Motor up to Chateaubelair

We spent a few days behind Young Island, at the bottom of St. Vincent, relaxing and snorkelling.

Managed to hire a car for a day and drove through the twisty mountain roads up to to Vermont Nature Trail in the mountains behind Kingston, the capital. This is a gorgeous 3.5km circular walk through primary rain forest and the remains of a cacao plantation that's being reclaimed by the forest. The area is home to the St. Vincent Parrot, although we didn't get to see any nearby, we could hear them squawking at each other in the treetops, and saw some in a distant tree across a valley.

Drove back through the fertile Mesopotamia valley, the breadbasket of St. Vincent, and walked some of the black beaches of Argyle.

Then it was time to head back north to Martinique, to drop Robin and Connor off, for their flight home. We found a local clinic that could do COVID-19 antigen tests, loaded up on St. Vincentian fruit, and checked out of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

We planned to spend the night at Chateaubelair again, the Northernmost anchorage on St. Vincent, and leave from there first thing in the morning. On the way out, we stopped for a lunchtime snorkel in Petit Byahaut, a tiny little bay accessible only by sea, with reefs on both side. Given the short hops and light wind, we just motored our way up the island.

While the South side of the bay had a sheer wall, underwater, the North side had more complex reefs with a lot more fish hide-holes. We found a very playful octopus, swimming round and round a rock in a little bay. We lost track of it, but when we saw it again, it was swimming across the reef to chase after another octopus, and sit on top of its rock.

Well worth the lunch stop.

We arrived at Chateaubelair early enough to have a few locals pop by on kayaks to help us pick a good anchorage, and try to sell us fruit.

Navionics Tracks: 1, 2