Well, that’s it.  We are officially heading north and home to CT as of two days ago.  While we didn’t make it all the way to Grenada, our plan early in the season, we made it very close, less than 50 miles.  Next year, perhaps.

With the consistent easterly trades, we have spent most of the winter on a port tack, always heading south.   So, now it’s time to “tack” and head north again.

As if to say “don’t forget us”, we were greeted by a fabulous rainbow in Bequia as we left to head north yesterday after clearing out.  As I write this we are on a mooring in Marigot, St Lucia, where Brenda will head out on Friday and my friend Craig will join me for ten days.  Craig and I will make our way up to Antigua and I’ll be joined by crew for the run home.

It’s going to be tough for me to be left behind when Brenda heads home as it will be about 6 weeks until I arrive home.  It’s too early to head north with Pandora, it snowed in CT last week, I am told, so I have to hang around for a few weeks before heading out.  To head north any sooner would be dangerous, with the threat of strong late season “nor’easters”.   Not my first choice.

However, on a positive note, it’s been great visiting so many new places which will make our run south next winter easier as we will already have a better feel for which spots to visit again.

One of the best spots where we spent time was surely Bequia, with many places to eat out as well as being a terrific spot to have work done on the boat.  We will surely be back next season to have more varnishing work done by Winfield and perhaps some more canvas work too.

We enjoyed our time meeting up with the many couples that we met through the Salty Dawg Rally.  In Bequia we participated in a “dinghy drift” organized by fellow “Dawg” Lynn on Roxy.  She’s a high energy girl and to spend time with her is always fun.   Alas, she’s not in this photo.  As if the evening wasn’t fun enough already, we were treated to perhaps the most spectacular tropical sunset of the season.  Made even better with Sea Cloud II in the frame.  After a bitAfter Bequia we headed south to the Tobago Cays, described by some as a lot like the Bahamas with beautiful turquoise waters.  And great snorkeling, if not great pictures.  I guess it’s time for a new underwater camera.   With this camera I guess I have to say “you had to be there”.

Iguanas guarding their turf. This guy stuck his head up near Pandora as we were weighing anchor as if to say “see yah!”We also visited nearby Mayreau, an island that I had never heard of, ,like many in the Greandines, until we decided to head the short distance there from the Tobago Cays.    It’s a tiny island with lovely brightly painted homes on the steep hillside. A Catholic church occupies the highest point on the island.Charming. The view of the Cays from the back of the church was fabulous. 
And south toward Union Island and Carriacou beckon for next season.  While nearby mountainous St Vincent gets lots of rain, only a few miles south, Mayreau is very arid.  The locals work hard to collect water in cisterns, this one behind the church is the largest I have seen.  The runoff collects at the bottom of the half acre stone and cement catchment area. In this arid climate cactus was everywhere.  These flowers were very showy and fist size.  Nothing says “I am not for lunch” like a cactus. Of course, what’s a post without a view of Pandora in the harbor?  We were anchored with “buddy-boat” Roxy, home to our friends Lynn and Mark.    They plan to summer in Trinidad and head to the western Caribbean next winter.  We hope to see them again soon.
This is the view of the nearby beach, the best we have seen in the Caribbean.   We had it all to ourselves.
The beach was well kept, free of litter and wonderful soft sand.   The four of us spent a long time soaking in the clear water off of the beach.  We decided to break up the 80 mile run from Mayreau back to Marigot into two legs.  We had to return to Bequia to check out and then continue on to Marigot, another 60 miles north.   We had heard that the run between St Vincent and St Lucia is among the roughest in the islands and yesterday’s passage was true to that legend as it was when we headed south.   As we made our way north,  we encountered steep waves on a close reach.  The relentless trade winds push water past the islands, into the Caribbean sea at speeds of up to two knots and always to the west.

