We departed for St. Vincent on Friday 22 November and flew to St. Vincent. We planned two one-week sails with a change of crew after the first week. The first week sail included Bequia, Mustique, Canouan, and the Tobago Cays. Three catamarans with Doug Rapkine, Tom Guthrie, and myself as skipper. The second week sail included the western coast of St. Vincent, bequia, Canouan, and the Tobago Cays. Only one catamaran with myself as skipper. The float plan for the second week was much more relaxed than the first week. The weather was consistently perfect with winds from the east between 15 and 18 knots, sun shine with an occasional cloud, and slight seas 2 to 4 feet. Some of the crew was delayed a day due to bad airline connections but we all were aboard by Saturday afternoon. We made final preparations to get underway early Sunday morning. 

The Boats

We chartered three Fountaine Pajots - one 42' and two 38' cruising catamarans.  They were quite comfortable and fast. Each boat had four cabins and plenty of deck space.  The each had two engines, a dinghy with outboard, and held plenty of fresh water. We had eight people on each of the 38' boats and nine on the 42' boat as there were some small single birth quarters in for forward part of the hull. The galley and saloon were large compared with sloops and there was an added advantage of a large cockpit and fore deck. The boats were comfortable and fast as we reached 9.8 knots in a 28 knot wind on a beam reach.  The interior was well laid out with a head in each hull.  A swim platform on the stern was the most popular place to shower after swimming each afternoon. The large decks were excellent for entertaining and the cockpit provided ample room for dining.

The Crews

The Second Week Crew aboard Echo was lost at sea shortly before their scheduled end date. A week later, this photograph was found washed ashore on Trinadad.  Reports from local fisherman say they saw a ghost ship that fit the description heading south toward Rio with loud music playing and several fishing lines towed behind. People were reported dancing on deck along with a few native-looking people who apparently joined the party.  The owners of the boat are also reported missing as they are believed to have joined the crew in their irresponsible frolicking in the Caribbean.  The vessel will be missed by the charter company as it was (and is) a fine ship and the crew a favorite customer of the base operator. No photographs or evidence of survivors have been documented and tales from locals cannot be validated because the ship is reported simultaneously in several places when it appears. A Budwiser spinnaker has been seen on the ghost ship though none was put aboard, claims the charter company. Those reported missing include Bob Bennet, First Mate, Steve Krapes, Stina Ross, John Beck, Captain, Cathy Lavelle, Ramon Caceres, and Nabi Rafie. - reprint from UPI.

The Sail

Navigation was easy as all the islands are clearly visible and close together. Bequia is about 8 miles from St. Vincent, Mustique 8 miles from Bequia, and Canouan another 8 miles. The Tobago Cays are only a few miles from Canouan.  Visibility on the water is typically 17 miles. There are only a few dangerous reefs and the ocean is usually deep close to shore. Our first stop was Bequia which could be easily seen from the entrance to Blue Lagoon and a beam reach as the prevailing winds are from the east. A typical day was 85 degrees with a 17 knot wind from the east and seas 1 to 3 feet. Perfect for pleasure sailing. We did have an occasional shower and only one day of clouds and rain. Our average boat speed was 6 to 7 knots in a 17 knot wind on a beam reach though our fastest speed was just under ten knots in a 25 knot wind.

Bequia

Bequia is about 9 miles south of St. Vincent and is the largest of the Grenadines. It retains old traditions of boat building, whaling, and fishing. Admiralty Bay is a natural harbor and a favorite spot.  The island is blessed with gold sand beaches and coves. The quaint little town at the head of Admiralty Bay is picturesque and has many small shops and restaurants selling batik, jewellery, and crafts. Natives often come visit in their small boats offering fruit and vegetables or local crafts of which some are quite nice. A water taxi is available to help crew members and passengers get to shore when their dinghy is in use. Ashore the natives are friendly. Provisions and dinghy fuel can be purchased near the town dock making the dinghy ride with food relatively easy compared to the other islands, including St. Vincent. There is an amazing builder of model sail boats ranging in size of up to four or five feet (each visit I come closer to buying) though some are as much as $1,000 US. A hike to the fort overlooking the entrance to the bay is recommended. Many people enjoyed our little Moke (micro pickup truck) tour of the island. The unspoiled scenery of Hope Bay is inaccessible except by foot and was a major attraction for those who made the hike. The best snorkeling is at Table Rock near the entrance to Admiralty Bay. Coco's is a good restaurant.

