After a couple of weeks fixing things and winding down after the Atlantic crossing, we left Grenada and started to make our way north towards St Lucia.
Our first stop was Tyrell Bay, on the island of Carriacou, followed by Clifton Bay on Union Island.
Once we’d negotiated the reefs and found a mooring buoy, we went ashore to “clear in” which is sailing-speak for Customs & Immigration. A local recommended a sunset cocktail on a tiny island (20 metres across!) in the bay so off we went. Wonderful!
From there we anchored in Saline Bay, Mayreau Island, Charlestown Bay, Canouan, then past Mustique and Bequia to St Vincent. We were cautious about St Vincent as there are many online reports of burglaries, but we stumbled upon Keartons Bay, just south of Wallilabou Bay. We were helped to a mooring buoy (only room for four or five boats) and ashore we met Rosie and Orlando who made us welcome and cooked a wonderful meal at their Rockside Café. We were the only guests!
We arrived in Rodney Bay Marina on the 22nd of December, but decided to take a break from the boat over Christmas and checked into the local Hilton for three nights. It was weird spending Christmas Day by the swimming pool…
Then it was back to work and a short trip to Martinique to get the backstay tensioner repaired and serviced. There must be 3-4,000 boats in Le Marin Bay, certainly the centre of yachting in the Caribbean. And because it’s really France, we hired a car and did massive shopping at Carrefour and Decathlon!
Finally, I’ve googled the national flags of the countries we’ll be visiting in 2023 and prepared their courtesy flags. Happy New Year!