Fortunately, in the lee of St Vincent the waters were calm.    It’s a beautiful island but crime is a problem so almost nobody stops there.  It’s unfortunate that the authorities are unable to do anything to make it safer.   The nearby mountainside was spectacular and lush. It was alarming to see this boat, with what looked like a machine gun go roaring by.  It looked like a harpoon.  Glad that they didn’t come close.  I know that they do hunt whales in St Vincent but thought that the weren’t able to use motorized boats, only rowing and sail.  Hmm.  I wonder what else they can hunt that needs that sort of firepower? On the other hand, this fisherman, a long way from shore, was decidedly low tech.   He waved as we passed him. One of the best parts of cruising the eastern Caribbean is that the wind, while pretty strong at times, amd consistently from the east.  Sometimes ENE or ESE but just about always from the east.   So, as we headed south we were ALWAYS on a port tack.

So now, on a starboard tack.  I guess we must be heading home.  Time to move all the loose stuff down below to the leeward side.   Well, at least until we get far enough north to loose the trades.

Brenda hasn’t even gone yet and I am feeling a bit “peckish”.   I’ll miss here.

As I write this we are anchored in the Tobago Cays in the Grenadines, the furthest south that we will go on this trip.  At 12 degrees south it is the farthest south that we have been aboard Pandora.   Perhaps next season we will go as far as Grenada which would put us at nearly 11 degrees south.   For sure, 12 degrees north is a lot closer to the Equator than it is to home at 41 degrees north.   It feels like an accomplishment to me.

Just before we left Bequia, and after the regatta was over, there was a mass exodus from the harbor of many of the boats that had come there to participate.  Most of the transient boats left under their own bottom but this one, a Shield I think, was lying along side a tramp freighter.  I wonder where she was headed?A little while later they fitted her with lifting straps. And up she went.  And speaking of going places, I have mentioned in past posts that my plan is to run Pandora north for the summer and do the Salty Dawg rally to Antigua again this November.

After that, it’s possible that we will opt to leave the boat in Grenada or Trinidad next summer as it may not be worth the time and wear and tear on me and Pandora to continue to do the run.   I will say that most of the cruisers I have spoken to about this leave their boats in Grenada or Trinidad during the summer, in part for convenience and also because the cost of labor in the islands is so much less than in the US.   In addition, the craftsmen are first rate.

That has great appeal as there are some projects that I’d like to get done that I just would not be able to afford in the US.  I was very pleased with the canvas work done on my dink as well as the varnishing below at rates that were quite reasonable.  Frankly,  we could not afford to have varnish work done in the US as it just wouldn’t make sense.

We loved the varnish work that Winfield did for us in Bequia.    Some of the finish below was getting a bit scruffy so we had him update some of the trim in the forward head, galley, chart table and companionway.  It turned out to be more disruptive than we had expected with work breaks for Good Friday and Easter, but the finished product is beautiful.  Winfield suggested that we go with bright varnish for the trim and other areas below as it’s a lot more durable than semigloss.   Good call.

It looks beautiful.  Trim that looks too nice to touch The chart table is so shiny I am afraid to use it.  And, now a shiny compaionway that was looking very scruffy. Winfield clearly takes pride in his work.  No surprises and we are very happy with how it turned out.  The bad news, now the rest of the boat looks rough by comparison.  Well, there’s always next year. And, speaking of varnish.   I expect that this beautiful grand lady, Shemara, circa 1938, has plenty.  At over 200′ long she surely has plenty to keep her crew hopping.   Love the classic canoe stern.  How’s that for a swim platform?The refit consumed one million hours of labor over several years.  That’s a big number and it doesn’t even count the massive amount of “stuff” that went into the job.  She’s still a real throwback to a different era, but under her classic skin she is totally modern.  Check out this article, which I recall seeing a while back, to learn more about this magnificent yacht.  She’s got some pretty exotic systems aboard.

