All sailboats of Hillsborough moved to the quieter waters of Tyrrel Bay, one mile south. This bay welcomes a great number of cruisers as it is a meeting point for all of those sailing more south to Grenada, Trinidad and Venezuela...

It was a pleasure to meet with Dani and Marc on Pirouette (Lorient), Ulrike and Thomas on Toriba (Muenchen), ...and to meet new cruisers like Moana I (Montreal) with Guy and France, and Orer (Istanbul) ..we had an international sundowners at the Lazy Turtle which was great fun. The whole week was filled with get together and a celebration of the upcoming Captain's birthday (May 30th) ...

Besides our happy hours, we worked on the boat and walked on the southern hills and beaches of Carriacou, a bit sad that our journey south is approaching its end for this cruising season and also because we will have to wait until next November to visit Grenada.

It was very lively in Hillsborough...the inhabitants of Carriacou are very industrious, great sailors and boatbuilders! A street fest was organised to sponsor a Youth's sailing club...3 beers for $10 EC, food and music...Playtime!!!

We first stopped in the capital of Carriacou, Hillsborough. Our friends on bord Songbird were there first, anchored on the left side of the main dock...we anchored near by...soon discovering that there were several boulders on the sandy ground around which our anchor threatened to get stucked. A couple of streching manouevers soon got us disentangled... Songbird's chain, however, was stucked around boulders and around a cement block ..it took Bill, Heiner and Pam several hours of work, under and abover water, to disentangle the mess.

La Buena Vida, on the other hand, was not "stucked enough" ...and we began to drag "puffed away" by one of those typical Hillsborough 30 knots wind gust ..we reanchored the other side of the dock, in a nice sandy bottom and had a quiet night!

At last Grenada...the island of Carriacou was our first step on Grenadian land, our southern most destination for this crusing season. Only few miles from Union Island away...

There are so many wonderful sights ...views from other islands, ships sailing in the Trade winds...

Schooner sailing past Palm Island.

A view of Petit Martinique, an island located between Union and Carriacou...

From Clifton, we walked the mile and a half to Ashton, the other settlement with a scenic mainstreet...when I asked one man about the name of the mountain, he simply answered that they call it "The Big Hill"...We were stunned about the friendliness of people in Ashton and while not affluent, their litlle town was welcoming and charming.

Union Island..the last island of the St Vincent and the Grenadins chain of islands. To view the bay, check out the wonderful aerial view on their website:http://www.unionisland.com/

There are 2 settlements of the island..Clifton, where boats are anchored facing the reef and Ashton, less touristic and friendlier...It's all very pittoresque wiht lots of colourful boots seling fruits and veggies, some shops selling crafts...

This is a photo from the Blue Pelican Bar , German owned, very funky and all that does not moved is painted by the artist owner!

Before heading to Union Island, we visited the Tobago cays.

These world famous cays are a group of small, deserted islands, protected from the sea by the Horseshoe Reef.

After touring the area at a leisurely speed, we decided to anchor between Petit Rameau and Petit Bateau. Soon after La Buena Vida’s anchor was nicely set in the white sand, the Italian catamaran (yes, the one of Salt Whistle Bay) arrives and the signori decide that anchoring just besides us (20 feet away!!!) is adequate as the boats don’t touch@#!!! We shake our heads in disbelief! One crew explains to us that they are quite inexperienced (really?) and that somebody will stay on board while the others go snorkeling!!! We decided that La Buena Vida’s bow sprit would keep them at bay and nevertheless left for exploring the “Turtle area “ on Baradel Island. This area is only for turtles and snorklers! It was wonderful to swim together or above the Green Turtles, big and small. These creatures must know that they are now a protected species because they did not seem to be very much disturbed by our presence. We saw another species of turtles when snorkeling a few yards away from the boat: this time, we sighted a hawksbill turtle. It has a narrow , hooked beak and looks for food in crevices of he reef…the elk horn corals were huge..6 feet high may be…and there were also some very healthy giant brain corals. The highlight was, however, to snorkel on the Horseshoe reef! It was a first for us…the clarity of the water stunned us! It reminded us the Bahamian waters…and this was a first since our arrival in the Caribbean. There were hundreds of fishes, one of our favorite being the Queen Parrot Fish! We loved the experience and were able to stay in the water for a long period of time thanks to our short diving body suits. Yes, even if the water is 27C, after a while, one gets a little cold. Will we ever be able to swim in Lake Ontario’s water…at 20C?

