Windward Islands

It’s been almost a month since our last blog post, we have been sailing the Windward Islands of the Caribbean. That is Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada & Carriacou, and Martinique.

January started off wonderfully, we had a gorgeous lobster dinner on the beach in the Tobago Cays with our buddy boat Angelina, and we met several other long sailing crews as well. After that, we sailed off to Union Island, which is another of the Grenadine islands. The harbor in Clifton was rolly and full of swell, so we motored over to the other side of the island and dropped anchor in Chatham Bay.

Chatham Bay is one of our favorite spots so far. It was a beautiful and remote bay, just a collection of little beach bars on the white sandy beach, and clear water. We met up with our ARC buddy boat Coco there, and then met up with Sally and Aurora, who had both done the ARC+ and who we had met on New Year’s. Aurora took us on a little hike to look for land turtles (we didn’t see any), but we found lovely views of the harbor and ocean. We all got together in the evening for games and sundowners, we brought a number of games (card games, board games) with us and have started using them.

After a couple of very relaxing days, we went back to Clifton to check out of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and then meandered the short distance to Carriacou, which is part of Grenada. Another beautiful island, with a bit more services than we had access to in the Grenadines. We filled up on groceries and listened to live music in the evenings at the pubs which lined the beach, and caught up with another ARC boat; Blue Joline.

We sailed down to Grenada to meet our friends from Aliara, who had sailed with us from A Coruna in Spain to Madeira, Portugal. They had been back home for the holidays and were just getting ready to start their northward sailing. We had hoped to accompany them north, but their airline lost their luggage and they had to spend a whole week waiting for it, and we decided to head north because we have friends coming and want to see the islands in between.

First we tried to sail upwind in heavy seas, but we gave up and went back; this time landing in Prickly Bay in southern Grenada; a popular safe place for yachts during the hurricane season. There we met up with both Blue Joline and Aliara again, which made the visit to Grenada very special.

When we left Grenada, since we had seen a number of islands on the way down, we decided to travel quickly back to Saint Lucia and begin our slow northward journey. We sailed in one day from Prickly Bay back to Carriacou where we checked out of Grenada; after that to Bequia for a single night (but we did catch up with Sally again!). Finally on to the Pitons at the southern end of Saint Lucia.

The area between the Piton mountains was one of our favorites also, so we decided to treat ourselves to some snorkeling and stayed a couple of nights in the best spot, close to the beach where we could swim from the boat over to the roped off area for snorkeling. It was just as magical as the first time, clear water, tons of different types of fish and fish that swam all around us, and music and entertainment at the hotel just opposite our mooring.

Relaxed and happy, we went back to Rodney Bay to pick up a package from Sweden. It was an interesting exercise, it is very hard to ship things to yourself when you are underway. We had a good experience with the Rodney Bay Marina accepting items for us as a yacht-in-transit; but it was pricey. Unfortunately, some things just aren’t available in the smaller chandleries on the trip. In our case, we have an electric toilet, and wanted a spare impeller for it. We looked in every chandlery between Sweden and Saint Lucia before asking for help from Sweden – it is a preventative spare; so we had time. But we never found one, so it had to be shipped. We have met people who have waited weeks for items that are expensive; and some that have sailed away without less expensive items; because they couldn’t stay any longer.

In Rodney Bay we crossed paths with another ARC boat, Meltemi, which we have been running into in various harbors since Spain. Even if there are a lot of boats in the ocean and the Caribbean is big, it’s amazing how small the world is and how you can keep meeting the same people!

After checking out of Saint Lucia, we headed north to Martinique. Despite trying to find better weather, we ended up sailing in over 25 knots of wind with pretty big seas; chugging with the motor up as well just to make it across in one day – the headwinds really slow you down, otherwise. We arrived in the late afternoon and looked for a place to anchor, and suddenly we heard someone yelling our names.

Another ARC boat, Njord, was literally right next to us on a buoy at the edge of the channel into the bay. They were our dock neighbors in Las Palmas, and we have kept in contact since our arrival in Saint Lucia. We found a spot to anchor and realized that we were just behind our buddy boat Platon, with our friends Sonny and Sissi. One reason we had travelled quickly back to Martinique was to be able to see Sonny and Sissi, they plan to take the Panama Canal to the Pacific in March so we wanted to catch up with them.

We explored Martinique together with Sonny and Sissi, both in Le Marin; Anse Mitan, Fort-de-France and Saint Pierre. Sailing is so much fun when you have people to share it with. We have added a number of photos to our Facebook (AnderssonSailing) of our days on Martinique with Sonny and Sissi, and a few films also on our Instagram (also AnderssonSailing).

Now we are heading north again, we will be picking up friends from Sweden on Guadeloupe in February, so we hope to see the islands in between before they arrive and we continue north with them.

Thank you for reading!