And speaking of modern,  this carbon cruiser, Sorceress, recently launched in South Africa, passed us smartly yesterday as we sailed from Bequia where she had been for a few days.  She’s all business.    While designed for cruising, she is a fast racer with a deep draft lifting keel.   She’s quite a boat. Where we are now is a national park, is protected from fishing so the reefs are teeming with fish.   Beautiful beaches too. 
This morning I went snorkeling with some friends.   I took lots of photos and videos with my GoPro but, as usual, I was disappointed with the results.   Somehow, the “high resolution” is anything but.  I saw lots of turtles. This is a beautiful spot and I expect that we will stick around for a few days and then begin our run back up to St Lucia where Brenda will head home. My friend Craig will join me there for the run to Antigua where I will meet up with my crew for the run north to CT.

So, it’s been quite a ride south but soon, it’s northbound for Pandora.

One of the best parts of cruising the Caribbean is the opportunity to see iconic yachts and lots of sailboats.  Unlike US waters where it seems that powerboats are dominant and sailing is ever so slowly fading from the scene, when you get to the Caribbean, especially the southern part, the vast majority of yachts are sailboats and sailing is where it’s at.

In addition to the great variety of yachts, in some of the harbors that we visit we often see some of the smaller cruise ships drop anchor for the day.   Most of them are not memorable but a few days ago Sea Cloud, the largest private yacht in the world when she was launched in 1931 for Marjorie Merriweather Post and her then husband E.F. Hutton of Wall Street fame, came in for the day.  While she was a private yacht in Post’s day, she’s now a very exclusive cruise ship.

During WWII Sea Cloud was requisitioned by a US Navy, for $1 a year and put to work as a weather ship off of the east coast.  After the war she was returned to Post and converted back to a sailing yacht.  However, the cost of the yacht, with her 72 full time crew members proved to be a bit much for her to keep up so Post sold the yacht.

Sea Cloud has had a number of owners since then but beginning in the early 80s she has served as a cruise ship, carrying only 60 passenger and an equal number of crew.  Today she is the oldest cruise ship in regular service anywhere in the world and remains in remarkable condition.

I took a run out to see her.  She’s quite a sight.  Her bowsprit goes on and on. If you want to learn more about this iconic ship, check out this link.

As the Easter Regatta, a pretty big deal in this area, is going on now, a wide variety of yachts, classic and contemporary are here to race.  Everything from J24s to beautiful classics are out making their way around the buoys.    Mah Jong, a teak planked beauty, designed by Sparkman and Stephens, built by Choy Lee and launched in Hong Kong in 1957 is in these waters for the winter.   She summers in Marta’s Vineyard where she was recently rebuilt at the Gannon and Benjamin yard in Vineyard Haven.   She’s a beautiful yawl.  What a lovely stern.  I caught her rounding the weather mark today just behind another classic, Galatea.And around she went. She was hot on the tail of Galatea and they approached the mark, twice that I saw, and still very close together after miles of racing.It was quite a site to see Galatea pass me by.  I don’t know much about her but she’s a beauty.  There are many classics by that name and without fast WiFi I ran out of patience trying to find out more about her history. And off she went to turn down wind.   She’s a lot bigger than she looks in this shot, probably about 80′.  Just behind them were a few of the Carriacou sloops.    These are traditional fishing boats in the Grenadines and are still raced as yachts today. This is a go-fast locally built double ender.  Impressive speed with big sails and a large crew to serve as “rail meat” to keep them upright. And, of course, no race is complete with out the classic J24s and there were plenty racing today. Ok, enough of the race stuff for now.

Yesterday Brenda and I went for a short walk up to an old fort overlooking the harbor.  I feel sorry for whoever had to lug these cannon up from the beach.  The view was impressive.   This is the western part of a large harbor with room for hundreds of boats.  There’s Pandora in the lower right.  The homes on the hill overlooking the harbor are brightly painted in Caribbean colors.  I always get a thrill out of watching the Frigate birds fly by.   They have a huge wingspan, in excess of 6′, the longest of any bird, relative to their size.   I understand that they can sleep while they fly and although they can be seen great distances from land they are unable to land and take off from the water.   One thing is certain, if you love boats and being on the water, Bequia and especially the Easter Regatta, is the place to be.

