The Grenadines have been a naturalists paradise . Offshore we have seen the elegant Tropic Birds , and as we move closer in it has been fun to watch Boobies and Terns feed on flying fish which in some ways are even more fascinating aerodynamically . Along the shore the Frigate birds bank , soar and chase after anything else that has caught a fish as it seems they cannot swim ,and at best can only pull tiny fish from the surface without actually landing themselves. The reef fish , corals , fans, worms and sea slugs are endlessly watchable and of course swimming along with Green Backed turtles as they bimble along endlessly chewing away at sea grass was a great privilege. On the island of Bequia one of the locals has set up a turtle sanctuary where they obtain hatchling Hawksbill turtles , grow them on in tanks and then release them from the windward beaches in an attempt to re-introduce this species which has disappeared locally . I am not sure if the numbers add up but if nothing else it is doing a great job in showing that the Hawksbill is a fine tourist attraction and has a financial value that is worth protecting rather than utilising as a horribly finite meal ticket.

From whale and peli hunting

Our favourite animal however is the superficially ungainly Pelican. On the water it looks like a disreputable swan , but with a cutlass instead of a beak. In flight it resembles a Sunderland flying boat ; short and squat , but as you watch you realise what a miracle of aerodynamic precision it is . The highly cambered low aspect ratio wings have more slots than a 747 whilst 5 large wing tip feathers spread out to make mince meat of the wing tip vortices. It is the perfect low speed flying machine and I had the great pleasure of a front row seat as one soared up and down on the lift from a leeward beach , absolutely decimating the local fish. How he managed to take off at the end of that session with such a full stomach I will never know.

From More Yoles

Mike and Louise are now back home and we did the 120 miles back up to Martinique overnight where we are reprovisioning and enjoying all the advantages of being in France but with MUCH better weather. We are anchored off the beach in Marin and it being Sunday , one of the local Yoles is training not 100 metres away. Incredibly , she is sporting two sprit sails – the foresail being about 50 % smaller , but the total area of this rig is now even more humungous and there have been plenty of spills. I am entranced and if anyone was foolish enough to show interest could bore for Britain ( or presumably Martinique! ) on the subtleties of handling these marvellous craft. Be warned , photos will follow!

From Grenadine Medley

Of all the Grenadine islands , there is one that stands out as being completely different. Mustique has long been the haunt of the rich and famous and is I think privately owned – or at the very least owned by a private company. Thus , when you land , there is none of the hustle and bustle , the slightly run down rubbish strewn buildings and roads , and in a funny sort of way you miss it . Landing at 0700 the only people about were sweeping the roads , and as far as I could see there was no rubbish to be swept , but they were tidying up the flowers that had fallen off the Bougainvillia bushes!

There again , all the other islands have free anchorages , or cheap buoys to moor to - if you dare trust them , as they may be no more than a grotty piece of rope tied to coral! On Mustique you HAVE to take an ( immaculate) mooring and pay the huge sum of $200 for the privilege. My first impression was of a sterile rich man’s playground and the prices in the local bar did nothing to change that image.

Gradually the feeling began to change. As Mike remarked , it felt remarkably like Tresco on the Scillies ; tasteful buildings hidden in the trees , beautiful clean beaches , palm bedecked and backed by undisturbed mangrove swamp and fresh water marsh. Conservation of the environment is apparently enshrined on the Mustique companies contractual obligations and on our evidence it seems to be paying ( natural) dividends. On a walk round the coast we chanced upon a birthday party and were immediately invited to take a beer and join in the celebrations. They were Vincentians who had taken employment on the island and were buying their houses there. From what I understood this made them share holders in the company and thus sharing in the considerable profits made out of the likes of us and the many Americans holidaying on the Island , and they were obviously delighted to live there .Later on I saw a less well off fisherman paying a fraction of what I paid for supplies at the local shop so perhaps Mustique does work for the locals as well.