Mustique

Mustique is south of Bequia and an easy two hour sail.  It measures only 3 by 1.5 miles and is privately owned.  It is a well manicured island with rolling green hills and white sand beaches that blend into the turquoise waters. The islands only resort is the Cotton House which was converted from a large 18th century plantation house. Many attractive villas, including those owned by celebrities, are available for rental.  The Firefly offers rooms for rent and is our favorite restaurant on the island. Though, Basil's is comparably priced with similar food, there's just something special about the Firefly that can only be discovered by a visit.The best place to anchor is in the middle of the bay, close to shore, just south of the dock in about 14 feet of water. It's quiet, near the dinghy dock, and well protected from the wind. The best place to eat is the Firefly.  The best snorkeling is right by the boats. The town is fun to explore and there are fishermen in the town center who prepare their daily catch for the restaurants and residents. Horseback riding is available on the island.  There is an excellent road that goes around the island which takes a few hours to walk.  The beaches are beautiful. We spent little time in Mustique though we recommend walking the island, visiting the beaches, and snorkeling.  An early morning walk around the island is great exercise. The main street is quite colorful with a few interesting shops and boutiques.

Tobago Cays

The Tobago Cays are just south of Canouan and an easy two and a half hour sail from Bequia. The Tobago Cays are rare tropical paradise with numerous islets and coves guarded by some of the most spectacular coral reefs in the world. Our anchorage here was the highlight of our trip as it is a major attraction for all of us. There is an excellent anchorage just east of Baradel Island where the water is just shallow enough to intimidate sloops yet plenty deep for the shallow draft of cruising catamarans. The bottom is sand and excellent holding. Since the area is a national park, they do not allow anybody to live there either on shore or aboard boats. Consequently, the islands have no houses and are natural and clean. Excellent snorkeling is a short swim away and an underwater marine park just on the other side of Horseshoe Reef bears the name "Tobago Cays Underwater Marine Park." Boat boys will like up behind your boat awaiting their turn to show you T-shirts, crafts, fruit, vegetables, and a variety of locally made art. I found the tiki pendant I had been wanting since my last trip to the Cays so I settled down with a cup of tea ready for a long negotiation to get the price I wanted and found it was only a matter of minutes before my desires were met.  They enjoy a good negotiation. The boat boys are interesting and often have fun jewelry carved from coral and ivory.  The T-shirts are cool and made from good material. We stayed here for three days and two nights which was long enough to really relax but not too long that we got bored. There is a barrier reef and an underwater national park. It's easy to navigate and the ultimate in tropical paradise. The Tobago Cays are a good place to write post cards, read a book, snorkel, perhaps dive, and write. Snorkeling is perhaps some of the best in the Caribbean if not the world. We do have a favorite coral garden in Bora Bora so classifying it as in the top 5% would be a safe bet. The acres and variety of coral in water from a few feet to sixty feet are perfect for both snorkeling and scuba diving. Some of the best coral was quite close to the boat making access embrassingly easy. The warm water, bright colors, and large schools of fish was impressive. Our favorite time to snorkel was at noon when the light was the brightest. For three days, we planned our day's activities around our two hour snorkeling beginning just before noon. The rest of the day was filled with doing little or not much at all though the days did fill up quickly. Any worries of life back home seem so insignificant. A close second to snorkeling was wind surfing as the constant breeze from the east and the warm water made the sail board quite popular. Two nights is about right and would be good for an annual visit. One night we had a lobster barbeque on the beach. We bought the lobsters from a boat boy and gave them some butter. They first boiled the lobsters and then grilled them basting them in the butter and melted some for out dining pleasure. After dinner we walked up a small hill and watched the moon rise over a calm ocean with our yachts below. A night to remember!   

