Sunday 25th March
Tobago Cays
St Vincent & The Grenadines
12 37.756 N
61 21.451 W
I woke up with a dreadful migraine about an hour before we were going to leave Bequia, taking a couple of analgesics I dressed and made my way out on deck. Gerry had done most of the preparation for leaving and it was just before 08 00 hrs that we began to pull in the line attached to the mooring ball. A charter catamaran was circling the mooring ball next to us and when they saw we were about to leave they decided to wait and take our mooring ball instead, it meant that they were getting in our way but we dropped the mooring and motored out around them and then headed out of the bay. Once clear of all the anchored / moored boats we turned into wind and hoisted the mail sail – reefed to the first point then turned back on course and headed out into the sea. Once we had rounded the end of the bay we could fly the jib as well so that went out, reefed as it was supposed to be a bit gusty. Dale and Lorie were traveling with us whilst Mike and Terri were going to follow later in the day as they planned to attend the morning mass at the church at the top of the hill. The wind was blowing at about 17 knots and we turned off the motor to sail the short distance to Tobago Cays. We had a great sail, it did get quite gusty with winds up to 26 knots but the seas were quite pleasant at about 6 feet with good intervals.
At one point Gerry spotted a small pod of pilot whales just off to our port side and we radioed dale and Lorie to be on the look out for them.
Gerry was a bit disappointed that we didn’t get any higher than 9.6 knots of speed (we were surfing down waves to get this as our maximum hull speed is only 8.5 knots). There seemed to be quite a few boats making the same passage we were and of course as all sailors know – any 2 boats going in the same direction, it’s a race whether the other boat knows it or not! Gerry is pathetically competitive and was constantly grinning when we passed another boat, unfortunately whilst we can sail pretty well we loose ground when we have to drop the sails to motor into an anchorage – we only have a 44 horsepower engine and it does just enough to get us there. As we approached the Tobago Cays we pulled in our jib and then dropped our main sail as we weren’t too sure about the exact anchorage Dale intended us to go to. We followed Gypsy Palace in through the reefs and into the anchorage at Horseshoe reef. There were quite a few boats already at anchor and we made our way to the far side of them all and dropped our anchor in beautiful, crystal clear water. I still had the migraine and once we were happy with our anchoring I took some more tablets and went back to bed. Shortly after I had gone to bed the conservation people arrived to collect our fee for anchoring in the area $20 for 2 nights which Gerry paid. Mike and Terri arrived sometime during the afternoon and volunteered to collect Gerry and me for the evening cocktail session which Dale and Lorie were hosting. As 17.00hrs came around I was still feeling under the weather and decided that I would stay in bed and miss the cocktail session, I instructed Gerry on what to make for “take along” hors d’ouveres and then waved him off for the evening. Later he returned with a “take away box” incase I was feeling hungry, thanks Lorie I appreciate the thought. I ended up taking another lot of tablets before retiring for the rest of the night.
St Vincent & The Grenadines
12 37.756 N
61 21.451 W
I woke up with a dreadful migraine about an hour before we were going to leave Bequia, taking a couple of analgesics I dressed and made my way out on deck. Gerry had done most of the preparation for leaving and it was just before 08 00 hrs that we began to pull in the line attached to the mooring ball. A charter catamaran was circling the mooring ball next to us and when they saw we were about to leave they decided to wait and take our mooring ball instead, it meant that they were getting in our way but we dropped the mooring and motored out around them and then headed out of the bay. Once clear of all the anchored / moored boats we turned into wind and hoisted the mail sail – reefed to the first point then turned back on course and headed out into the sea. Once we had rounded the end of the bay we could fly the jib as well so that went out, reefed as it was supposed to be a bit gusty. Dale and Lorie were traveling with us whilst Mike and Terri were going to follow later in the day as they planned to attend the morning mass at the church at the top of the hill. The wind was blowing at about 17 knots and we turned off the motor to sail the short distance to Tobago Cays. We had a great sail, it did get quite gusty with winds up to 26 knots but the seas were quite pleasant at about 6 feet with good intervals.
At one point Gerry spotted a small pod of pilot whales just off to our port side and we radioed dale and Lorie to be on the look out for them.
Gerry was a bit disappointed that we didn’t get any higher than 9.6 knots of speed (we were surfing down waves to get this as our maximum hull speed is only 8.5 knots). There seemed to be quite a few boats making the same passage we were and of course as all sailors know – any 2 boats going in the same direction, it’s a race whether the other boat knows it or not! Gerry is pathetically competitive and was constantly grinning when we passed another boat, unfortunately whilst we can sail pretty well we loose ground when we have to drop the sails to motor into an anchorage – we only have a 44 horsepower engine and it does just enough to get us there. As we approached the Tobago Cays we pulled in our jib and then dropped our main sail as we weren’t too sure about the exact anchorage Dale intended us to go to. We followed Gypsy Palace in through the reefs and into the anchorage at Horseshoe reef. There were quite a few boats already at anchor and we made our way to the far side of them all and dropped our anchor in beautiful, crystal clear water. I still had the migraine and once we were happy with our anchoring I took some more tablets and went back to bed. Shortly after I had gone to bed the conservation people arrived to collect our fee for anchoring in the area $20 for 2 nights which Gerry paid. Mike and Terri arrived sometime during the afternoon and volunteered to collect Gerry and me for the evening cocktail session which Dale and Lorie were hosting. As 17.00hrs came around I was still feeling under the weather and decided that I would stay in bed and miss the cocktail session, I instructed Gerry on what to make for “take along” hors d’ouveres and then waved him off for the evening. Later he returned with a “take away box” incase I was feeling hungry, thanks Lorie I appreciate the thought. I ended up taking another lot of tablets before retiring for the rest of the night.
Labels: St Vincent The Grenadines
posted by SV Orpailleur at 9:20 a.m.
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