Monday 26th March

Tobago Cays
St Vincent & The Grenadines

12 37.756 N
61 21.451 W

I woke up migraine free this morning thank goodness, I feel sure I took enough analgesia to kill both me and the migraine, happily for me only the headache didn’t make the new day. For the first time in a while Gerry cooked us breakfast, it was a real treat. Then we lounged around reading books until Dale came by to say that they were going snorkeling and were we coming. At the time we had the water maker going so we said we would join them when it was done. Moments later Mike radioed us to see if we wanted picking up to go snorkeling – we told them the same story and said we would be out there in about 20 minutes or so. Gerry went to put the dink into the water as it was still up on the davits, next thing I hear is a lot of swearing (imagine that), the pin on the snap shackle that we use to lift the outboard up with had broken. We spent a little while finding something to replace it with, Gerry getting angrier and swearing even more as one thing after another didn’t quite work out – too much haste and all that! In the end we used a carabineer and got the dink, outboard, snorkeling gear and ourselves out to the dinghy mooring ball off the reef. We geared up and dropped into the water but not before we saw Terri and then Mike who was snorkeling and pulling his dink along at the same time – it gives a whole new meaning to towing the dink! We snorkeled around the nearby reefs seeing many different tropical fishes and lots of coral, including a huge head of Brain coral about a meter across. Gerry had the camera and took a few pictures but it doesn’t give the effect of what we were actually seeing. The current was fairly strong and after a while we began to tire so we climbed back in the dink – always a sight to behold, I snapped a picture of Gerry just as he struggled up onto the side of the dink – not his best side! Once we were back in the dink we caught sight of Dale and Lorie heading back towards us, we met up and chatted about what we had seen. None of us had seen the turtles, Dale said they were usually seen around the other side and we could beach the dinks there and snorkel off of the beach. We decided to do it then rather than later as the clouds were gathering and it looked like it would rain shortly. So off we went and beached our dinks on a glorious tropical sandy beach, tying them up to the palm trees so they didn’t get washed away. Then it was back on with the fins and masks and off snorkeling around the beach area. Several small boats full of tourists were in the area pointing at what must have been turtles. We swam away from them and suddenly I caught sight of a turtle eating on the sea bed, I surfaced and called everyone over and we spent some time swimming along with the turtle. What a great experience, it seemed to not mind our presence, but we did take care not to get too close and not to upset it. Lorie had her camera, hopefully she got some good pictures, we had left our camera in the dink so we are relying upon her! Gerry spotted the next turtle and we all followed it for a while enjoying the experience. Eventually we began to get cold and tired, it was time to get out of the water, have a hot shower and some lunch before having an afternoon siesta.
The cocktail hour was to be on MT Nest so I prepared some food to take along and at 17.30hrs we made our way over to MT Nest where we joined the rest of our travel companions for a pleasant evening of good food and company. Mike serenaded the anchorage with a few tunes on his saxophone at sundown, it’s really quite a haunting sound across the water in the quiet of the evening and we will miss his playing when we go in different directions. We discussed our plans for the next day; Gerry and I were heading to Carriacou where we have made plans with a haul out place to anti foul our hull. Dale and Lorie were coming along with us but Mike and Terri had no wish to spend the week or so it would take to do the job in Carriacou. They were unsure about what they were going to do, possibly stay around the Tobago Cays for a while longer, maybe join us towards the end of the week, possibly join another boat in the anchorage that was heading towards Trinidad – they were going to sleep on the decision. We agreed to go snorkeling in the morning prior to leaving if the weather had improved. Eventually we made our way back to our boat for the night.

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.