Perhaps I’ll sign off with a shot of the sunset last evening, a beautiful way to cap off a day in the tropics.  Sure beats snow.
No wait, it’s May.  No more snow up north and I am looking forward to being back in New England for the summer.  Winter in the Caribbean, summers in New England.

It doesn’t get better than that.

Bequia has long been known for its fine craftsman, artists and the building of boats, both model and full size as well working on boats like ours that visit the island.

Owning a boat requires a constant investment of time and money as it’s the only way to avoid waking up one day only to realize that you are living aboard a “fixer upper”.   Boat ownership is all about being focused on “fixing her up” so she stays looking good.

We were told that there are some excellent craftsman here on the island and had planned to have some work done while we visited.  In particular, we hoped to have canvas covers or “chaps” made for our dink.  The blazing tropical sun is pretty tough on everything and an inflatable dink is particularly susceptible to decay.  Having one of the better brands like Caribe, ours, does help as they are made with high quality Hypalon but even the best materials will only hold up just so long with near year round use.

So, with that in mind, we decided to have a custom canvas cover made here in Bequia.   We had heard good things about Grenadines Sails and Canvas so I contacted them about the job.  Amazingly, when I showed up they were ready to go and within 24 hours I had installed chaps.  I also had them make a new seat cover, engine cover and lift straps.

I was fascinated with the process of making templates.  It took three hours to prepare the details in plastic sheeting templates to be transferred to canvas in the shop.   I just pulled the dink up on the beach under a tree.  The next day I went back and they installed the finished product, a perfect fit.    The canvas is held in place by a combination of velcro straps and lines.  I had two close my eyes and turn away as he went at the rub rail with an electric drill to make holes that hold the lines that tie the canvas securely to the dink.  I asked him how many times he had slipped and punctured a boat.  He smiled and continued drilling holes. However, it all worked out and the finished job, chaps, engine cover and new seat cover.   The guys posed for a shot with the finished job.  Nice work. So, here’s Pandora’s dink, christened Hope all happy behind the “mother ship”.  “Bob, Bob, what’s with the HOPE thing?”
Ok, so remember the whole “Pandora’s Box” thing?  You know, she opened the box and let out all the evils of the world?  Well, according to legend, all that was left in the box was Hope.  Get it?  Pandora’s Box, Hope?  Pretty clever?  So, our dink is now officially Little Hope.    However, that was just too many letters to fit so Hope it is.

And, “hopefully”, pun intended, Pandora’s dink will now last a lot longer with her snug fitting canvas cover.   The bad news is that now I have yet one more thing to try and keep clean.  Oh well.  Nice dink though.  I’d better be sure and lock it up, always so it doesn’t somehow become somebody else’s Little Hope.

Canvas work is just one of the excellent products that are produced here in Bequia.   There is also a long tradition of building boats and model boats and there are still a number of craftsman that are continuing the tradition.   The model boats are actually carved out of a log from a native tree.  After marking up the log they carve it into a rough shape of the hull.   And, after a while, a finished model boat.  Many actually.   Some are of famous yachts and you can also commission a model of your own boat.  However, the bulk pf the models are of the traditional working boats of Bequia, in particular, those used to hunt whales, which is still legal, if tightly controlled.  They hunt, using only sail powered boats, and harpoon a few humpback whales each year along with a number of smaller pilot whales.

As you’d expect, where there are whales, there would be things made from whales.    We saw the work of a local craftsman and asked him to make up a scrimshaw of a traditional Bequia sailboat on a pilot whale tooth.  Pretty neat.  It’s the closest I’ll ever get to a tattoo.    There is tradition of boat building and they still race them aggressively.  Nice looking boats.
Now for a few random items.