Sailing south-east through the chain of the Grenadines, we first anchored in Canouan and then Mayreau, a very small island nested in the waters of the Tobago Cays Marine Park. We loved Salt Whistle Bay right away!

It is a spectacular half-moon shaped bay with palms swaying in the trades and white sand beaches on the Caribbean and Atlantic side of it. The waters were clear and wonderful to swim in…and it did not take long before we explore the beaches and even the hill from where we had a spectacular view of the Tobago Cays.

Our anchorage was beautiful BUT charter sailboats (catamarans of 50feet+) kept arriving and the bay filled up pretty quickly on the 2 nights that we spent there. We cannot imagine how busy it gets when it is the high season…On our last evening, a Catamaran with 9 Italian men anchored between a French Catamaran and us…so very close to us that we could almost see the name of the white wine they were drinking!

Beaches were more peaceful and as was our walk up the hill, through Mayreau’s little village of 250 people and then down to Salines Bay. The houses of the village suggest that Mayreau is not affluent.

We stopped at one vegetable and fruit kiosk and the vendor and his mom were obviously stone …in fact many people that we met since our arrival in the Grenadines looked under the influence of drugs. There was a certain desolate aspect to the settlements (Canouan, Mayreau) that was not present in Bequia.

The (catholic) church on top of the hill was a pretty sight and we had lunch there, hugging under trees for a bit of shade. The air felt almost burning and we felt like this pretty crab...drying out in the sun!

While there were many little restaurants in Mayreau, just above Salines Bay, they were all empty and the prices were a bit prohibitive…may be not for charterers who spend 1 week here but for cruisers! (lunches started a 35EC i.e. 17.00can dollars)!

However, we liked the peacefulness of Salines Bay and the view of Union Island, our next destination...

Quelle belle vue de l'Ile Union, la derniere de la chaine des Grenadines appartenant a St-Vincent. On nous avait dir que l'ile de St-Vincent etait plutot pauvre car personne ne s'y arretait, et cela au profit des Iles Grenadines, plus populaires chez les gens de croisiere. Nous avons donc ete surpris de voir que les villages des Grenadines - a part Bequia -etaient plutot pauvres et desoles...les iles n'ont pas d'eau potable, recoivent tres tres peu de pluie ce qui rend l'agriculture difficile et il y a les drogues...Mais les paysages sont magnifiques!

What a day..we had a roti lunch with Hairoun Beer (St Vincent home brew) at a local restaurant “The Green Boley” ! And, we joined Pam and Bill for a very refreshing swim in our anchorage.

Nous avons fini cette journée par un lunch a un resto sur la plage de Bequia…un roti évidemment avec de la bière locale, Hairoun….sans oublier la baignade au retour au mouillage!

We had another piece of Paradise when we found an old resort with huge mangoe trees…and collected dozens of unripe mangoes…This estate was just beautiful and will hopefully be revived! In the meantime, we will enjoy the fruits of its huge trees.

Et au comble du bonheur, nous avons trouve une vieille propriété au cœur de laquelle il y avait des manguiers géants plein de fruits! Nous avons remplis nos sacs a dos…

The hike to Mount Pleasant…was just beyond our expectations! It was like strolling through paradise..strolling may not be the right word as the first hour was really a walk uphill, in the noon sun. [We cannot figure out why we always managed to start walking around noon? ]. There was not much of the sea breeze to be felt on the road toward Mount Pleasant ..but huge mangoe trees, oleander trees, and hibiscus bushes. Once in Mount Pleasant, we found a bench and sat there, admiring the landscape beneath us…before walking the loop and passing through hills with flowering trees (it’s spring, remember!), more mangoe trees, grapefruit trees, waxed apple trees…lush nature and perfumed air…

La randonnée jusqu’a Mount Pleasant (toujours sur Bequia) en compagnie de nos amis Pam et Bill fut assez extraordinaire. La nature exubérante, les immenses arbres de toutes sortes, les parfums, les panoramas..tout y était pour en faire une de nos meilleures randonnées!

St Vincent is definitely not a touristy place...people ask you if you want a cab but are not trying to sell you anything or beg... St Vincent has lots of hardware stores and food stores...good for provisionning of all kinds. Besides its greatest assets, the "Vincys" themselves, we like the intricate architecture of the catholic church ...and the botanical garden! This is the oldest botanical garden of the western hemisphere...with a fruit bread tree which is the direct "descendant" of the tree brought by Captain Bligh in the 1790's...In addition to some beautiful trees, there was also an aviary with some St Vincent parrots, beautiful birds and of course endangered species...Only 500 or so are left in St Vincent. This bird is their pride and joy!