St Vincent & the Grenadines, and family time…….
After getting the boat ship shape again after our 30,000+ mile trip to Australia via the UK and Thailand back in Grenada, we headed back to Woburn Bay to start heading north a little before our passage west. Excitedly, whilst we were away, and the boat was hauled out the water, the marina finished work on installing our new drawer fridges (the old ones were more effective at warming food than keeping it cold)and new bottom paint.
We had a 2 week window before we had to be back in Grenada for some long planned Engine work at the marina. So we made the most of our time and headed north to St Vincent and the Grenadines, stopping overnight in Carriacou at Sandy Island for the first time since Hurricane Beryl came through. There were definitely less palm trees there but it was lovely to be back in clear water and swim off the boat!
From here we jumped to Tobago Cays, a stunning group of small islands off the bottom of St Vincent and the Grenadines chain. We anchored in the middle of the channel and spent the afternoon swimming with turtles that were all around the boat, and playing on the beach. At dusk we turned out underwater lights on to see what was below the boat - there was quite a strong current flowing through the channel between the islands and we saw about 20 Eagle Rays circling close to us, presumably feeding in the waters as the current ripped through the cut. They would appear like ghosts near the surface as we shone a torch around the water. Then I just happened to catch this one right behind the boat as it jumped out the water. Quite amazing to see and very rare to capture :)
We could tell that a few days into November the charter boat season had begun. There were a lot more boats (mainly catamarans) around and their mooring and anchoring skills left MUCH to be desired. In the Caribbean you don’t need formal qualifications to charter a boat for a week (you certainly do in Europe) and as not everyone hires a captain to go with their boat for their week or two, which can be seriously dangerous for those in the anchorage near you when you are in charge of a multi-ton boat.
From Tobago Cays we headed to Bequia for a few days and enjoyed exploring the small town, the clear waters under the boat, and the coral near the shoreline. We had other friends in the anchorage as well, several of whom had teenagers on board, which was great for Annabelle to get some independence and go hang out with then for a while! Huge excitement for Oscar in that he got to try Scuba diving for the first time in a Discover scuba diving class. He loved it!
Then it was time to head back to Grenada for some planned engine work in one of the marinas. Our 2 x 57HP engines in our catamaran have alternators attached to them which help charge our lithium batteries when the engines are running. As we were so keen to leave Annapolis (as we were so late in the season) last year, we had the installs done but never had the alternators made efficient so they charge the batteries quickly and work together and intelligently with our solar panels to maximize the charge going in. This has meant that if we have several low sunlight days, and we turn the engines on to boost power, we were having to leave the engines on for hours at a time to boost our power. Since the fix, we can make 30+ % increase to our batteries in an hour now the high output alternators are working properly. It is frankly a game changer and for Pete and I has meant that we can have AC on in our side of the boat running all night :)
Whilst back in Grenada we then had some bad news about Pete’s dad, whose health was rapidly declining. Pete flew home before Barry sadly passed away, and then returned to us, we sailed the boat quickly to St Lucia and all of us flew back to the UK for the month of December. We are so grateful that we got to spend time recently with him, and that he was an avid follower and supporter of us making this bold life change to maximize the exposure that the kids had to travel and different cultures. It has reinforced our decision to continue on this path with the kids, but Pete has lost the person he always went to, to bounce ideas upon for sailing, life and sometimes business challenges and that is an irreplaceable bond they had. He will be sorely missed.
Our time in the UK was spent in Bedford supporting Pete’s mum, preparing for the funeral, enjoying the cold, grey dank weather that the UK had to offer, and seeing friends and relatives who brought a lot of comfort. We made the cottage cosy for Christmas and decided to treat the kids to experiences for Christmas rather than ‘stuff’. We went to a local Hobbycraft and did a fun art class with mum. We went to Rutland Water where Pete spent many happy days on the water learning to sail with Barry as a young teenager, in their small sailboat. We did the Imperial War museum with Bethan and Oscar whilst Uncle Richard took Annabelle for their annual in depth tour around one of the exhibit halls at the British Museum. We took the family to a great lunch in London after Christmas, and wandered around the center of London reliving our days from university, seeing the wonderful Christmas lights, and then after lunch Pete took Oscar to the Emirates stadium where he went to his first Arsenal game which he loved, and I took Bethan, Annabelle and Judy to the Royal Opera House where we enjoyed hugely a production of Hansel and Gretal. It was very kid friendly and as a first time for the girls to experience opera, really very special. All a good way to help to heal the family from sadness…….
We arrived back to the boat in St Lucia on January 1, 2025 to find her in pretty good shape after a month being left. Before we left St Lucia we installed our new kitchen sink that we had to get custom made as nothing in a boat is normal size…… Finally we have a sink big enough to wash pans properly. Game changer!
We re-provisioned, cleaned and readied the boat and started watching the weather windows to continue heading on our adventures, this time finally setting the boat to head due west to the ABC’s (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao - islands of the Dutch Caribbean)!
