Another day in paradise

January 10, 2022January 10, 2022 / FloatsOurBoat / 2 Comments

Would you like to hear a story about a regular old day for Capt. Mike and I? Just a Sunday that started our perfectly normal, and ended up a little bit special? Well, here goes!

Sunday January 2nd started slowly on anchor in Admiralty Bay, Bequia. The holiday buzz was over, and our energy levels were a bit low. Capt. Mike eventually motivated to cook leftover lobster into a red pepper-onion-lobster omelette, and I perked up a bit after a cup of strong coffee. Friends on SV Camino messaged, asking if we’d like to go for a hike. Why, yes! Of course! So we left the dirty dishes in the sink, grabbed our backpacks, and hopped into our dinghy, Bug.

Sunday roads are always light on traffic, so we enjoyed a peaceful walk away from Port Elizabeth, past several churches, ringing with hymns. Past the local pottery, and up, up, up the hill through the Springs community with its fabulous houses and colorful gardens. Only one wrong turn before we found ourselves at Spring View Park with its stunning views of the rough white caps between Bequia and St Vincent, and of the busy and populated southern coast of the main island of St Vincent itself. We shared the mystery of the massive rock labeled “Ursula” (When the founder of this community cheated on his wife Ursula with their nanny, did she drive over the cliff on her own violation in a state of despair? Or did hubby put a rock on the gas pedal to help get her out of his way?) For the first time ever, we weren’t the only people visiting this lovely park. Mike got the phone number of Meakly who has the key to the grill and kitchen facilities. Maybe we’ll come back with lots of friends and have a picnic next time!

Down, down, down a steep concrete road that has definitely never seen snow and ice, past the Firefly and the so called “Bequia Golf Club.” (You get to choose one club, and you go around the three-hole course twice. It’s pretty much cross country. Try not to lose your ball in the downed leaves, or in the thicket of dead palm fronds at the top of the tree on hole #2.) A quick ramble past an ornery mama cow on Spring Beach, and we were hot, tired, and thirsty and ready to finish the loop back to town. In search of a cold beverage and lunch, we climbed the steep wooden staircase to Coco’s restaurant where a party for a nine-year-old girl was going strong.

Unfortunately, the kitchen was closed except for this private party, but we were able to order cold rum punches and we all admired the little girl’s impressive blue dragon cake and sang Happy Birthday. Her grandfather, Mr Lulley came by to chat about his 30-year career in the US Merchant Marines, and his son who hoped to attend Maine Maritime College. What a coincidence! Our hiking buddies Shawn and Chantal’s sun graduated from Maine Maritime. And their best friend back home in Vermont went to the school with Mr. Lulley at maritime college back in Baltimore. We all exchanged cards and offers of “If you ever need anything…” and took selfies.

After the big party crowd cleared out, the owner of the restaurant, Coco, came out to chat about the business, the holidays, and COVID (we all can’t help but talk about COVID these days, right?) Then he said, “I’m going to offer you something, and I don’t want you to say no. I’m going to let you try my homemade West Indian food, and I don’t want any money for it. You can pay for the drinks, but the lunch is on me.” So, lo and behold, we’re now eating stewed chicken, rice and peas, green salad, and coleslaw, all on the house. Everything was delicious, the view from the patio was stunning as always, and of course we tipped very generously. I can’t wait to visit Coco on a regular business day to have another bowl of his fish chowder – the most delicious thing to eat on the island.

So the day that started with no plan except for breakfast, ended with a lovely hike, a birthday party, meeting friends of friends, and a free lunch! You never know what the day will bring when you leave yourself open to whatever happens 😀

A quick spin through the southern Grenadines

January 5, 2022January 5, 2022 / FloatsOurBoat / 2 Comments

Phew! We finally finished all of our boat maintenance and received all of our parts and packages and untied the lines from our mooring in Grenada. Hooray!!!

We picked a tight little weather window in the heavy Christmas winds and headed north with the goal of making it to Bequia in time for Christmas. First stop, Carriacou – the little sister island to Grenada with a much more laid back, island time feel. With only a couple nights in Tyrell Bay, we made sure to hit our favorite spots. Paradise Beach Club is absolutely amazing. It’s owner, Allison, remembered our names and Sanitas’s name, even though we last visited almost a year ago 😲 We spent a wonderful afternoon on the beach during Paint and Sip, admiring the wall of boat signs and enjoying delicious seared tuna Greek salad and fresh lime margaritas.

We were among the first to paint a sign. Now the entire wall is full!

