Hello again.
In our last episode we planned to site-see in St. Lucia before continuing south, and we did. We did an all day touristy bus-tour of the island, seeing banana plantations, fishing villages, rain forests, the famed Pitons and many other breath-taking scenes. We were impressed by the beauty of the country and the friendliness of its people.

From there we had a wonderful day sail to the island of Bequia, just south of and a part of St. Vincent, yet another beautiful tropical island with sparkling waters and friendly people. Here we visited Athneal Olivierre’s whaling museum. Athneal is 78 and with special international permission still hunts whales in open boats with harpoons (he’s allowed 2 per year). He is actually quite famous for killing a 48-foot humpback with a single harpoon thrust several years back; a most interesting man to talk to.

On the 23rd of July we left Bequia and sailed (we’re getting quite accustomed to sailing the boat without running the engine now) to the small island of Mayreau, still part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Another couple of days soaking in the tropical beauty there and we sailed the 4 miles over to the Tobago Cays, arguably the premier spot in the entire Caribbean. Four tiny, uninhabited islands behind the protection of the huge Horseshoe Reef make up this national park. The water is clear, the beaches are white and the snorkeling is superb. We’ll be back!

We left the Tobago Cays this morning after 3 much-too-short days, cleared out of St. Vincent at Union Island and cleared into Grenada at Hillsboro, Carriacou. We’re currently at anchor behind a little spit of sand named, interestingly, Sandy Island. We sail in the morning for the south coast of Grenada, just short of 40 miles away. That will put us safely out of the path of hurricanes. Although we’ve been blessed with an unusually quiet July, as tropical weather is concerned, we are quite relieved, and thankful, to be this far south at this time.

We’ll send another update once we’ve gathered some data in Grenada (that’s kinda poetic, huh, “data in Grenada”?)

David and Claudia