiful place, there are concerns. Boat boys approach you from way off shore and more clamor for your patronage there. Then the few moorings are close together and often full. Anchoring is difficult as it's deep close to shore and there are swells coming in.

Incidents in Wallilabou have been confined to cat burglery (with people sleeping on board) and dingy theft. Last time we were here the boat on the mooring next to us had his dinghy stolen the night before. We knew about this because while eating lunch in the restaurant our "boat boy" approached us to ask for the loan of our dinghy to bring the policemen out to the victim's catamarin.

The sight of the impeccably uniformed officers alayed our natural concern and we said yes. We should add that the "boat boys" have boats that can barely hold themselves and need constant bailing. Most have no outboards. Everyone returned our dinghy with thanks. Still we were a little nervous spending the night there again.
The recommendation is never to choose a boat boy off shore. Not remembering anyone we employed Julian - a young handsome fellow. He tied us to the only remaining mooring and attempted to manually fit us between two other boats. It didn't work and we came much to close to a bow to bow encounter with another boat.
Next was anchoring in deep water and backing in toward shore while Julian took three of our lines tied together and made the end fast to a tree. We've heard about this form of anchoring but hadn't done it before. It took two tries but finally we were set. This cost $50 EC dollars (about $20) with the promise he would return at 7:30 AM and untie the line. After a swim we tied up the dinghy again and locked it. Our outboard is kept on the rail and it too is locked on.
NOW for the first time we felt the need for our new security system. After traveling all the way to Panama and back we finally decided to have stainless steel grates made for our master hatch and the companionway in Trinidad. Pictures of both are included here. So that night we locked all the hatches down except ours. I felt a little claustrophobic, but safe.

The next morning was idylic as the sun gradually ulliminated the beautiful hills around us. But our 7:30 date with Julian came and went, finally an older man stopped by and offered to assist. We were off and headed north again for St. Lucia and the Pitons.
The Pitons are two volcanic plugs in a World Heritage Site in Saint Lucia. The Gros Piton is 771 m, and the Petit Piton is 743 m high; they are linked by the Piton Mitan ridge. A volcanic plug is a landform created when magma hardens within a vent on an active volcano. When forming, a plug can cause an extreme build-up of pressure if volatile-charged magma is trapped beneath it, and this can sometimes lead to an explosive eruption. If a plug is preserved, erosion may remove the surrounding rock while the erosion-resistant plug remains, producing a distinctive landform. (Wikipedia)

These are spectacular and have eluded my attempts at photography. These two shots were taken arriving and leaving the anchorage both well off. We took up a mooring between the Pitons off the Jalousie Hilton beach. The sheer wall of the Petit Piton rose up above our boat pretty vertically. Gardens of small trees and vegetation cling to terraces and every nook & cranny. On the other side of the small bay Gros Piton is more gradual but an enormous pile of rock. These peaks rise straight up from the sea and cause williwaws of wind from odd directions. It's usually a little noisy in this anchorage from the wind - but Wow, is it beautiful. We spent a night here with our good friends Carole & Bill Fonvielle and their son Jonathan. That night we had pretty constant winds in the 20's with gusts upwards. It was wild. We had a calmer night this time and a lovely peaceful morning - no need for those security devices here.

Bequia and St. Vincent

Bequia is the largest island in the SVG after St. Vincent and a big change from our previous destinations. There appears to be a lot of money here, big fancy homes and more sophisticated restaurants and shops. Admiralty Bay is huge and lined with restaurants, beaches and lovely pastel houses. There is even a good sized Book Shop, but still no real supermarkets.

The fresh veggie market is fun and there are some nice bakeries, but the general merchandise is scanty. It's also filled with big handsome boats (oh wait, that really nice one here is ours). We anchored off Princess Margaret Beach (she used to spend a lot of time here) and Scott went in to complete the easy check out. This is our third or fourth time here and we've always enjoyed it.

See our previous entry in April, 2007 describing a visit to the Moonhole Community designed and built by the late Tom Johnson, a well known American architect.
But until now we hadn't walked over to the Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary out in Industry (that's the name of the community) so the next morning we headed off. This organization was founded by Orton "Brother" King, a retired native fisherman who has dedicated his life to saving the hawksbill turtles. His organization monitors beaches, checks nests, tries to protect mother turtles and eggs from poachers, collects hatchlings, and rears them until they are around 3 years old. Local youth education is part of their mission.