Well fortified with that delicious meal, I prepared for our first international border crossing of the cruising season. I don’t know about you, but I sure never thought we would still be dealing with border closures and COVID restrictions at the dawn of 2022. This year, things are honestly a bit easier for fully vaccinated travelers – there are fewer requirements for long quarantines, for example. To travel by sea from Grenada to St Vincent and the Grenadines Team Sanitas took the following steps:

Submit an on-line pre-arrival form for each passenger
Submit a “Request for entry and quarantine aboard” form
Create a SailClear departure declaration for Grenada
Create a SailClear arrival form for SVG
Submit digital vaccination certificates
Document recent travel history
Get a PCR test at the clinic where swabs are sent the Grenada’s main island for processing. Wait impatiently for results
Wait for permission to enter SVG on our desired day
Upon arrival at Union Island, grab a quarantine mooring and dinghy ashore for health checks and processing

Processing at Clifton, Unions Island went quite smoothly, although it was slow and expensive. We joke that they slow-rolled the paperwork so that the Bougainvillea restaurant would get more of our tourist dollars as we sat at the bar waiting for nearly two hours. Hmmm, maybe it’s not a joke 😜 By contrast, friends who cleared into SVG at Bequia found a somewhat chaotic process and were required to stay in quarantine for over 24 hours. Pandemic travel is still not easy!

We’re not afraid of these tests anymore but they still aren’t fun!

If you ever visit The Grenadines, you must, must, must visit the Tobago Cays Marine Park. It’s a little slice of paradise on earth, with a cluster of small uninhabited islands nestled within a protective coral reef. Even with our high wind conditions, we were able to squeeze Sanitas right in between the two largest islands and picked up a park mooring ball. We were snug as a bug up close to the beach, where we could swim with turtles, linger on the white sand beach, and climb to the top of the island for stunning views. Last year, we and our sailing buddies had the park almost completely to ourselves. This year, tourism has picked up slightly. The number of French charter boats has increased quite a bit, and there are definitely more huge mega yachts in the grenadine waters. On the beach where we used to cook casual beach barbecues, there are now catered lunches for wealthy clients, complete with a steel pan band! We sunned ourselves on the small beach next to passengers from a French cruise ship where champagne corks were popped and everyone received a chilled glass before tenders fought them back to the ship. Too bad my French isn’t good enough yet for me to fit right in and sneak a glass! Of course, we met back up with our favorite hustler Romeo for a delightful lobster dinner on the beach. This is one of my favorite experiences in the islands – toes in the sand, sunset over the water, fairy lights, and an absolutely delicious feast of grilled Carribean spiny lobster, seasoned rice, veggies, garlic potatoes, and fruit. If you go, tell Romeo that Mike and Jenn of Sanitas say hello!

All too soon, we had to leave this paradise to continue our sail north to Bequia just to make sure we’d get there in time for the holidays. Winds were still quite fresh and between 30-50 degrees from the north, and seas about two meters high, but consistent. We kept the main double-reefed, and Capt. Mike chose a sail plan that kept us in deep water and sailing as close to the wind as Sanitas can manage. It was an exhilarating salty sail, and we arrived in Bequia just before sunset, ready to settle in for a month in our favorite grenadine island.

Back to the Boat!

November 26, 2021November 26, 2021 / FloatsOurBoat / 5 Comments

International travel is possible again, but you’ve really gotta want it

After our epic Long Trail backpacking adventure, Mike and I spent a few more weeks visiting family and attending the Annapolis Sailboat Show and then, suddenly, it was late October and time to return to Sanitas and the Caribbean. Who would’ve thought we’d still be dealing with border closures and COVID restrictions in fall of 2021? Definitely not me!

Our first challenge in returning to the islands was to figure out what to do with all of our stuff. Somehow, whatever we packed to bring home back in June bred and multiplied in the back of our Ford Escape and we suddenly owned way more junk than fit in our luggage. Visiting “The Land of Plenty” will do that to you. Also, a Costco membership card.😜 Some of it, we’d bring back with us – American toiletries and supplements are very expensive in the islands, as are gluten-free foods. Extra clothing we donated to charity. Luckily, almost all the clothing I bought as “land clothes” for our visit came from a thrift store so it was easy to part with – almost like renting warm clothing that we wouldn’t need when we returned south. Speaking of thrift stores, here’s a great nomad life hack for you…if you are returning home from your trip with a little more than you started with, consider buying an extra suitcase from Goodwill. We bought 2 huge pieces of luggage for $6.99 each and filled them as close as we could get to the 50-pound airline limit. Then we donated them on arrival in Grenada. Just don’t forget to pay for your bags in advance to avoid paying more at the airport! Even international flights don’t always include free luggage these days.

