We left this morning and steamed the three miles to Saline Bay, Mayreau where it is more sheltered. We will go for a hike tomorrow then make our way down the Union.

I’ve started separating out entertainment and eating and drinking out into two different categories.  This was the first month we really went to town on entertainment, because we really wanted to spend the money to see Dominica .  We did one tour that cost $130 and went to the PAYS beach party both weeks, and Philip attended the cricket test match in Roseau.   I’m psyched that we managed to have as much fun as we did without killing our monthly budget; of course, the absolute lack of any boat REPAIR costs for the past several months is allowing us to do what we set out to do: see the world, instead of just repairing our boat in exotic locations.

Expenses                                           

alcohol                                                 $     126.51

boat maintenance and supplies             $        20.58

bureaucracy – port fees, etc        $          3.75

cats                                                        $        11.57

communications                              $        48.60

diesel and gasoline                        $     167.77

eating and drinking out                $        52.14

entertainment                                 $     205.80

food                                                      $     445.10

insurance                                            $        13.09

marina/mooring                              $        11.11

other                                                    $          5.00

personal care                                    $        22.47

stuff                                                      $        67.80

utilities: boat                                    $        50.56

Total                                                     $  1251.84                                                  

subtotal: expenses                         $  1,251.84

For example, one interaction with a boat vendor stands in stark contrast to the experience in St. Vincent.  A local fisherman known as Flex approached us and held out a squirming lobster for inspection.  I told him that we didn’t have money today but might be interested later in the week, and asked him if he could give me some advice on fishing around here.  He smiled and asked to see my rod and lures, so I invited him on the boat and gave him cookies and a cold drink.  He spent 20 minutes going through my tackle box and telling me what lures to use where in the bay and chatting with us about his life.  It was a delightful interaction, a little bit of real human contact with someone local that has been so rare on this trip so far.

Flex isn’t unique for this place, either – seemingly everyone you meet has a big smile and is willing to chat, shaking your hand and exchanging names after only a few moments.   While walking across the island the other day, we stopped to watch a Bequia/Canouan (another Grenadines island) cricket game and had several conversations with other folks watching the match.  We all shared a big laugh when one of the fielders grabbed a ground ball, whipped his hand back to throw it to the baseman, and launched it backwards across the field, away from the players and far into the outfield.  I actually laughed so hard and so loud the fielders were glancing up at me and laughing with me.   We were on our way to see the turtle sanctuary, but our new friends urged us to stop by again on our way back, as the real party would start at 2 when two local teams were to compete.  Given how bad the island-wide teams were,  I couldn’t wait to see what would happen with two teams fielded from this one tiny island of 5,000. Sadly, the game was rained out on the way back.

The walk over to the Atlantic side of the island was fantastic, though.   The tropical landscape of lush flowers and palm trees started looking more and more like the barren, windswept coast of Scotland as we neared the Atlantic, coconut palms and frangipani giving way to small, gnarled bushes swept to the west by the prevailing easterly trade winds.  After about an hour’s walk, we arrived at Hegg’s Turtle Sanctuary, a must-see if you’re ever in Bequia.

Orton “Brother” King, an ancient, gnaled Bequian, informed us that he started the sanctuary 16 year s ago when he learned that the beautiful  native hawksbill turtles were endangered.  He said, “Lots of people kill them for their shells, and still even eat them.  I’m ashamed to say that I even used to kill them, but now I find the eggs and hatch them here.  I’ve released 917 to the wild so far.”  He introduced us to his “pet,” a 16-year old female green turtle he had raised from birth, but he releases most of the others to the wild once they are old enough to survive.

There were several shallow tanks with turtles of all sizes, one of which was chock full of tiny babies 3-5 months old and only a few inches long, still struggling to figure out how to swim.  It was the most freaking adorable sight EVAH.  After much oohing and aahing and not a small amount of cooing, we returned to the boat in the rain.

There’s a nasty tropical TROF parked over the eastern Caribbean at the moment that is giving us a bit of rain every day (free water from the sky!), as well as a couple of squalls. A couple of nights ago, we were watching TV when a squall whipped through with strong winds coming from the northwest, quite an unusual occurrence – and quite an uncomfortable one for us, as the harbour is totally open to the sea in that direction.  Within minutes, our calm anchorage had turned into a raging sea, with 5-foot surf thundering at us.  We had set the stern anchor the day before (a first for us) to keep ourselves stern-on to the swell, which reduces the constant rolling endemic to anchorages this far south.  It worked fantastically, until, that is, our stern was pounding into huge waves in the middle of a rainstorm.  Even then, it would have simply been uncomfortable, were it not for the fact that our boat didn’t swing around like every other boat and we quickly realized that the boat that had been behind us was now bearing down on us, stern to stern, alarmingly quickly.  We shouted across to her skipper, who started his engine while we frantically let out the rest of the stern line, and while the anchor held well against the 28-knot storm and rough seas, we realized that we would have to let it go to avoid being swamped over the stern in the growing seas or be hit by the other boat, which was slowly dragging anchor toward us while bouncing around on our stern anchor line.  We were afraid to let go earlier, as we didn’t want to whip around in the strong winds and pull our main anchor out as it flipped, but thankfully the winds died to a more reasonable 15 knots and we were able to release the stern anchor and come around gently without dislodging the main anchor.  Our neighbour was delightfully kind about the whole thing, and thankfully, we had set a trip line and small buoy on the stern anchor, so retrieving it the next day was relatively painless.

We plan to head south again through the Grenadines on Thursday, after this system has passed.  Luckily, all of the islands are super close together from here to Grenada, so our longest trip should be about 20 miles, AND they’re all to the south/southwest, so we’ll be well off the wind – a real treat after months on end of day-long slogs to weather to get to the next island.