There was certainly a complete absence of the begging and hustling that is endemic elsewhere . We are getting used to it and even give it marks out of ten for style and originality. The lowest mark were awarded to some school kids walking along the road with their school master who said nothing whilst they openly asked for money. Best mark so far was the old man (nearly as old as me! ) who came swimming past us in the anchorage off Canouan , having come from a reef half a mile further out to sea. He had a spear gun and ( unusually ) had caught no fishes . He claimed to have lost the rubber band that powered his gun – and could I give him $25 to get a new one so he could feed his family. So far – so usual – but the master stroke , the piece de la resistance was a little Labrador puppy that was swimming alongside that he said was getting tired. As he spoke the puppy swam into his arms and gazed up at us with sorrowful eyes and we paid up immediately . The performance was so good that we didn’t even feel cheated when he swam past the next two boats for an encore but just applauded as they paid up too!

The Island of Bequia is less obviously affluent , although the huge numbers of yachts calling there mean that it doesn’t do too badly. Amazingly the tradition of whaling still lives on , and they are allowed to catch two whales a year using the 27 ft sailing and pulling boats that are little changed from the whalers boats of the 18^th century that called here from Nantucket. I photographed what I took to be similar vessels on a beach , then spent an enjoyable afternoon yarning with a boat builder , and finally was delighted to see a boat itself as they sailed into Mustique ( upwind of the whaling ground) to climb the hill and watch out for the whale blows from the hilltop. Sadly we saw no whales themselves , as whatever I may feel about whaling , to see one being hunted with open boat and hand thrown harpoon would have been fascinating.

From whale and peli hunting

Prickly Bay at the South end of Grenada to the Grenadines doesn’t look far on the chart – but unusually for the Caribbean  it’s a beat ; a boisterous one at that , and it took all day. But it was certainly  worth it.  Once you are amongst the little islands there is a marvellous anchorage every 5 miles , and in the centre of them all  there is the jewel in the crown which is Tobago Cays. Imagine the most vibrant turquoise in the world , surround it with patches of deep ultramarine with brilliant white rollers crashing on orange brown reefs and  the palest sandy beaches  ,  then add in lush vegetation and perfect palm trees  dotted along the splash zone . Mix it with an open ocean anchorage kept flat by the surrounding coral reef and 3 little islands and you will begin to get the picture.  Of course we don’t have it to ourselves as everyone sailing through the area knows that this is a place not to miss but   there is room for us all , and as you have to get here by boat , the overcrowding is just the correct side of bearable.

We are anchored in a little channel  between two of the Islands with sandy beaches and palm trees on either side . To seaward is the main anchorage behind the reef with another  sandy area where you can guarantee to swim with turtles. Along the fringing reef  , little buoys have been laid where you can tie your dinghy whilst you snorkel  over what to my  rather  inexperienced eyes seems a healthy reef  with great corals and fish.

We had a bad experience with “boat boys” in St Lucia , and frankly would  advise anyone to admire the Pitons whilst passing and leave the bay of Soufriere  and its dishonest and aggressive inhabitants  well alone until  market forces  bring about a change in attitude. The guys here seem much nicer . For a start they work hard and have covered the 5 or 10 miles out to the anchorage by 7 am  and probably don’t leave until 8 pm .  On balance they  add to the charm of the place and it is nice to be able to  buy bread and ice and fish at reasonable prices – all of which will enable us to stay here a few days  more to enjoy  its charms .

It is quite windy , but apparently less than normal for this time of year.  Our only  problem with this is that our dinghy  is not really man enough for the conditions , but as long as we go very slowly  and accept we are going to get wet ( no real hardship in these temperatures)  we get by.  On the other hand the canoe revels in the chop and has been in constant use today. The weather is also unusually dry and it seems that the Atlantic weather systems are all still much further south than normal  . In the Canaries this gave us bad weather  ,  but over here it stops the trades being too vigorous  which somewhat redresses the balance.