St. Vincent

St. Vincent is a small, 130 square mile island with a population of 115,000 people. It's 18 miles long and 11 miles wide. The 4,000' volcano, La Soufrier, gives the island northern half a distinctivly bold and virile character. Thick tropical rain forest, bamboo and fern valleys, extrsions of eroded lava moonscapes, torn black cliffs pounded by silvered surf. Hidden waterfalls, hot volcanic springs, Indian petroglyphs all make for a playground for intrigue. The rugged eastern coast is lined with cliffs and rocky shores while the western c oastline dips sharply down into black and gold sand beaches. The rich volcanic soil produces an abundance of fruits, vegetables and spices, such as coconuts, bananas, breadfruit, nutmeg, and arrowroot.

The towns along the coast support a majority of the population. The capital of St. Vincent and the Grenadines is the town of Kingstown situated on the southwest coast of the island.  There are two major banks - Bank of Nova Scotia and Barclays Bank PLC. Branches in the other islands make accessing the Eastern Caribbean currency easy. There are several other towns, each of which is unique. In Kingstown there are markets, industry, businesses, government, shops, churches, and a variety of restaurants. The best buys are te batik and screen printed items, locally made handicrafts, leather craft and wood carvings. The botanical gardens has a wide variety of tropical plants where they conserve rare species since 1765. These are the oldest Botanical Gardens in the Western hemisphere. The gardens contain the original breadfruit tree brought by Captain Blight (of the Bounty fame) in 1793. The coastal towns are home for the natives and the few expansive estates and plantations grow bananas - the islands cash crop. Kingstown Center consists of twelve small blocks with lots of shops selling local crafts, cameras, binoculars, watches, perfumes, jewellery, and things. But, we enjoyed the fish market and the vegetable market the best. It is a lively place with men and women of all ages selling their fruits and vegetables right on the street.  They set up their stands and spread out on the street and sell food at a most reasonable price. It's a colorful place with a lot of negotiating happeing and it's just a lot of fun. People are very friendly. Here, you will see no food wrappers, little plastic, no check-out lines, and no spoiled food. The food is very fresh and healthy. The quality is as good as a gourmet grocery back home with the prices lower than anything you've ever seen. It would be a great place to buy provisions for the boat; however, they are not likely to stay fresh for any voyage. We bought a young coconut and the woman cut the top off with a machetti to form a natural glass.  Ramon started to drink it though thought it wasn't quite perfect.  The woman sensed a hint of dissatisfaction and immediately took it from him almost wrestling it from his had.  Since she had a big knife, Ramon watched patiently as she hacked another cup full of young coconut milk for him quickly. It's a fun place. You'd like it. Fort Charlotte was completed in 1806 on a ridge 600 ' above the sea with a magnificent view across Kingstown and the Grenadines. There are interesting paintings of the Black Caribs' history in the old officers' quarters. Fort Duvernette was built around 1800 on a massive rock 195 feet above the sea to defend Calliaqua Bay.  There are 24 pound guns and an eight inch mortar. The hike up the fort is an old stone stairway that was recently rebuilt by local stone masons.  The view is great and the base of the stairs is a short dinghy ride from our marina.  The folks at St. Vincent take good care of their animals.  