It's Not The Journey

It’s not the journey it’s the destination.
By now people are reading this and thinking “no he’s got that backwards” No I don’t. I don’t want to be misunderstood I love the journey also. Especially now that I am not sick when I look at the waves, I don’t have that blank look when Griff tells me to ease the sail or harden the foresail. I even know what he means amazing!
The journey, the sailing has been great I’ve enjoyed when the winds are blowing and we are cutting through the waves, leaning at 20 degrees, getting to a point somewhere off in the distance we can’t see but magically arrive at ”thanks to a GPS”.

But for me, the destination is the thing! I love arriving somewhere, looking about, talking to the people enjoying the culture. We were in Bequia and I got separated from everyone for a few minutes I went into the bar - it was more of a living room with some old guys in it. I started talking to them and when they found out I was Canadian they wanted me to sit with them. I chatted, which is something I do quite well, and it was great, by the time I was finished I knew one of them had been to Toronto, by the way if you tell anyone you’re from Canada that’s the first thing they say ”are you from Toronto” like that is the Canadian Universe. (People in Toronto think so!). Ok back to the people in the bar. When I finished taking to them I knew their names and how much old age pension was ($120 EC per month that’s about $60 US) and how disgraceful it was. I learned that if you supported the party that wasn’t in government you got a lower pension or sometimes no pension.

A little while later I was sitting and chatting with a kid I thought was about 21 but he was 32. The people here look a lot younger than they are. I think the secret is lack of stress. I found out he tried for the British army but the day he was going for his physical test he was running along the beach and fell in a hole and broke his ankle.

I like to mingle with people and chat. It’s something I’ve worked on because sometimes as a police officer you learn to not trust people. I tried my whole career to not develop this Us vs Them mentality.

I loved the diving and meeting our diving instructor chatting with her. What a life! Diving every day meeting new people from different places fantastic! I wish Griff had been feeling better he would have loved it! I often look out over the side of the boat and see the sunset or horizon and think, I can’t believe we are here! It’s great having friends with a boat that actually like our company for 3 weeks it has been and is continuing to be a trip of a lifetime!!

I do love this, going places seeing new things has been amazing and believe it or not I have enjoyed the journey almost as much as the destination maybe we should buy a boat?(Should I change the title?)

Canuoan and Tobago Cays

Well, after a short and somewhat rough journey, we arrived at Canouan, the next inhabited island south in the St Vincent and the Grenadine Islands chain. When I say the voyage was somewhat rough, it was not bothersome but the swells and wind chop combined with gusty winds kept us on our toes as far as sail trimming. Randy and Aleitha are getting their practice in on that aspect of sailing too and are becoming quite good at it. I think Randy still prefers to be at the helm and “going fast” though.

Anyway, the island of Canouan is only about 2 miles by 3 miles and has one major anchorage, although there are a couple of small bays one could use in a pinch. It has one town, Charlestown, with perhaps 4500 people on the whole island. The north end of the island is owned by an Italian resort conglomerate – Raffles I think – and there is a resort complex – the Tamarind – in the bay. There is also a major Moorings (yacht chartering outfit) base there. They have about 35 mooring balls in the harbour just for their use. We were able to moor on one of the other moorings which were available which is nice sometimes.

We checked at the hotel just for fun to see what it costs to stay there and they said $370 per night. It was a nice hotel but not that nice. $14.00 U.S. for a hot dog at the beach bar is a bit much!! One very good thing about the harbour was they don’t allow jet skis or any of the other noisy contraptions that are often seen close to resorts.

We went for a walk through town and on the way saw an open area being set up for a wedding. It turned out that Sonja (don’t ask) was getting married and it also turned out that most of the businesses in town were closed because they were going to the wedding. As it happened we were able to see the wedding party before the wedding because all of the bridesmaids and the bride were walking down the road to get to the wedding!! Their dresses were beautiful but the high heels were definitely not what they wanted to be wearing. Awesome!! One other part of this particular situation was that we had the wedding dueling with the outside resort band for rights to make the “Saturday night noise” The good part was twofold – 1) neither played late and 2) Randy and Aleitha had spare ear plugs.

A down side of the day – we went for a swim as soon as we were settled and discovered that the anti-fouling paint that had been part of the hull refinishing job had peeled away the aft port quarter from the waterline to the keel. When we went into town we were able to find (from a friendly young man) an internet connection and I sent the people who did the original work a rather terse email. Of course being late Saturday by the time the message was sent, we can’t expect a reply until Monday but hopefully we will get it resolved ASAP. The problem is without antifouling paint, algae quickly attaches itself to the hull and eventually will start to affect the hull composition. Besides, it doesn’t look cool!!

