It’s a while since our last blog and the reason may be quite a surprise to some of you. The truth is that although beautiful in so many ways, after three seasons, we have become quite bored with the Caribbean and haven't felt we had enough new exciting material to report.
It’s a fantastic place to go for a holiday
for a couple of weeks, or to get away from it all and unwind. We however are not on a short break from work and we are
pretty much relaxed most of the time, having been retired and sailing continuously
for the last 5 years.
There are only so many times you can marvel at a white beach, a line of palm trees, beautiful, coloured seas and stunning sunsets before they become just part of the day to day. When we first arrived we were so shocked that people ever built houses without big windows facing the sea, but now we know that when you see the view every day, it becomes less awesome.
You only have to look up the top 10 places to visit on any Caribbean island and at least the top 7 will be beaches or sea view look out points. Add the fact that neither of us is into sunbathing – we try to avoid the sun most of the time, that reduces the list of interesting things to do. We know that we would never buy a house here.
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| Sheer Rocks - view from one of our favourite restaurants |
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| Princess Diana Beach Barbuda - probably the nicest beach in the world |
I know this sounds really ungrateful, but we prefer to be honest about our experiences in the lifestyle we are leading.
What we have missed is having a blend of those beautiful sun, sea and beach aspects alongside some city buzz, wider choice of restaurants, different
culture, art and historical places to see and visit. The Mediterranean offered that balance. The Caribbean
much less so, and is probably too quiet for us.
People talk about port rot in the Caribbean – which usually refers to people who have arrived, found it beautiful, enjoyed the pace of life and just stayed; using their boats as apartments with great sea views, but rarely moving them. And why not? Staying for years and becoming part of a friendly liveaboard community is undoubtedly right for some people, but not us. We chose this life for the travel and as a result we have realised we need to keep moving; staying too long in one place doesn’t really work that well for us – when we get bored, we argue.
So, once we had decided that we would be moving west before the start of hurricane season at the end of May, and after 2 years of Covid with no visitors, we suddenly found ourselves with multiple arrangements for friends and family to visit before we left. We also needed to make sure that we had some essential maintenance work done on Viridian before heading west and into the Pacific, so between January and May it has been non-stop juggling of work schedules and visitors.
We had been in Grenada for hurricane season and our friends Ella and Rutger came to stay before we left. This is their second trip to the boat, so they were prepared for the experience, although Rutger did re-visit his breakfast on our trip from Grenada to Carriacou. We had a great week, snorkelling, hiking and of course eating out.
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| On our way to Carriacou. Ella has her sea legs already |
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| Picnic at our favourite Grenadian waterfalls at Mt Carmel |
After Grenada, we headed north, spending time in some of our favourite places from previous seasons. One of our favourite islands is Mayreau, with a population of only 270, everyone is very friendly - we even got invited along with the entire island to a wedding out at Ranch Escapade.
Following our extensive experience with local rum punch at the wedding, after which I fell in the sea in the dark, getting into the dinghy; we had the brilliant idea of doing a survey of rum punches from the bar at the top of the village right down to Shirley's bar on the beach.
We started enthusiastically with a little spreadsheet in a notebook, giving marks for appearance, taste, alcohol content, size, ambience of bar and value for money. We also took photographs of each one and congratulated ourselves on what a lovely useful chart we could make and put on our blog for others to use.
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| Rum Punch 1 at the Reggae Bar at the top of the hill An excellent start with good decoration. |
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| The Sunshine Bar - Rum Punch 2 met with huge approval although there was no umbrella |
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| Bar 3 Robby's bar is very quirky |
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| Not bad Robby but a bit small was the verdict |
No idea how it happened, but somehow we lost the spreadsheet somewhere between the fourth and sixth bar.
We made it to Shirley's bar on the beach which is owned by Owen, the island's Chief of Police (there is only the one police officer). We excitedly told him about the survey we had been conducting and he was clearly impressed but insisted on escorting and assisting us into the dinghy in the dark when we returned to the boat.
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| Shirley's bar (Owen's mother in law is Shirley) - our favourite bar |
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| And the rum punch is pretty good |
Following a much needed 'day of rest', we then headed to Martinique and embarked on the first of our boat upgrades – a new fridge/freezer which I was very excited about.
I had been in charge of measuring and ordering the fridge and the worktops and was confident that I had the height, width and depth correct, so imagine my horror when the old fridge was removed and I saw underneath it. I had failed to take account of the curve of the boat where the bottom of the fridge would be, so the depth measurement was totally wrong and the very expensive fridge freezer, ordered by Caraibe Marine specifically for us and delivered from Italy, would not fit.
Add to this the language issues when ordering the fridge in the first place which led to what I thought was the big fridge drawer
turning out to be a freezer drawer and the little drawer was the fridge. What a mess!
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| For those who like before and after photos - this is the galley before |
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| As you can see the worktop is cracked. The original fridge-freezer was a top and front loader Note the microwave on the left, neatly fitting in its tailor made space |
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| Zut alors! Forgot about the hull. |
After a lot of swearing and jabbering by a load of French
blokes all crammed in the galley, (big fridge guy Patrice, little fridge guy Gabriel,
carpenter Serge (think French Victor Meldrew), and Caraibe Marine's senior manager - Gaiton), it was decided that the worktop would have to be raised on that section and a
new frame built to accommodate the new fridge, which also meant the microwave door then wouldn't open so losing that space and the microwave as well.
