March 23-30: Grenada to St. Lucia

March 23, 2012:

We arrived safely in St. George's, Grenada. We had gusty winds and some rain on our passage. Thank goodness for AIS for during the rain, an unlighted boat crossed our path. Without AIS we might have collided with it. We tried to hail the boat but got no reply. We arrived about 9a.m. We stayed several days in Port Louis Marina which is a beautiful marina with restaurants, but not a good wifi. Customs had moved from St. George Yacht Club to the marina which made it much easier to check in and out! Charlie was concerned with the quality of our fuel and we tried to find someone to clean it, but no one was available for a week. Charlie worked hard on several other small tasks, checking raw water filters, fuel filters, etc. Since we were tired from the overnight passage, we decided to stay another day. We took a "bus" ( a van showing #1) for 2.50EC ($1USD) up to the Grand Anse beach area in order to find an ATM to obtain EC (East Caribbean) money. We then walked down to the beach, walked along the water's edge to one of the restaurants along the beach where we had lunch. We caught a cab ($40EC) back to the marina.

Sunday , March 25, 2012

After waiting for the Immigrations officer to arrive ( He was 45 minutes late ), we had a nice sail to the island of Carricou, a part of Grenada. We just anchored for the night and did not go ashore.

Monday, March 26, 2012

We proceeded north through the Grenadine Islands and took a mooring at Young IS of St. Vincent. since we did not stop there on our way down, we decided to stay two days. We had Sam Taxi check us in and out on the same day allowing us 24 more hours to depart. We had a nice lunch ashore at Xcape and took a water taxi across to Young Island where there is a nice quiet small resort. We enjoyed a drink there before returning to the boat. A cruise ship was in Kingston so many of its passengers came to the small, grey beaches of Young IS area.

Wenesday, March 28, 2012

We were off the mooring at 0645 heading for St. Lucia. The guides warn of flukey winds at the north end of St. Vincent, but they were not too bad this day. We arrived in the southern part of St. Lucia at the Soufriere Bay near the two volcanos called the Pitons. We were helped onto a mooring and charged 25EC ($10) and a coke. Later, the park ranger came by to collect the mooring fee or $45EC. Several other boat vendors came by as well selling fruit and carved wooden objects. We had a peaceful night and could see the stars well.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

After a leisurely breakfast, we continued north to Rodney Bay near the northern tip of St. Lucia. It took us only 3 hours and by 1125 we were in a slip at the marina. We checked in at Customs and Immigration. That only cost us $40EC. Then we paid for our slip for 3 days and found a place for lunch....pizza at Elena's. We had dinner at the former H2O now called Ocean Club.

We launched our dinghy only to discover we could not get the outboard motor, previously serviced last July at Power Boats in Trinidad, did not work. We got a mechanic that afternoon who took it away and brought it back. We decided to wait until the next day to go over via dinghy to the shopping area where there are two big groceries. We ate on the boat but went on shore to try to use wifi, but the wifi server was slow and the restaurants were crowded.

Sat: We tried again to go off to the grocery but again the dinghy outboard would not work. We called the mechanic who came and recommended we get a new fuel hose from the gas tank. Off to the Water ISland chandlery for the parts. After replacing this, we went across the lagoon to the grocery. It is a great store so we were able to well provision the boat. We lunched on shore and this gave me this opportunity to use shoreside wifi to update the blog.

Tomorrow after getting fuel, we will depart Rodney Bay and St. Lucia. Tomorrow we will anchor in Fort de France in Martinique overnight. We will proceed northward each day until we reach Antiga on Thursday. We have gone a bit ahead of our proposed schedule to be able to check in before Good Friday, we hope. I will update the blog there. I hope to have some pictures to share then, too.

On a good note, Charlie's Mom is back in rehab and improving. This past week was touch and go, but the future seems calm now.