They are well fed and seldom abused.  It is not unusual to see domestic wildlife wandering freely on the side of the road or tied to a stake in what appears to be the middle of nowhere.  We passed a woman with her family of goats hiking up the road enjoying the view. A native man with his wife were traveling up the road from Wallilabou when we met them under a tree waiting for the rain to stop.  He had three children and she one with lots of close relatives.  Each year they raise a cow or bull and they keep it tied to a stake in the mountains.  They are not worried about theft but they do have to visit the animal regularly to move the stake and be sure that it has the water and caring to survive. Each year at Christmas they get their animal, walk it down the mountain, and it becomes their Christmas dinner feeding their family and relatives for several weeks. They said that cows are not a target for theft because an animal that large would be difficult to hide.  The thief would not want to be seen taking the animal, slaughtering the animal, and then storing the large amount of meat. Goats are more likely to be stolen than cows though such a theft is seldom.  Chickens are most likely to be a target of theft more because of a mistake than of fowl play.  Raising animals is not very hard nor expensive and it does provide good nourishment in the local diet. Goats are particularly easy to raise and they provide both milk and meat.  Livestock is becoming cheaper to purchase than fish primarily because the local waters are becoming fished out so the fishermen have to go to deeper waters. Another problem is a poison that is created by local fish that eat the coral.  This is poisonous to humans.  Consequently, fishermen have to go to deeper waters to get the fish that do not feed off the coral nor off fish that eat the other poisonous fish.  Most of the restaurants do not serve goat but do serve beef, chicken, and fish. Fish is as expensive as beef though chicken is much less expensive. The chicken in the islands are not plump and juicy as we have come to expect from our tough Mr. Purdue. On the first day of the second week we sailed north along the wester coast of St. Vincent to an anchorage that I had visited twice before. Wallilabou has been a favorite anchorage enroute from St. Lucia to the Grenadines because it is the right distance between the two places. Another, and more important, reason is that there is a great hike up a steep, twisty road through a rain forrest to the top of a mountain about two from the bay. We met a couple who were hiking up the mountain to tend to their livestock and we chatted under a tree while we waited for the rain to stop.  They called it heavy morning dew. On the way back to our anchorage we stopped for a quick dip in the river just below the waterfalls. Often, on a hot day, the pool and waterfalls will be full of children playing. Below, near the mouth of the river women wash their clothes on the rocks. They do not like to have their picture taken. The moorings in the bay are very close together and very deep. They are not far from shore and the locals are eager to help you tie your stern to a tree to minimize the discomfort from the swell.  We found the bay to be rolly from the ocean swells and were glad to get underway.  Our next stop was for lunch at Cumberland Bay which is particularly beautiful though shortly after we arrived clouds moved in and it started to rain. The bay is surrounded by palm trees, tall hills, and a valley that is picturesque. There were two morings in 100 feet of water perhaps 100 feet off shore.  It would be a difficult place to anchor. After lunch, we headed south to Petit Byahaut.