Yeah, we’re gonna need a bigger luggage cart

The next challenge is to comply with all the entry requirements of your destination country. That’s complicated by the fact that restrictions change quickly, based on the number of active cases in a country, and on whether the US is considered “high risk” at the time. When we traveled from New York to Grenada at the end of October, the rules were:

Only fully-vaccinated visitors are allowed to enter. We brought hard copy and digital copies of our vaccination cards
Apply for a Travel Authorization form one week before your flight
Have a negative PCR test result, taken within 72 hours of travel
Pre-pay for a 2nd COVID PCR test to be administered at the airport upon arrival in Grenada
Book two nights in an approved quarantine hotel in Grenada where you’ll stay until your arrival test results are available
Print everything to show the airline prior to checking in, or use an app such as New York’s Excelsior Pass

Our flight from JFK left before 7:00am on a Monday morning, so our covid tests were complicated by the weekend. We tried to take advantage of free testing at a Rite-Aid on Friday morning. But when we didn’t receive results by Saturday afternoon I panicked and paid $160 per person to get a test that guaranteed results by Sunday at 5:00 pm. It was a good decision. Capt Mike didn’t get his free test results until we arrived to the airport – I would have been totally freaking out if the results of our paid tests hadn’t been available!

You gotta wear your hat, so you don’t crush it!

After that, everything went smoothly. A 3am alarm got us to JFK in plenty of time for Mike to drop off me and my massive pile of luggage while he parked. I have nothing but positive feedback for JetBlue. Just a week after the Southwest flight cancelation fiasco, and a week before the American Airlines meltdown, every JetBlue employee we interacted with was professional and helpful. Our flight was about half full and on time, and it felt wonderful to take our first breaths of warm, humid island air when we deplaned at Maurice Bishop international airport. We arrived on a local holiday, but the clear-in process was still smooth and efficient. After our third nose swab in four days, we collected our bags and hopped into a taxi for the short trip to Sunflower Apartments.

I’d planned ahead and ordered delivery of grocery basics (eggs, fruit, pasta, potato chips, and booze) for our 48-hour quarantine. It was brilliant! The delivery van from IGA arrived at the apartment at the same time as our taxi. After Lauren in security took our temperature and showed us around, we settled in for quarantine, aka well-deserved rest and recovery period. With air conditioning and lots of Netflix movies, we barely minded, and we were officially cleared around 4:00 pm on Tuesday. Just in time to go out to eat at Greek Kitchen before restaurants closed round 5:00 for COVID curfew.

Sanitas is one of those masts, way over there. (View from our quarantine apartment)

Do all these Covid protocols sound strange to my fellow Americans? Well, Caribbean island nations are still taking Covid quite seriously, especially since many have limited medical facilities. But they are also balancing safety with the need to improve the economy and to restore tourism. Both Grenada and St Vincent have recently removed the quarantine requirement for fully-vaccinated visitors. Grenada now only requires a rapid antigen test on arrival, rather than the costlier PCR test. And they’ve significantly lowered the cost of the tests for departure, which are required when you return home to the States. While Covid-related protests have turned violent in the French islands, Grenada feels safe and peaceful – especially as the beautiful weather means we live our lives almost entirely outdoors all winter long. I’m very glad we were able to return to Sanitas this fall, and I’m really looking forward to being able to sail more and explore more than we’ve been able to for the past two years!

The end of another great cruising season

June 6, 2021June 6, 2021 / FloatsOurBoat / 8 Comments

It’s June and you know what that means – the official start of hurricane season in the Atlantic. Sanitas is in her summer home at Spice Island Marine Services in Grenada, and her crew is hard at work in the yard.

We’re engineers, so we love spreadsheets! We’ve got our hurricane prep spreadsheet all ready to go, color coded, prioritized, and sorted. We gave ourselves two weeks to get everything done, plus to fit in time for a little bit of fun. Most of our projects are intended to keep Sanitas safe in the event that a tropical storm or hurricane hits grenada while we are gone. For example, we take down all the sails and the bimini and dodger so there’s as little to catch the wind was possible. We also do a bunch of spring cleaning, although boat yards are so dirty, it’s pretty much a lost cause.

And… We always do a couple of big projects too! This spring we replaced our ancient stove and oven with a shiny brand new one. How exciting is that? All three burners work. And there’s even an electric lighter. And a thermostat on the oven. Wozza! And unlike most boat projects, this one actually went smoothly. The Budget Marine had a perfectly sized stove in stock, and let us borrow a cart to wheel it across the boat yard. Mike and I managed to raise it up to the boat using the main halyard and a winch, without having to ask for help. And it was easy to install – even though the propane attachment is in a decent location that our old stove. We even found someone to buy the old one so we didn’t have to figure out what to do with it. Cooking will be an absolute delight next year!

Our anchor light died about a week ago, so I hauled Capt. Mike up the mast to investigate. I know that it’s not actually more dangerous to have him up in the air in the boatyard than up in the air in an anchorage, but it sure feels scarier to have him up so high above solid ground. It’s a good thing we don’t have a bigger boat. It’s hard enough to get his big butt to the top of our short mast 🤣 Mike found some corroded wires and had to order a new part. I guess we’ll be doing this up the mast thing again in the fall!

