At Chatham Bay, Union Island a Manta Ray came into the bay for the day and we happened to be out on our kayaks . It was so cool to watch it open its big white mouth to filter water and glide effortless around with its wing tips surfacing the water once in a while when he turned. It was about 6-7 feet across. It passed under our kayaks circling around us. Amazing. Our neighbors were actually swimming and said he just glided around them. Obviously wanted company today.

Click on the link below of the Manta Ray video care of our friends from Mopion, who swam with it.  Manta Ray from crew of Mopion

We went for a hike up into the hills around Chatham Bay and came across “Bushman” who works hard to maintain one of the properties up on the ridge. The property has some amazing flowers and you can see he takes good care of the property and the road that leads up to the house. In a place where everyone uses cisterns for domestic water supply these people have a lily pond and raise ducks.

There were incredible views out to Canouan, Mayreau, and  Tobago Cays where we have been over the past week.

Union Islands Coast line and rolling mountains are amazing. It was so nice to be up on the hill top looking out at the views.

Below is a picture looking down into the bay and the cows waiting for us on the beach after our walk. They just sat and watched us as we climbed into our kayaks. Its a very relaxed place and nice and quiet as its off season. Last night there were 9 boats at anchor, tonight only 4. Tough on the beach restaurant/ bars this time of year, who of course are all trying to get your business. 

There was a break in the weather and I think many boats in the anchorage were leaving Bequia. I counted 6 boats including us all raising our mains at the same time. Let the race begin. We were heading initially to Friendship Bay, Canouan as Brett had heard good things so detoured from the path the rest of the boats were taking south. In coming down the windward side the swells and winds were not good and the anchorage looked very rolly, so we changed our mind and headed to Saltwhistle Bay,  Mayreau.

 Saltwhistle Bay is a picture postcard Caribbean Island, near Tobago Cays, with a horse shoe white sandy beach, palm trees and crystal clear water.  You are welcomed into the bay by boat boys who come out to meet your boat and then race in to get the next best mooring buoy for you and help you get secured. Jerome sped in and got us a buoy right up at the beach front.

Mayreau has a population of about 200 with a very small town at the top of the hill between Saltwhistle and Saline Bays. We wandered the road between the two bays passing a number of vendor stores, restaurants and bars. You could see that the locals really rely on the yacht traffic. Ferries only come in every 6 days with fresh produce etc and theres no bank on the island.

We love the names the locals give to their boats.

We ended up staying a couple of nights as it was so beautiful and the weather was perfect.

We enjoyed a dinner out at “The Last Bar Before the Jungle”, one of the beach huts at the far end of the bay run by Richard who cooks all the meals himself. He cooked so much food for us that we had left overs for lunch the next day.

Time to check ouf of the Grenadines and head south.

We have spent 4 great days in Bequia relaxing and enjoying the town and the lovely  beaches. We anchored outside Princess Margaret beach in those crystal clear waters and have gone for a few walks in the hills around town.

There are a lot of nice beaches one being Princess Margarets beach where we are.  There are a lot of yachts in the anchorage while everyone waits for the winds to settle so they can travel on. Some of the locals get around the bay in all sorts of wooden boats with a sail and are very skilled getting about.

We went for a walk over the hill to Friendship Bay on the South side of Bequia, where the sands are a nice white and the waves were pounding the shore. On our walk over we couldn’t believe the size of some of the houses. Appears that a lot our rental homes in this bay. We stopped at the Bequia Hotel set amongst the Palm trees right on the beach. Nice location.

We kayaked down to Lower Bay on Sunday, a really popular beach in the afternoon for locals  and yachties. We lazed on the beach until a squall came through and drenched us and everyone disappeared. Eeeek why did we kayak? The winds and rain seem to arrive in the afternoons at the moment.

We both really like Bequia and we’ll be back. Heading to Canouan, only a few hours south.

So we spent a number of days in Marin, Martinique trying to find someone to test and hopefully repair our alternator. To make a long story short we purchased a second hand universal mount alternator to get us through until we can rebuild our high capacity Balmar. Yes Brett once again spent time in the engine compartment installing the new alternator and rewiring to jumper past the internal regulator so it could attach to our boat regulator that governs the batteries. Yeah it worked we were charging again. Good job Brett.

It was a good time to get this sorted as the weather reports while in Marin were not looking good for continuing south. Thursday mornings report from Martinique to Bequia showed Wind speeds of 19/20 knots, gusts of 20-25 knots, wave height of 2.1 – 2.3 m, wave period of 7-8 seconds (typically a little choppy) but this was much better in comparison to those in the foreseeable future. We knew it would be a little uncomfortable but decided to clear out of customs and get moving.

The passage between Martinique and Saint Lucia was the worst part with winds and gusts between 20 – 30 knots and high seas. We had put reefs in our main and reefed the genoa as needed and Seismic Wave handled it really well at speeds up to 8.7 knots. Going down the Leeward side of Saint Lucia seas were calm and we flew along at 7-8 knots which was incredible given how close to land we were. We will have to come back to Saint Lucia as it looked impressive, especially the Pitons.

The rest of our trip was much better apart from a couple of squalls that crossed our path. Radar gives us time to prepare for the blast that usually comes with the squall. We arrived earlier than expected, 3:30am in Bequia as our speeds were higher than we thought we’d get when doing our planning.

After moving the boat to a more sheltered area and clearing in at Port Elizabeth customs we needed a walk so went up to the fort ruins at the entry to the bay to see the views over the bay and look down at Seismic Wave.

We enjoyed walking along the waterfront where all the vendors line the road selling fruit, veg, music, hats….. you name it. It was really lively with music playing and people just hanging out. We enjoyed lunch along the waterfront and then it was time for a snooze.