How about a pretty heron?
Brenda and I enjoyed walking along the seawall.  There are a number of nice places to eat along the way.  Right near the walkway we spied this moray eel swimming in the shallows.  The water in the harbor is quite clear.
And, under the category of “multi-talented”.  How about this sign for an gallery/doctor office?  The same guy, BTW.I wonder if this guy’s dink has new chaps?  Canvas covers for his helicopter, more likely?   For sure.
Several years ago we sailed on this huge ketch Marie.  She’s here too, along with a few other massive sailboats.   It seems that she was here for  some informal racing against several other “big girls” today as they all left at the same time and milled around for a while before they took off.  I was hoping to stop by later and see if any of the crew that we met are still around.   The experience of sailing on such a magnificent yacht was something else, let me tell you.  You can see a number of posts about this experience but click here to see one about a party aboard that we went to.   Want to see some of the up close shots of Marie?  Click here.    It would sure be great to be aboard her again and it was fun to talk to some of the other cruisers we saw last night when they remarked,  “did you see that huge ketch Marie?”.   “Yes, we did, and we have sailed on her.”  They were impressed.  And we were too, let me tell you.

On a more humble note, I was surprised to see this tattered Essex Yacht Club burgee hanging in one of the local bars.  I wonder if our club burgee came down to Bequia all the way from Essex CT on a member’s boat or if a member chartered chartering locally and flew it.  I’ll have to ask when we get back to CT.
And, finally, for those who follow this blog, you’ll recognize this Suzuki Carry truck below as similar to one that I have at home and use to get around town.  Mine, new in 1992, is registered as an antique, and is more than 25 years old.   I tried to explain why I have such a silly truck in this post.   Doesn’t make sense to you?  It still doesn’t to Brenda either.   This one is fairly new and it’s not white.  It’s still tiny though.   It sure fits in here better than mine does sharing the roads with huge Ford F150s back in CT.  Well, I guess that’s about all for now, an odd mix of stuff to be sure.  However, one thing that carries through, I hope, is that Bequia is the place to go if you are drawn to things made by people who take pride in their work.   All that with the possible exception of a bird, a few yachts and an odd truck thrown in for good measure.

And yes, for Pandora there’s still a Little Hope in all her new finery and I like that.

And, as Brenda has said, “Bob and the dog, ever HOPEfull.”

We are now in Bequia, south of St Vincent and the furthest south we have ever been aboard Pandora.  The island is part of the Grenadines, a number of small islands between St Vincent and Grenada.  It’s a beautiful area and only a few hundred miles from Venezuela.   Many of the folks we have met along the way keep their boats in Grenada or Trinidad, a bit further south from here, but storage there will have to wait another year for Pandora.  As I have mentioned in past posts, leaving Pandora from May to December just doesn’t sit well with me.  That’s a really long time to leave her unattended.

One of the benefits of keeping boats in the Caribbean is that labor rates are low by US standards.   Fortunately, here are excellent crafts people in many of the islands, Bequia for one.   We had heard good things about one of the canvas shops here, in particular, and decided to have canvas chaps made for our dink.  Covers will keep the blazing tropical sun off of the dink and should greatly extend it’s life.

Yesterday the guy from the canvas shop spent three hours making templates for the dink and the finished work will be put on the dink later today.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  We are pretty excited to have matching chaps, seat and engine cover, all in medium grey.

We have also hired a guy to do some varnishing down below on Pandora, the companionway, galley fiddle, navigation station and woodwork in the forward head.  I checked the work that he did for a friend and it looked beautiful.  He says he will be done with the job in a few days so I’ll let you know how it goes.

We were thinking about a new sail cover too but after having the canvas guy look at things today, he thinks it would be OK to put it off until next winter.