The chaos inside the boat is really getting to me. I’m so glad we decided to get an apartment rather than trying to live on the boat in the yard while doing all this work. It’s wonderful to have a peaceful place to return to every night. With hot showers! And air conditioning!

Remember I said we left time for a little fun? We ate some delicious meals, spent a Sunday Funday on Grand Anse Beach, and even attended a wedding! Our friends Jill and Jørn had a lovely intimate ceremony on the beach in front of The Aquarium restaurant, and we were honored to help them celebrate.

It’s always sad when the season ends. But this time, we’re looking forward to visiting family and friends in the US for the first time since 2019. You’d better believe there will be lots of hugging. Thanks again to St Vincent and The Grenadines for letting us get vaccinated. We’re gonna miss our sailing friends (and of course, we’ll miss Sanitas!) But we’re really looking forward to a summer of land-based adventures. After the culture shock wears off🤣

How the other half lives

April 13, 2021April 13, 2021 / FloatsOurBoat / Leave a comment

Just before the La Soufriere volcano erupted (life is now measured in BV, and AV) we spent three nights anchored off the private island of Mustique. Why three? Because the Mustique Company charges 220ec (about $82) per mooring ball, whether you stay for one night, two nights, or three. And the crew of Sanitas always get our money’s worth!

Mustique is definitely “Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous” If you’ve watched The Crown, you know that Princess Margaret owned a home here, and visited for decades. Bryan Adams, Tommy Hilfiger, and Mick Jagger own homes, and several large villas are available for rent to the very wealthy at around 40,000 per week during the winter high season. Only small private planes can land here, and the rif-raf is definitely kept out. Except for us, lol! We’re considered “yachties” and we are allowed limited access to this beautiful island. ⛵🌴🌄 Of course our first stop was the world famous Basil’s Bar, clinging picturesquely to a wooden dock over the blue, blue water. It’s a lovely beach bar, decorated with carved wood, rattan lamps, and antique musical instruments. Unfortunately, we arrived one day too late for the weekly Wednesday “jump up” of live island music. We watched a mediocre sunset while sampling tasty but obscenely expensive cocktails and burgers. It was a bit of a shock seeing the menu in US dollars rather than in ec. Well I did say I wanted to see how the other half lives – so far, I think they get ripped off, lol 🤣

The mooring field in Brittania Bay is beautiful with tons of happy healthy sea turtles swimming around. We visited with Zach and Lindy on SV Holiday, and we shared this large bag with only two other boats. Unfortunately, it can also be rolly here. On Friday morning we experienced an insane roll as if we were sailing in one of our most difficult passages – we think caused by the volcano’s first seismic activity.

Visitors, like us yachties, are welcome to visit the amazing gourmet supermarket, gift shops, and a few restaurants.

Sean at the mooring office told us “When you see a Private Property sign, you turn around!” We didn’t realize how quickly we’d hit one of those signs on our attempt to go for a walk along the waterfront. Pretty much every road that heads inland from the bay is marked Private. 😡

Most of the island is kept natural and undeveloped, and I’d read about beautiful scenic hiking trails. So I wrote to Sean and asked very politely if we could do a hike to the southernmost point on the island. He said yes! As long as we stayed away from all homes, and didn’t take any photos of residents or their villas.

Nobody said we couldn’t take photos of pornographic tortoises

At this point in our stay, the volcano had started erupting, and the sky was grey and full of ash. So maybe, just maybe, going for a hike and breathing in all that crap wasn’t the smartest idea. But remember my goal of getting my Mustique money’s worth? We could feel the grit in our teeth and ended the hike with black streaks of dirt in our elbows and arm pits, but I honestly think it was worth it.

Rich people islands have gorgeous hiking trails! Great signage, mowed grass, and beautiful stone steps to climb the hills. In a distance of less than three miles we changed environments from bird watching in a blind on a salt pond, to a moonscape of exposed rock and cactus. We also glimpsed gorgeous wild beaches, of white sand on the Atlantic side and of black volcanic sand on the Caribbean side.

So is it worth visiting Mustique on a sailboat? Honestly, I guess it depends. If you follow royalty or you’ve always dreamed of rubbing shoulders with celebrities and CEOs, it’s probably the cheapest and easiest way to get here. I didn’t feel very welcome here; it felt more like we were just being tolerated But I have to say, Sanitas has anchored in many equally beautiful harbors where we could anchor for free. And I’ve enjoyed delicious barbequed lobster on the beach for the cost of a burger and a beer at Basil’s. Since we’re spending five months in The Grenadines this year, we’ve set a goal to visit every inhabited island in the chain (and some uninhabited!) so I think Mustique was worth a stop, especially with our lovely hike included. But if you’re here on a brief charter, or if the weather is bad, or if you prefer to spend 12ec for fruit juice and sunset rum instead of $20…. I’d probably pass 🤪