On to Tobago Cays

Sunday morning was overcast and muggy. Our journey to Tobago Cays was only about 5 miles, about half of that directly into the wind, so we only put up the foresail (or fors’l as we are teaching Randy to pronounce it) and it only took us about an hour and a bit. Tobago Cays are the absolute picture postcard type of stop. They are 4 small Cays grouped fairly closely together and protected from the full force of the Atlantic by one large reef – Horseshoe Reef – and a couple of smaller ones. The Cays (a cay, pronounced key, is actually a small island) are of course uninhabited and protected by the government as a Marine Management area. No anchoring on coral, no garbage, no fires on the beaches etc etc etc. It really pays off because the area is just beautiful. After we had dropped the anchor (in sand) I went over the side with my snorkel to check that the anchor had set (grabbed hold solidly) and as I put my head in the water to look down, there was a manta ray swimming lazily under the boat about 2 feet off the bottom. Taking into account that water makes things look bigger, it was still about 4 ft across the wings. I popped my head up and yelled to everyone – it was such a shock because I wasn’t expecting it - but no one else saw it. But I did see it, honest!!!

We later went snorkeling on the reef and saw lots of colourful smaller fish and then after lunch visited one of the Cays just to relax. All in all a really great day and one of those that the ad people present when they are trying to sell a vacation package to the Caribbean.

Very Blessed!

Very blessed. Extremely grateful. Shaking our heads in disbelief. Enjoying ourselves immensely. These are some of the phrases Randy and I were expressing over lunch today, between our 2 scuba diving sessions. Neither of us ever dreamed about a trip like this before, and now we feel like we are living a dream. We have a sense of how Griff and Cheryl felt when they first began their “mystic journey”.

As Cheryl mentioned, I took the helm for most of the trip to Bequia. It was rather exhilarating; I found a newer comfort level with the wind and the waves. At one point I found myself yelling out “I’m sailing!!!” I was reminded of a childhood skipping song, “Bell bottom trousers, coat of navy blue, She loved the sailor and the sailor loved her too,…….” Fun.

Last night, after our three hour tour of Bequia, Randy and I chose to take the dinghy into a beach restaurant called Frangipani, named after the flower. They lured us into trying their Thursday night buffet, complete with a band playing steel drums, which Aleitha had never heard before. It was enchanting. The atmosphere was lovely; the food was amazing, especially the salad buffet with things like curried pasta salad with shrimp, chickpeas with raisins and unique local spicing, FRESH tuna salad and cold but tasty frittata. It is the best meal we have had yet! We are spoiled with our Alberta beef so the BBQ steaks were not as impressive, the fish might have been a better choice. The desserts were delightful too; rich chocolate cake, crème brule, key lime pie, sweet custard pie, and fruit salad. Unfortunately Griff wasn’t feeling well so they stayed behind and rested. Griff went to bed earlier but Cheryl was acting like a “good Mom” waiting for the kids to get home with the car for the first time when we pulled in with the dinghy at 8:50.

Yesterday Randy and I had enjoyed snorkeling (this being our third location) at a point near where the boat is anchored. Today we went Scuba diving in two locations, one in the morning and one after lunch. Again Griff decided to take it easy today, no sense pushing oneself when there is a bug going around. Cheryl swabbed the deck and cleaned the outside of the boat.
Both of our dives were great and somewhat different. The first was with another couple who had done a deep dive earlier in the morning. We dove to 45 feet and saw much sea life, coral, and the highlight, a moray eel. By the second dive we were very comfortable; it has been over 2 years since we last went scuba diving in Venezuela. This time we went down 50 feet and saw 4 manta rays, a frog fish (very unique!), a sea horse, and octopus, lobster, crab, and a 4-5 foot barracuda! One of my favorite fish is the trumpet fish, very long and narrow with a long snout that makes me think of a beak; they like to stand on their heads and camouflage in the reeds as you pass by. Other amazing fish would float by in enormous schools; others came close individually in apparent curiosity. So many beautiful colors and so much to see, in the world below the waves; we only wished we had underwater cameras!

When we got back, Griff, Randy and I ran into town to get a few more supplies before heading out ‘to sea’ again tomorrow. There had been a funeral in town today and many people were wearing the formal black and white colors for the occasion. The atmosphere in the stores and on the streets was highly charged; it felt like a wake was happening all over town! We picked up pizza for supper at the local ‘Pizza Hut’ – not our typical “Pizza Hut” – this was a small, blue, open-aired building where only take-out occurs. It was very tasty though, I’d take it over most pizza in Canada!