Mike and Louise have another 10 days with us  and it really is quite difficult to decide which gem of a place to visit next . We do however have a problem in that Ben sent out the wrong Patrick O Brian books – so we are missing two out of the sequence. Luckily help is not far away  as amazingly I noticed that the little bookshop in Bequia had a whole wall dedicated to the series , and with Lynda beginning to get withdrawal symptoms  I suspect that this is where we will be heading next.

Festina continues her somewhat haphazard course through the Windward islands. Having explored Martinique with Peter, we returned to St Lucia to put him back on his plane and continued south, bypassing St Vincent to windward and coming to rest in Bequia, the first of the Grenadines. The light winds that we experienced with Peter are a thing of the past and we are getting used to anchoring in 25 knots of wind, with gusts of 35 whistling down from the hills to make sure your anchor is well set. Luckily the holding is mostly good in sand, and to date we have been fine.

The passage from Bequia to Tobago Cays was interesting as we got the jib jammed in the pre feed and had to dismantle it all, unpick the seams of the jib and re-sew the sail whilst tumbling along in the open ocean swell. We just had a morning at Tobago Keys as we needed to get to Grenada to prepare for Mike and Louise – and it is astonishing. Coral reefs, sandy atolls, brilliant turquoise and blue water, wonderful snorkelling – it truly is a cruisers paradise and I hope that we can spend a few days there again in the next fortnight.

We wanted to get an idea of the area and managed to visit Mayreu, the Keys, Union Island and Petit St Vincent all in the same day which was crazy and exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure. The best part of an extraordinary day was our final anchorage at Petit St Vincent. This area has 3 or 4 islands in close proximity and the anchorage itself seems exposed to the ocean, but in fact is protected by a large reef. The night was cloudless, and with no moon the stars seemed to merge into the relatively few lights on the little islands (some of them coloured) and little clumps of anchor lights in the various anchorages – none of them strong enough to pollute the darkness but somehow blending seamlessly like so many million fireflys (the little glow-worms  Barney – not the boats!)

For now we are catching up with a few jobs in the Grenadan anchorage known as Prickly Bay and it seems a good time to reflect on the part played by all our friends in our adventure. Most of the blogs are sent by e-mail and so we only get to see the site on line every so often. The comments and messages have been very important to us even though the time lag and the set up mean that it is often difficult to acknowledge them in a timely fashion (tho check the comments as we often reply through these). It is lovely to feel we are sharing this and to get news back – it makes us feel grounded, so thank you, all of you who have written to us.

With 2 days of Peter’s stay to go we sailed the 15 miles from Rodney Bay  at the North of St Lucia to the Pitons – those astonishing iconic volcanic plugs that appear on every article about the Caribbean, but amazingly are even more imposing in the flesh.

There was no hurry so we pottered down with a reef and a No 3, and life was so gentle that Lynda went below for a snooze. Peter and I were feeling pretty sleepy too, until we noticed a blue Beneteau 47.7 with a German flag come up from to lee and threaten to overtake us.

Up till now we have always overtaken everything in sight. We don’t make any particular effort to do so – but its a sort of unwritten law – Festina is faster! Well, we weren’t in a hurry and we were very much under-canvassed, so why shouldn’t we be overtaken?

I’m not sure who it was who started it, but slowly, surreptitiously, both Peter and I began to adjust the sheets and vang. Nothing too obvious you understand, but subtle changes that seemed to haul the German boat back a bit. “We could shake out a reef,” offered Peter casually – “Nah – were not in a hurry – it doesn’t matter “ I replied, through clenched teeth. We were in the lee of St Lucia which gave us a very variable wind and pretty soon the sheets were being tended as if the Americas cup depended on it. The German boat came alive, the helm was changed and greater manpower applied to their (full rig) sails. The wind came ahead and we snuck past, they drove off through our lee but we spotted a shift and got ahead again and onto the inside of the wind bend into Soufriere Bay. Here the wind piped up and we knew we had them beaten when they slabbed a reef in whilst tucked under our lee.

Lynda woke up (all those winches squealing!) and sleepily asked if she had missed anything. Peter glanced at the blue boat , satisfactorily far astern. “No, nothing much happened. We were just cruisin’!”