We were later arriving in Bequia than expected because we have had so much trouble prying ourselves loose from just about everywhere we have visited, Marigot, our last port, included.   The last day we were in Marigot a beautiful ketch showed up.  She’s Elfje and is owned by a woman, unusual for a superyacht.  I say that it’s “unusual” as that’s how it was described in one of the  magazines that wrote about her and her yacht.  It seems that mega-yacht ownership is overwhelming a male.  So, the owner is Wendy Schmidt, wife, perhaps ex-wife of Eric Schmidt, co-founder of Google.  Ever wonder who owns these spectacular yachts?  Now you know.  She has spectacular lines, the boat that is. And, speaking of varnish, which I was, she has plenty along with a large enough crew to keep up with it.   I love the color of the boat, Columbia Grey, I am told.  Pandora’s dark green is very hot in the tropical sun and we are considering having her repainted in Antigua, perhaps a medium grey.  Changing her color is complicated and more expensive than just going with the same color again, so we’ll have to see what comes of that.   I have lined up someone to do it when I get to Antigua in mid April but it’s unclear if there will be time to get the job done before I leave to head to New England in early May.
She looks enormous on the dock compared with Pandora out in the harbor. Just about everywhere you go in the southeast Caribbean, “boat boys” approach you selling something.  This guy was selling bananas.  We bought some and paid too much.  He reminded us of the Grinch, in looks, not temperament.  Across the harbor was a trail that led up to the top of the hill.   I climbed up the impossibly steep trail, complete with installed ropes to hold as you pulled yourself up.   I didn’t think I’d make it.  Later I was told that many 20 somethings turn back because it’s so steep.   Go me!  Trust me, it was way, way steeper than it looks in this photo.
At the top, after many stops to catch my breath along the way, I was told to look for the “meditation platform”.   By the time I got there it looked more like a “recovery platform” to me, a place to lay down to listen to my pounding heart as it slowed to normal.   Most of the time really steep paths have many switchbacks to make the climb easier.  Not here.

However, once up top, the view was spectacular and worth it. There’s little Pandora way down below. And the view south toward the Pitons, the short run to where we were headed the next day. The Pitons, one of the most photographed sites in the Caribbean, are two 1,000′ tall cones from long extinct volcanoes.   They are impossibly steep and the ocean drops off quickly to more than a mile deep very close to the shore.   We took a mooring in 140′ because of the dropoff.  I have never taken a mooring in that much water.   The gusty winds swirled around us we swung one way or the other by 100′ or more because of the impossibly long scope on the mooring.  It was gusty there, so close to the rising mountains so we had to get help from one of the local “boat boys” to tie up.    As high as the “hill” looks, its actually a lot higher.  As they say, “you had to be there”.  We headed ashore to a very fancy resort on the beach and enjoyed the setting sun from our table under the palms.  It was a “million dollar view” and the bar tab was right in line.  How about $100 for two glasses of wine each and a single appetizer?  The next day we dropped the mooring first thing and headed south to Bequia.    As we rounded the southern tip of St Lucia the seas were very confused with a strong western setting current pushing against us.  That combined with the wind funneling around the headlands made for some pretty “sporty” conditions for the first hour.    In spite of my having carefully secured the dink I was concerned about how much it was moving around in the davits.   Fortunately, no damage.

Following a torrential downpour we were treated to a spectacular view of the Pitons receding in the distance.  It was a long day, nearly 60 miles, as we could not stop in St Vincent, a large island just north of here as it’s not safe.   Too bad that some bad actors have scared off all the cruisers.    All and all, a beautiful sail in moderate winds and all on a beam reach.  It was the best sail yet for the season. 
Bequia is truly an island of boaters and there is a very active junior sailing program with some really nice boats.    They sailed right by us through the turquoise waters. Heading back up wind, they looked like they were having a wonderful time.  To me, this picture just speaks to the exuberance of kids out sailing for an afternoon as they tacked through the anchored boats. The customs house is right near the dinghy dock.  Very Caribbean.  True to form, with it’s English heritage, clearing in was much more complicated than the French islands.
Main street in the village is tree lined and very quaint. I liked this scruffy building framed in flowers.  Everything here is very colorful, even the ferry boats lined up at the dock. Well, I guess that’s about it for today.  The WiFi is really slow and doing this post has taken me FOR EVER.

Yes, we are a long way from home but it’s so beautiful we will surely come back next season.  Perhaps we will even be further south than thirteen degrees.

Did someone say “crossing the equator?”  Not Brenda, that’s for sure.