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.