To St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Now that our crew are accustomed to boat life, and some sailing, it's time to do a crossing. Our crossing from Martinique to Grenada will be split over 2 days, hopefully. First a big day, down past St. Lucia to St. Vincent and the Grenadines and then a hop down to Carriacou in Grenada.

We would have liked to overnight in Bequia, but that was just a little too far for a 1 day sail, so we aimed for the Southern end of St. Vincent instead, the Blue Lagoon area. Not in Blue Lagoon itself, the entrance is a little too shallow, but one of the anchorages nearby.

Alarms set for 4:50am, we planned to get moving by 6, and pretty much made it. No time for a morning swim before-hand.

Had to head out quite a way, to get well past the fish-pots, before pulling up the sails. At that point there was a good swell, and so it took a while to get the sails up without snagging them on the lazy-jack lines. With a forecast of gusts up to 30kts, in the channels between the islands, we went out on 2nd reef, again.

And then we were off, straight out of the bay. We started off on a broad reach, and sailed on reaches of some sort for most of the trip.

The sea was relatively flat, making the crossing quite easy. Nothing like our wet crossings on the way to Martinique.

We were expecting to be becalmed behind St. Lucia, as we were with Guadaloupe and Dominica, but the wind kept blowing, and we made a good 9kts for a lot of the back-side of the island. No fish pots to contend with, either :)

We spent the day watching some gulls catching flying fish around us. Lots of circling and diving at shoals of fish eventually nets a squirming meal. Our youngest crew member did get a bit sick, and rather bored, but took a long day of sailing very well. The crew entertained themselves with some Sudoko, drawings of flying goats, and attempts to photograph rainbows.

The next crossing to St. Vincent and the Grenadines went pretty smoothly, too.

We passed the recently erupted La Soufrière volcano, and then started to get becalmed as we got behind the bulk of the island.

So, motor-sailed a bit, and eventually motored the last hour to our anchorage behind Young Island and the spectacular Fort Duvernette. A local taxi-driver tried to sell us a mooring ball by Young Island, but we found some good holding on the Indian Bay side of the anchorage. Reading the guide book later, we probably should have taken the mooring ball, our anchorage wasn't great.

The training yacht Ocean Star, that we saw in flamoth was also anchoring in quarantine here. We dropped a little close to them, but just far enough to be safe.

It was a little rolly, but we thought we'd be able to sleep through it, no problem, after such a long day. Little did we know how bad the night would be: the wind howled and waves rocked the boat hard side-to-side, when we swung side-onto them. While Shaianna slept through the night, no problem, the rest of us struggled to get any sleep — being shaken, rattled, and rolled, when not worrying about the rocks on one side and yacht Ocean Star on the other.

Easily the worst night I've had on anchor. Was tempted to up-anchor and night-sail / motor to Bequia. Maybe we should have.