Tomorrow is hump day – our halfway point in being here. It seems like a dream…. As I head off to bed I’m hoping to dream about that underwater world…….

The Grenadines - Bequia

When last we wrote we were on our way to Bequia from St. Vincent. The trip here was relatively uneventful. Bequia is a small island 12 miles south of St. Vincent but is the largest in the Grenadines at 7 sq. mi.,. We started out in fairly low winds and calm seas with Aleitha at the helm. As we left the shelter of St. Vincent the wind picked up to 20 – 28 knots and there was a lot of wind-chop in the seas. Aleitha managed the winds and seas quite well. When Griff asked her what she thought of sailing now her comment was “It’s pretty awesome considering a week ago I had never stepped on a sailboat before and now I feel like we are beginning to work like a team.”

We are anchored in Princess Margaret Bay which is a 10 minute dinghy ride from the capital of Port Elizabeth. We are a swim away from the beach and some snorkeling.
We went in to town and bought some fresh fruit at an open air market which was partially funded by the Government of Canada. We have tried mangos, pineapple and now prickly pear.

Yesterday we went on a tour of the island. It took 3 hours and we saw all the sites on the island. We started with the old English fort, Fort Hamilton which overlooks Admiralty Bay. As with most of these islands the French and English fought over them in the 18th century. St. Vincent and the Grenadines were won by the British and now are and independent country in the commonwealth like Canada.

After a brief stop there we headed over to the other side of the island which is where the primary fishing village is. We stopped at a whaling museum and learned about the whaling industry in Bequia. They still whale today using the same methods used in the 1800’s – small wooden boats and hand thrown harpoons. They hunt the humpback whale from February to the end of April and are allowed to kill only 4 whales each year. This year they did not get any whales.

We stopped for refreshments at Friendship Bay. This is a bay on the opposite side of the island from where we are anchored. If we come back we will probably stay there. It has a large crescent shaped sand beach and an interesting restaurant, The Mosquito, with swings in the bar.

After this we had two more stops to make back on the west side of the island. The first was at the Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary. Here Brother King takes hawksbill turtle eggs, hatches them and raises them in tanks until they are big enough to have a better chance for survival in the wild which is when they are 4 years old. The hawksbill is an endangered species. More can be learned about this species at http://www.turtles.org/hawksd.htm

Our last stop was at the Spring Plantation Pottery Studio. The plantation used to be a sugar plantation, but is no longer used for that. Mike Goddard took the old sugar building and turned it into a potter’s and artist’s studio. Aleitha was quite interested in this as she is a potter. Apparently the people who own the land sold it, likely to a developer since there are a lot of big foreign estates on that part of the island, and the lease for the Pottery Studio will not be renewed. An unfortunate sign of the times perhaps.

Randy and Aleitha went diving today. Griff didn’t go as he was feeling under the weather. We will be leaving tomorrow for Canouan, the next island down in the Grenadine chain. Hopefully there will be internet but if not, see you next time.

On to St Vincent

Well, it has been a while since I started a blog so here goes. As mentioned, the Pitons are awesome and we might have stayed a bit longer if we had time - except the mooring was a bit "rock and rolly"

The morning dawned bright and early when we left there to go to St Vincent and the Grenadines. It was a lovely day and after we got underway, Randy took the helm. As has been mentioned, Randy is better able to handle the threat of seasickness when he is focussed on something and it is also known that for anyone with that problem, keeping your eyes on the horizon is really helpful. Besides, Randy likes going fast so he was hoping for a good wind day!!

We had planned to sail from the Pitons to an anchorage about half-way down St Vincent called Wallilabou. The first anchorage we could had stopped in and been able to clear customs was Chateaubelair but in 2006 there had been a number of armed (with cutlass) robberies on yachts. They had apparently caught the people responsible but since we were only staying one night in St Vincent we decided to err on the side of caution.

The days sailing went well in the beginning as we sailed down the leeward side of St Lucia but once we cleared the island, the winds began to pick up and the seas got a bit more active. The swells were about a 1 1/2 meter (4-5 ft) but there was also wind chop so it was a bit rough. The wind was also a factor, with gusts up to 30 kts at times. Randy handled it really well though - until he had to use the head, which meant going below decks, which is not a place to be when you are prone to seasickness. Enough said!! By that time we were in sight of St Vincent and although the winds were still up, the chop had lessened. The winds had also gotten gustier so we had to take some sail down for a bit.

