Leaving Martinique we had a moment of indecision as whether to go east or west of Saint Lucia. The arguments were familiar- to the east there would be wind, but also waves and unsettled water, while west would be smooth, but perhaps without enough wind to sail. East is usually the faster way, and as we equivocated, the winds shifted a bit to the north, making our decision easier. We headed up into the wind, and sailed towards the east coast of Saint Lucia at nine knots. We were aiming to be in Chateaubelair, on the northwestern part of Saint Vincent by the end of the day, a distance of around 80 miles. The day was mostly uneventful, except for a large squall that came through while we had our large downwind gennaker up, and caught us with 30 knots of wind. Nothing broke, but we had nine or ten fairly engaging minutes of sailing while we got everything under control again.

Coming into Chateaubelair was a bit of a junk show. We had made a “reservation” with some guy in a kayak. He was very excited to show us where to anchor and how to do it, and in exchange we gave him EC$30. I thought that for the money, he would also keep all the other boat boys and beggars away, but that was not the case, and we had 6 or so characters hanging off the side of the boat trying to get something from us. One wanted me to give him a surfboard. For nothing. Others seemed to employ the strategy of making us uncomfortable and being annoying in hopes that we would pay them to go away. We didn’t, and in the end I just had to tell them to beat it. There was a kid who sold us some coconuts, and another some vegetables, so there was legitimate commerce occurring as well.

This is an interesting conundrum for me. We come to these peoples’ bay in a boat that is worth more than the real estate of their entire village. We have fancy gadgets, enough to eat, and seemingly endless time. For people who the origin of their next meal is not entirely clear the temptation to steal must be overpowering. From my point of view this is super irritating, but for them we are just floating cash cows, to be exploited any way possible, and I can’t say I blame them. The Grenadines do have a lot of crime against sailors compared with the rest of the Antilles, so we were on our guard.

After a rather unpleasant night in Chateaubelair we sailed around the corner in a light drizzle. The wind was light and variable and it took a couple hours to go the five miles, but then we found a perfect little bay. We dropped anchor directly in the middle, and spent three nights. There was great snorkeling and freediving. Diving on the anchor one morning I looked up and saw nothing but a school of small sparkling fish. Holding onto the anchor in about 4 meters of water, I couldn’t see the sky, as it was completely blocked by the shifting body of fish. They were almost a solid body. I stayed on the bottom for what felt like a long time, watching them pulse and waver as they moved slowly through the anchorage.

Our next stop was Bequia. This had some significance, as it was the first place we had spent a night aboard a sailboat. In 2018 we had taken a week long sailing class that had given us the certifications needed to charter boats. Now we are back, visiting many of the same anchorages in our own boat. It was a nice full circle moment, dropping anchor in Bequai again, even though it was busy, noisy and not all that clean. We stayed one night before heading off again.

Our next stop was Tobago Cays, considered by many to be the highlight of the Grenadines. A few little islands surrounded by a reef, providing a swimming pool to anchor in, and lots of wildlife to check out. The winds sports potential is also strong, and we were excited to do a bit of foiling. The only downsides are the hoards of people, and the fact that it costs around $30 per day to anchor. If you pay the rangers in cash you can negotiate a “deal.” We found a nice, relatively flat spot between two islands and settled in. The first couple days had decent wind, which allowed for some nice foiling, both inside and outside the reef. Then the wind died and we focused more on hanging out and snorkeling. There were many turtles and rays floating around in the sand directly below our boat.

A few days later we moved a little more south, to Frigate Island, at the southern tip of Union Island. This used to be a very popular area for kiting and other wind sports, with a floating bar/ school and quite a scene. Hurricane Beryl demolished the infrastructure on the island, and the area was quite rough, but the wind still blew, and we had a few days of great foiling. We met our friends on Yanel, a Neel 47 who we had met in Spain. They had been running wingfoil charters to the grenadines all season, and were on their last trip. It was cool to catch up with them after all these miles, and we had a couple nice foiling sessions. The nice thing about Frigate Island is that the spot is protected from the open sea by a low lying peninsula, which minimizes the amount of Sargassum weed that makes it into the bay. Sargassum is becoming a major factor across the Caribbean, for foiling as well as sailing, when it gets caught on the rudder and makes the steering heavy.

Soon it was time to pick up our next guests, Kate’s brother Michael and his kids. We sailed north to Bequia and then on to Saint Vincent, where we had arranged to pick up a mooring. The mooring was of dubious quality, but we tied to it anyway, since we only planned to be there for a few hours. Kate took a bus to the airport, while I guarded the boat, and cleaned up a bit. Michael and the kids arrived, and we got them settled in. Jax is ten and Lexi twelve, so they were the closest to teenagers we have had on the boat so far. Lexi gets a bit sea sick, so we were hoping to keep things relatively quiet, sailing wise. We sailed back to Bequia and spent a night there before heading to Tobago Cays for two nights. The highlight was doing drift snorkels across the reef. The kids seemed to enjoy that, and we did it repeatedly. On one of the nights we ate at the world famous lobster beach barbecue. To say it is grossly overrated would be an understatement. We also caught a nice black fin tuna, and had that for lunch one day.

From Tobago Cays we drifted down to Chatham Bay, and enjoyed some snorkeling. Jax learned to drive the dingy, which I think he was happy about. After a quiet night in Chatham we awoke to a small swell rocking the boat. I took the dingy down to the south end of the bay and discovered a halfway decent left breaking on an incongruous reef. Racing back to the boat I unpacked some boards and we enjoyed an hour of clean, glassy surf all to ourselves. It was a pleasant surprise for the morning. After we got out of the water we had an invigorating upwind to Morpion, a small sandy island that you can walk around in about 90 seconds. I first saw it in 2018 when we were here, and I thought it would be fun to check out with the kids. We did some snorkeling, and then it was time for Michael and family to be on their way. We sailed down to Clifton, on Union Island, did the paperwork, and dropped them off at the airport there.

At this point I was frothing, since there was a north swell in the water, so we decided to get back up to Guadeloupe as quickly as we could. We sailed back up the Grenadines chain that evening, arriving at our secret anchorage after dark. We slept for a few hours, and then hauled up the sails and pointed north. We had a boat work appointment scheduled in Guadeloupe, but we had almost a month to burn before that was happening, so we wanted to get some foiling and surfing in. The moon was still fat and heavy, hanging in the western sky as we dropped daggerboards, tightened sheets and pointed into a sea that hadn’t seen land since it left Africa several thousand miles to the east.