We should have started earlier because it was a hot trip over the hills and down to the waterfront sanctuary, but very pretty. We passed the bustling high school with hundreds of uniformed handsome teenagers. Away from the waterfront and the hill crests with views, this is a more rural peaceful place. We passed through Spring, the site of several beautiful plantations, now expensive hotels.
There are still some livestock roaming the manicured palm tree pastures lining the beach. We walked through one of them to the reef surrounded bay on the windward side. Several fishing boats testified to the local's ability to make their way through. That's a view of the bay from a bluff and one of the fishing boats with their nets neatly drying.

We had a tour of the facility and were able to get to know the turtles up close and personal. Scott petted several of the big ones and they obviously enjoyed it. These are permenant residents, many with lost flippers. The baby ones are really fun to watch - they really interact with each other.

There are no public buses or jitneys on the island and the taxis are expensive, so we decided to walk back. It was noon so as we walked up the hill, I believe I must have looked tired, as two women in a taxi picked us up for free!
One place we didn't get to visit is to the home of the late Athneal Ollivierre, the island's head whale harpooner, where there is a small

whaling museum. Bequia has an active whaling station and by IWC agreement can take up to 4 whales a year, although I believe they rarely get that many, sometimes none. It's done in an open sailing boat using hand thrown harpoons!

The next day after checking out with Customs & Immigration, we walked around Port Elizabeth, the main village, late in the afternoon checking out the happy hours, comparing rum punches both for quality and price. An excellent fruity one with lots of rum costs 5 or 6 EC at happy hour, about $2 to $2.50. The narrow road along the water has a pretty flower divider separating the directions, but it stops quickly. Then a cement pathway continues along the shore in front of the bars and restaurants. People stroll along this watching the action on shore and off. This proud Bequian father was showing off his baby boy. He loved our drink straw!


While watching the sunset there we met a charming couple from the U.S., Joe and Mary Lee. They were on their last day of a one week charter and after some conversation we all adjourned to our boat for a last minute put together dinner. One unexpected difficulty was finding their boat - hundreds of them and it was very dark! But it was a fun ending for the day.

The next morning however we didn't feel up to the dawn departure so we changed the schedule. Instead of the long trip directly to the Pitons in St. Lucia we decided to spend the night at Wallilabou Anchorage in St. Vincent, only about 3 hours away. A separate posting will talk about this event.

Mayreau and the Tobago Cays

We decided to anchor in Salt Whistle Bay, our first time on this island. The sweeping half moon white beach is perfect. On one side, even from our boat, we could see through the palm trees to another beach on the windward side. Long lines of breakers came in there and kite boarders played in them.

The low key but we imagine expensive Salt Whistle Bay Club is nestled back in the trees among the palms. That's it, no other habitations. The only other activity was a small group of vendors who set up by day on the beach to sell clothing and jewelry.

We swam, snorkeled and walked the beach till it was time to watch the sunset from our cockpit paint the sky. That night we had an almost full moon and got up in the middle of the night to sit and enjoy this different take on the view.
Next morning we had plans. First to eat breakfast at the hotel and then walk around the island.
The first was another pig out - albet more elegant. For $12 (plus 10% service chg and 15% tax) each we had coffee (a big carafe of really good stuff),fresh fruit, british oatmeal, eggs benedict and a bread bowl with banana bread,

muffins and toast (we took some of this with us and it served easily for breakfast the next day). A fun accompanyment was the antics of a group of birds. They watched us like hawks for every dropped crumb and sometimes dashed right onto the table. The management provides a water bottle with which to squirt them. It wasn't much of a deterent.

Naturally we had to follow this with a hike. A narrow road leads up from the beach to the top of the hill to the small community there. Only a few hundred people live on the island and until the 1970's the whole place was a private fiefdom owned by one family.


The islanders did not own their own land and could only build homes of dab and wattle (see example of construction here). When they achieved independence as part of the SVG, the government purchased enough land to distribute to the island families and most gradually built homes of cement and wood.

Originally brought to the island by the french as slaves on the plantation, the islanders remained Catholic and the outstanding building on the island is the stone church at the crest. The inside has some beautiful pieces of local art and craft.

The wooden carved face of Jesus shown in the alcove above right is very lovely and there was an exquisite needlework piece in the other alcove. A big community hall is attached which is used for adult education, social events and political meetings.
We looked into the few classrooms of the elementary school nearby and the well kept cemetary with a great view.

