Pirate in the Caribbean

Merry Christmas from Bequia in the Grenadines 🎄 We decided to spend Christmas in Bequia (pronounced Bekway), which is just south of St Vincent and north of Mustique.  End to end, Bequia is about 5 miles long and only 1/2 mile wide, with about 5000 inhabitants.  Bequia has a beautiful anchorage called Admiralty Bay.  After an eventful 10 days of prepping the boat and sailing northbound, we were happy to land in Bequia for some down time, and peace and quiet.  Or so we thought .... The people of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) celebrate Nine Mornings, a festival associated with the Christmas season.  Nine Mornings before Christmas, the islanders wake at 3 in the morning and partake in various activities many of which include musical concerts and dancing.  Celebrations continue for several hours and then they head to work and during this time, it is perfectly acceptable to be quite late for your morning shift.  On our first night in th...

Heading Northbound! After all the work and preparation, we were excited to be leaving Le Phare Bleu in Grenada and start heading northbound.  However, because of the squalls and heavy downpour the morning of our departure, we realized that we would not be able to make it to Carriacou before dark.  While it is feasible to anchor or grab a ball at night, it certainly is not desirable.  With the hurricane having gone through Carriacou, we were also a little concerned about navigating in that area in the dark.  So we ended up heading into Port Louis Marina in Grenada.  This was a very nice marina that had a number of super yachts.   In fact, Port Louis Marina was the arrival point of the boats that had travelled across the Atlantic Ocean on the ARC+ sailing rally from the Canary Islands, stopping in Cape Verde and then continuing on to Grenada.  The passage to the Caribbean is about 1250 nm and takes 12 to 16 days, taking advantage of the north east t...

Back in Grenada - Looking Through Fresh Eyes Welcome Back!  Pirate's Adventures in the Caribbean continue.   In December last year, we left the British Virgin Islands and sailed our boat south to Grenada.  Over the following 3 months, we visited 9 different islands and covered about 700 nautical miles.  Our plan this time is to head north, island hopping back to the British Virgin Islands.  Eventually we will leave the boat in Antigua for the summer.   We arrived back in Grenada on December 10th, 2024, 7 months since we left Adventure I up on the hard at Clarke's Court Marina.  We left the boat there because it is apparently out of the hurricane belt and so insurers have preferred that location.  However, that changed this summer when the very first named Hurricane of the season, Beryl, hit Grenada. It landed just 20 miles north of where our boat was being stored.  We were lucky, but those on the small islands of Carriacou and Union Island we...