We finally made it to Wallilabou, however. It is a small bay with only a few houses and a couple of restaurants. It is , however, where a bunch of scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean Pts 2 and 3 were shot and they had left a lot of the sets they used for the movies as permanent structures. Now Cheryl and I will have to watch Pt 2 again and Pt 3 for the first time to see what we recognize.

We moored in front of one of the restaurants and it was quite a process as they required the bow to be moored and the stern to be attached to something like the shore or pylons or whatever was available. Joel, one of the boat boys, assisted as did Smiley and another lad, the latter primarly interested in selling us stuff after we were moored. The problem with the mooring was they knew what needed to be done but didn't pass a clear idea of that information on to the skipper (me)!!

We finally got it done, however and although there were 4 other boats quite close (one chartered by some people from Calgary), it proved to be a quiet night and after we went into the restaurant, where Randy treated us to a really good meal, we were able to enjoy a good nights sleep.

Red sky at night - sailors delight.

The Pitons, Saint Lucia

Today is our third day in Saint Lucia. We arrived early Saturday afternoon and spent the rest of that day clearing customs, dropping off laundry and doing a small grocery shop at the Rodney Bay Marina. The anchorage in Rodney Bay was quiet, sea wise, but we were anchored close to the Sandals Resort and there was music playing into the early morning.

The second day we went back to the lagoon/marina and found a bigger shopping complex. We got a kick out of some of the signs that we at the Burger King. Randy and Aleitha did some souvenir shopping and then we all did a more complete grocery shop. Picked up the laundry and headed back to the boat.

In the afternoon we dinghied over to Jambe de Bois, a little restaurant at the base of Pigeon Island. It is situated in the national park so a fee was entailed whether or not we took part in any of the park activities. Griff, Randy and Aleitha went snorkeling while I spent time working on the blogs since we were able to access the net at the restaurant. We were also able to exchange some of our novels at the book exchange. We all took advantage of the fact we had internet access and called family back home. Most of those we contacted were not impressed with us telling them about the sunny, 30^o weather we were experiencing since they were in the middle of a spring snow storm.

Since Aleitha and Randy have arrived our evening routine has changed a bit. We have Aleitha and Randy addicted to DS BrainAge, it actually didn’t take long, so we all do that every evening or late afternoon. We eat a bit later than usual and then play cards (partner crib – men vs. women). We are about even now for wins and losses. We all spend some time during the evening just reading.

Today we left Rodney Bay around 0700 to sail to the southern end of the island. The trip was uneventful. The winds were from the ENE at 2 – 20 knots and the seas were approximately 0 – 0.5 metres – very smooth sailing. Randy and Aleitha were at the helm for the entire trip except for leaving and entering harbour. I even took some time to play the recorder.

We sailed to a bay, The Pitons, south of Soufriere. This bay is one that Oprah says it is one of the 5 places she feels you should visit before you die. The bay has mountains (~ 2500feet) at either end – Petit and Gros Piton. These were formed when lava was pushed up from the volcano and solidified.

We decided that we would use the services of Shane, the boat boy who helped us pick up a mooring ball, and take a tour around the area. Shane took us over to Soufriere (means sulfur in the air) where he introduced us to Ricardo who would be our taxi driver for the tour. We started our tour at the Botanical Gardens – lush, tropical gardens on a private estate. The gardens included hot sulphur pools that had been in use since the time of Napoleon and a waterfall that has been featured in a couple of movies – Superman II and Romancing the Stone. The guide was very knowledgeable about the plants and history of the area.

From there we went on to visit The Volcano. This area is one were the gases from the volcano come to the surface and heat the water in the pools. Lots of steam and bubbling pools. The temperature in the pools was 100⁰C and the steam was much hotter. One of the pools was called Gabriel’s Pool. It was formed when a guide named Gabriel was showing a tour group how soft the ground was. He jumped up and down not realizing it was hollow underneath. He broke through the crust and landed in a boiling pool up to his waist. Tours are no longer allowed to walk over the area.

Next on the tour was a stop at a volcanic waterfall and the opportunity to soak in a warm mineral pool which the guide claimed would make us look and feel 10 years younger! The guys took advantage of the opportunity since they were wearing shorts that would dry quickly, the girls didn’t. At each stop on the tour we had a different guide. Each was quite knowledgeable about the sights they were showing us.

The last thing on the tour was time to roam around the town of Soufriere. We ended our time there with our usual purchase of ice cream. Then it was back to the boat and a quick snorkel session for Randy and Aleitha in the nearby Marine Reserve (which they report was awesome) while I wrote this blog and Griff was the ‘boat boy’.