We were still too full to consider lunch although there are several recommended places, the most famous being Dennis' Hideaway, so we just walked back to the beach, through the line of souvenirs, and jumped in the water.
We sailed off then only a few miles around the island to the Tobago Cays. This is a National Park, a few small deserted islands surrounded by Horseshoe Reef. The reef protects against the big waves and swell but not from the wind.

We had a constant wind between 15 and 25 knots and a stong current coming from the reef. It's really hard to take a picture of this. Miles of multi colored ocean intermingled with small rock islands, each with one or more white beaches. We snorkeled at many places on the reef,


happily provided with dinghy moorings for that purpose. The coral was lovely and there were lots of fish and turtles.

This is prime territory for charter boats and day boats from nearby islands. During the day it was pretty busy with lots of traffic moving about, but at night it was quiet with only the lights from the few boats remaining to rival the stars. I particularily loved watching the local men darting about in their motor boats providing many services. Their names were unique too - Arrival, Surprises, Free Spirit 2 and my favorite, Me Alone In The Valley. You can buy fresh fish and baked goods, soft drinks & beer and have a lively discussion as well. Many of these are Rastafarians with their colorful berets holding their hair.
After three delightful days here we finally pulled the anchor and sailed north again, this time to Bequia.

Union Island, SVG

Union is mountainous and it's outline stood out as we sailed north from Carriacou. We were anchoring again off the reef surrounding Clifton, the yachting center in the south part of the Grenadines. There have been three previous visits, once with our son James.

The water is amazing here, reefs surround the anchorage and provide a kalideoscope of blues, greens and browns. We anchored at the end farthest from the town and right off Happy Island. The owner Janni is also the architect and builder! That's the view across the reefs from Happy Island (see the same mountain ridge as picture above)and the island itself.

He created the island from scratch with piles of conch shells left by fisherman. It's expanding every day and now has a commodious charming interior as well as the big sand front yard with lots of comfortable seating. We were lucky to be the only guests for awhile that evening and spent some time talking with him about

the island and politics for all of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines - very interesting and informative. Then the tour groups started arriving from the island by water taxis and the place filled up quickly. He serves simple BBQ meals as well as a full bar.

Of course before we went there we signed in with Customs and Immigration. These were located in the tiny but well appointed airport only a half mile from the dinghy landing. Union is part of the SVG, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and is the southern most larger island. A good part of the construction money for this airport came from China!

Clifton is a colorful and charming place with a surprising number of facilities for tourist and cruisers. Many chartering vessels stop here. We were thrilled to see a small French bakery greet us at the dinghy dock. That's Scott buying croissants and pan de chocolat for tomorrow's breakfast. The two pictures above show the path along the waterfront going west and then east.

There is a small park in the center of town and everything is painted brilliant pastel colors. We had some provisioning to do and there are a number of choices. Next to the park are at least eight small sheds with a big selection of fresh vegetables, some grown right on the island. We had a great salad that night. These are the colors the town is painted in!

Our next stop was Erika's Marine Services. We had reasonable WIFI out at the anchorage so we didn't need their internet services and not enough time to do laundry as it was Saturday and we planned to leave Monday, but we did want to avail ourselves of their excellent book swap. Scott and I go through a huge number of books, and we had five with us to swap. While there we looked through their amazing DVD rentals - not only a big selection of movies, but many popular TV show series and my favorite, Masterpiece Theater and Mystery series on PBS. Unfortunately we only had two nights! We both like Inspector Morse so that was the final choice.

On Sunday we hiked to the Big Sands beach on the north coast via Fort Hill and back more through the center. Unfortunately the Big Sands Hotel (now the Amerindia) has a new owner and isn't open to the public. Happily a laid back little beach bar was next door on the long white beach. It was a really hot dry walk so after a big glass of water and a beer, we soaked in the ocean for an hour before walking back into town.

There we had lunch at Lambi's, an institution here that gets bigger every year. The meal was delicious and enormous. We brought enough back for lunch the next day. They serve it family style with your choice of meat or fish with bowls of rice pilaf, mashed potatoes, stir fried vegetables, fried plantains and eggplant, salad and cole slaw. Yes, you read right, all of these!