Also, the worktop needed specialist involvement and several costly extra
visits to the boat at each stage as things kept changing. At this point we had no fridge so Greg couldn’t
even get a cold beer to drown his sorrows!
He was not amused.
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| Serge did a lot of swearing in French |
Greg then had to return to the UK for a couple of weeks, so I
was left in Martinique to resolve the mess of my own making……
One night, I had what I thought was a brilliant brainwave; I
would surprise Greg by installing another fridge dedicated to beer which would
compensate for the now depleted fridge capacity. I got Patrice round the next morning to join me in scoping
out the project and we decided to put it in a wardrobe in one of the guest cabins
which is mainly used for storage. He was
certain my husband would be thrilled to have such a wife who installed an
expensive beer fridge for him as a surprise.
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| The new beer fridge in the wardrobe |
Unfortunately, I had not thought through the electrics and
power consumption and obviously Patrice wasn't concerned with such matters - he was just pleased to have another sale. The boat had to have new wiring to accommodate
it and instead of being thrilled on his return, Greg was furious and demanded
to know how we were going to manage the extra power consumption, which I had
not factored in at all. It was not a
happy time. I like to call it ‘fridgegate’
but if I mention ‘fridgegate’ it starts another row. Typing it here is evidence of how dangerously
I like to live.
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| New fridge - higher than the cooker and rest of units with big freezer drawer at the top and little fridge at the bottom :( |
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| The after shot of the worktop |
Whilst we were on the dock, we realised that Caraibe Marine in Le Marin was also a good place to get rigging done, so we decided to have all the standing rigging replaced which was a bit of an ouch financially but was the right thing to do for peace of mind when travelling further west and into the Pacific.
We also decided to finally replace our water maker after 5 years of throwing good money after bad at the original 20 year old one. We purchased an Ecotec water maker which can convert 160 litres of salt water into fresh water per hour. That was an excellent decision. The relief of having a working water maker on board cannot be underestimated. It means we should be self sufficient going onwards which is crucial on long passages.
Then finally as we thought we had done everything and
drained the bank balances, we discovered that we needed a new windlass for
pulling up the anchor. Although still
working, our old and original windlass had almost rusted through and could have
left us in an unsafe situation should it have failed on anchor. So again, we now have new equipment which should
see us safe as we continue our travels.
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| In the nick of time by the looks of it |
Although it was an expensive and stressful time on the dock getting all the work done, we met and made some new sailing friends who were also getting work done in readiness for their Pacific plans and also met up with friends from previous seasons. We love the fact that we continually meet and re-meet people in different places, as we all travel at different paces but eventually we intersect again.
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| Congratulations to Pete and Libby who got engaged. Great to see them again on their new Swan - Starlight, also getting ready for the Pacific |
As is always the case, making arrangements for guests when
you are getting work done is always a tricky balance. Work almost always over-runs or something
breaks, or the weather is unfavourable. We
have learned our lessons over the last five years, so when our son Ed and his girlfriend Anna decided
to come, we asked them to fly to Martinique where we were having the work done,
so that if it over ran we would at least be on the island they were flying
into. We had a great time visiting
waterfalls, snorkelling and spending
time at the Martinique carnival.
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| Looking a bit bedraggled after a downpour at the carnival |
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| Ed taking the helm |
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| A relaxing break from the pressures of work in London |
We then had a small window to get to Antigua and prepare before Miranda
arrived for a 12 day holiday.
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| Always happy in the sun |
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| She wasn't expecting that lurch on our way to Barbuda! |
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| I miss this |
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| Greg enjoying wearing his birthday present from my mum Betty |
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| Fabulous birthday lunch at Nobu with Rowan, Jenny and Miranda |
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| Greg modelling his birthday present from Miranda |
Our friend Sue flew in on the plane that Miranda flew
out on. That was our first back-to-back
guest situation which we would ideally not do again, as we needed time in
between for recuperating, washing, and provisioning. Sue however was a very easy
guest, mucking in and helping out as much as possible, always with a big
smile. We had a lovely time.
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| Cocktails at Nobu with Sue |
Our final guests of the season, my brother Andrew, sister in
law Wendy and my niece Abigail arrived in time for Antigua sailing week. We put our bikes and spinnakers in storage to make a bit more room on board which was a good decision. Greg was racing every day with the team on SY Voilactus, so we explored
Antigua and watched some of the racing. It
was a fun week to be here as there were parties and events happening each
evening.
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| So great to spend time with my bro! |
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| And with my gorgeous niece Abigail |
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| Greg and Wendy enjoying the craic at Sheer Rocks |
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| Trip to Stingray City |
So as we said goodbye to our final guests, we also said goodbye to the Windward and Leeward islands and set sail for Colombia, via a re-provisioning stop over and quick catch up with Naomi and Guy on Zambezi in Bonaire.
It's hard to believe we are leaving as our third hurricane season
looms, but we have had a great time, and now is the right time for us to move on.