Petit Byahaut

The beauty of Petit Byahaut was a great surprise and a pleasure to discover. It was one of those quaint little places that did not have much real-estate in the cruising guide and was not even mentioned during our chart briefing. It was perhaps the only anchorage that sounded remotely interesting as we headed back south towards Bequia. It turned out to be a very well kept secret where we all rated the experience in the top ten in all the Caribbean.

The major features include:

• Beauty beyond imagination.
• The best snorkeling in the Caribbean.
• A five star restaurant with reasonable prices.
• The best organized hike this side of the equator.

The hike began with a short boat ride - they picked us up in a skiff and took us to the neighboring bay where a taxi was waiting for us. Our ride to the northeast part of the island took us through the botanical gardens, along the coast through towns and plantations, and along the rugged east coast with views of steep cliffs, thick vegetation, and the shore.We stopped a few times to take pictures and get junk food to supplement our healthy lunch prepared by Petit Byahaut chefs.Our taxi took us to the end of a road facing a towering volcano whose rim was obscured by charging clouds heading west.  The clouds seemed to come from nowhere and encircled the volcano, dancing and playing with the sun.  Casting shadows and teasing us with a glimse of the majestic summit. We started hiking through a thick jungle and rain forrest along a narrow but well groomed trail.  It was easy walking though a little muddy in places.  Areas of the trail were lined with thick green vegetation but careful examination from time to time showed us to be on a narrow ridge that fell sharply under the green carpet. One wrong step could ruin the day. We hiked for a couple hours, an estimated 3.5 miles to get to the top. We peered into the volcano culdera to see a very large crater.It was steep. It was big. It got bigger as we started our journey around to the other side. The depth was between 900 and 1500 feet depending on which part of the rim you measured. We found a break from the wind and had lunch. It was delicious. We became enveloped in a cloud.  It got damp. The sun came out. The clouds came.  It drizzled.  It stopped.  We started around the rim of the volcano. The trail was well marked. The trail was easy hiking but steep in places with some loose gravel.  Not bad and we were making good time. When the sun was out, the view was spiritual. Majestic. A reason to live. We hiked along what we thought was so well marked that we wondered why we needed a guide. Then we came to a fork.  Several forks as we went along our way realizing that a guide was good. Our guide told us the history of the land and of the people who lived near the volcano. He told us a story of a man who went crazy every full moon and would come up the volcanoe, climb into the crater, and stay in a cave until after the full moon. He was afraid of what he would do and how he would act around people when the moon approached fullness. He said that there was a way down and a rope that was often used to assist in the descent. When we were half way around the rim we came to the rope and the way down.It appeared only a short distance down to the floor of the culdera. Our guide almost ran down the inside of the volcano without using the rope. He paused a few times to look back and provide encouragement. A half hour later the smooth culdera floor appeared rugged and full of huge bolders. Halte finished the descent and ran across the floor like a child streaking across a lawn. At the center he waited by sulpher steam emerging from white rocks. Moments later, when I arrived, the smell became strong and the rocks were hot. We felt for the real hot ones, looked at each other, said "cool," and headed back as the day was getting late. We stopped by the legendary cave only to find it was a tiny hole just big enough for a small human to wiggle through.  The inside appearance was like that of a bird's nest. It was clear that this was a favorite place for Halte. He had only recently discovered the volcano hike and had lead hikes for Petit Byahaut for the past three years. He realized that he lived in a beautiful place and said that he did not appreciate it as much as much as he should. He felt very fortunate to be working for Charles at Petit Byahaut. It was time to proceed to our rendezvous place on the beach and we had a long way to go. Back up the side of the volcano we climbed.  Halte almost ran up in a matter of minutes. It took me about twice as long climbing the rope conveniently set along the steep route. By the time I reached the rim I was sweatting and a little tired. It was not a good idea to spend the day hiking in boat shoes but they were doing pretty well so far. It was mid afternoon by now and we were only about half way across. The views were still spectacular as we headed down the trail through the rain forrest. As we got half way down, we came across houses, gardens, and forrest.  The trail was steep but well maintained though a little muddy in places.  We were lucky that we did not encounter any serious rain. Halte stopped frequently to tell us about the different plants and what their value was.  What was edible and what was poisonous. The gardens on steep hills were good because the tender did not have to bend far to pull out weeds. It was late afternoon and we still had a couple miles to go.  Halte talked, we walked, the coast got closer, and the sun got lower. It set with a half mile to go and we made it to the coast before dark. There was no boat. We searched.  It got dark.  No boat.  Darker. Started hiking. Found a guy with a pickup truck. And, the adventure continued as we raced along the coast on the windy, steep road in the back of a pickup truck. We arrived at a bay next to Petit Byahaut and hiked through the woods along a trail ending at the restaurant.

In summary, the Grenadines and Petit Byahaut on St. Vincent is an excellent vacation and should be repeated once every five years if not more frequently. The boats were very comfortable and a pleasure to sail.  The highlights were the Tobago Cays and the volcano hike though every day was exciting and pleasurable. Best of all, the people made the adventure a trip to remember.