Arawak Divers, Carriacou

George Schmitt and Connie Hagen run Arawak Divers located in Tyrell Bay, Carriacou. There website is www.arawak.de, phone number (1-473) 443-6906 or 8312, and their email arawakdivers@spiceisle.com. Scott did his Open Water PADI Certification with Connie back in 2006 on our first trip heading south to Trinidad. Carriacou is part of an English speaking country which includes big sibling Grenada and little Petit Martinique.


Georg has been here diving since 1994 and Connie joined him in 1999. Connie is a talented photographer as well and all of the underwater photos are hers, taken during our dives. She has kindly allowed me to post them here.





They are charming and hard working, Scott's instruction with them was very thorough and lots of fun. I was unable to join the class as I admitted to high blood pressure on the initial form. Without a doctor's note, I couldn't participate. Later, when consulted, my doctor gave me a enthusiastic thumbs up, so I did my certification in Bonaire the following summer. We've been looking forward to returning to Carriacou to dive with Connie and George together!


We scheduled a whole week there and did five dives, three individual and two one memorable day over on the south side of the island. Our first one was just south of the entrance to Tyrell Bay and a good chance to practice our skills again after four months away. This is a round reef at the most 60 feet down and we circled it easily seeing some beautiful coral and lots of fish.
The scorpion fish above sat in the sand and let us examine him closely. If you don't know what you're looking for, ie you don't have Connie with you, he can be hard to spot as he looks like a piece of coral or vegetation. We also saw several good size eels, but it was later on our fourth dive that we saw the mother of them all - the largest one we've ever seen.



His head was the size of a medium sized dog and if he'd left his cavern, he'd have been as long as Scott - imagine! His photo is above right. He is really totally the green color here seen only on his edges. Some colors change underwater with the camera and depending on the distance away and use of the flash. Two good examples of that here are the two versions of the scorpion fish above and the varying hues on the lobsters shown here, in the distance with me (the lobster is in the bottom left corner) and close up with the flash. The flash really shows the colors we see, also only close up.


Our second dive was to the north of our anchorage and around a deep rock. There was some current up near the surface but not on the deep sections. We circled the rock, at first down at 70 feet and then rising later. Here we saw our first turtle - always a thrill (but on the last dive, we saw five!). Connie has been diving so long she can spot things even on a microscopic level. Some of the creatures here are no longer than an inch!


The third dive was more ambitious. We went out further to the Sisters, two large rocks further off shore. Waves crashed around and the current was heavy. We went much deeper today, around 100 feet so the dive was much shorter. I ran through my air quickly - unusual for me. Two days before I dropped the dinghy stern on my big toe and knifed through the nail mid way.
It hurts to put pressure on it so swimming with the fins is difficult. I found it hard to keep up with the others swimming against the current, but I managed, but used a lot of air doing so. The coral was amazing here, we saw lots of rare black coral. We searched every overhang and cavern for nurse sharks - often seen here sleeping but no luck. At least 25 hungry looking barracuda circled us however!
Scott and I decided to do a two tank dive our last day. This meant we were able to go much further in the boat, over to the other side of the island and windward. A series of lovely islands off shore make this a very scenic spot. Our first dive was on a rock and reef system well off the shore. We went down to 100 feet and then slowly up.
This time we went with the current and I could enjoy a leisurely dive. This is where we saw that huge moray eel and many of the small creatures whose pictures you see here. That peppermint candy one in the pink coral above is a brittle star - rare anywhere but we saw them twice with Connie!

Next we motored over to Saline Island and anchored. After a dive it is necessary to wait until it is safe to dive again. Our second dive would be much shallower. We snorkeled around this calm lovely bay and saw huge numbers of brightly colored sea anenomes. After a snack and lots of water, Kenneth (he drives the boat, took the pictures of us on it and is shown above also with Georg in the Arawak Divers shop) dropped us off at the up current end of a long shallow (30 feet) reef which we drift dove slowly down.

Connie had a float on a line which showed Kenneth our progress. We flew over the reef with the current, weightless and feeling like space explorers viewing aliens on a distant planet. The two charming porcupine fish below and the little Queen angel fish, up several pictures on the right, are curious types and followed us for a while watching us. When we emerged we were near the huge rock island you see here. The close up shows the crystal like patterns in the rock.


We are sad to be leaving Carriacou and Connie and Georg. Hopefully we'll be back some day to do much more diving. Come and dive with them!