Mustique, Bequia, Union Island, Canouan, Tobago Cays, Mayreau, Carriacou.... What a collection of islands, all with their own personality and so different from StLucia.
St Vincent
St Vincent is the largest in this group of the islands and is the home of Mount Soufriere, a giant volcano. We arrived safely in Blue Lagoon, St Vincent and headed off to the airport for customs and then on to the Police station in Kingstown, we did our travelling by bus, which are space cruisers all brightly painted with nicknames across the windscreen, and the loudest sound system you could imagine, they put Southend's seafront cruisers to shame. Everyone hangs out the window, and the drivers hand is hovering permenantly over the horn, whether for a pretty girl, a potential passenger, a friend or anyone who might just be walking down the street!! The atmosphere was great. When down in the market the bus boys even harrass the locals to ride with them, the old ladies were loving it!
Mustique - home to the famous...
What an Island, a real favourite of ours. The water was the colour you only see on the postcards and brochures, we were off the side of the boat before the anchor was even set! We went and explored the Northern side of the island, and checked out The Cotton House resort (US$1300 a night in peak season), also where Victoria Beckham stayed on her last visit. We headed to the Firefly for New Years Eve, local haunt for Mick Jagger, Pierce Brosnan and the Hilfigers, they'd been proping up the bar just the night before, after dinner we where feeling a little tired and thought we'd head back to the boat but we got caught on the dingy dock by a crew member off Northern Child and were dragged to Basil's Bar. We were really glad we went as they were several other boats from the ARC who we knew also partying there!
New Years Day saw a slow start on the Disco but we eventually headed round to Lagoon Bay a large secluded beach, luckily we arrived first and enjoyed the peace before a few more people turned up. We were sad to leave Mustique, she is owned by the Mustique Company and most residents are share holders, so the Island is how they fund it.
Bequia
We sailed into Friendship Bay, all of about 5nmiles from Mustique. There is a huge reef in the bay so we went off snorkelling and saw all sorts of goodies. In the evening we went to our first lobster night at Moskito's where they have 8 swings at the bar, so we thoroughly enjoyed sipping our pina coladas there! My lobster was huge but I managed to find room for most of it! The following day we caught a taxi to Admiralty Bay, Port Elizabeth is the name of the town, and it has everything we could possibly need including an airconditioned internet cafe... Mac's Pizzeria was our destination dinner where we had lobster pizza, mmmmm, yummy, they also bake cookies and bread so we took more than our leftovers home. Maybe next time we'll stay in Admiralty Bay, Friendship Bay was a little quiet and quite a trek into the town. I got my first fishing line, with a 80lb line about 100metres in length with a pink squid on the end.
Canouan
Matt had been here before and told me how great it was and that there was a gorgeous resort. Well, everything looked a little quiet when we anchored in the bay, in fact so quiet there weren't any lights on in the resort. Luckily we had already planned to eat on the boat, so ventured ashore the following morning, we wandered down the main street, only to be greeted by goats, it was like a ghost town. We headed back to the beach and wandered down to the resort, we were met by a security guard who told us the resort had been shut since the summer due to a fire in the restuarant and was due to open again at the end of January. The place just looked like it had been left to ruin since the fire and it was hard to imagine it would be ready in two weeks. We decide we wouldn't go back there on our way back up as it had nothing to offer.
Mayreau
This is the place
I'd dreamt of...Saltwhistle Bay had the small half moon beach, the blue/green
water, and large palm trees towering over the bay...Hidden in all this is a
resort and an amazing looking restaurant.
There is only one village on Mayreau and from the side the island we were on
its a long uphill walk. We went there to buy ourselves some meat for a BBQ,
and were shocked at the lack of choice available so chicken wings it was, we'll
remember that next time we're coming here. Unfortunately I managed to catch
something weighing more than 80lb on my line as it snapped in half, luckily
I still have around 50meters of line left but need a new lure, fat chance of
getting one here, good job its no fishing in the Cays which is where we're heading
next...
Tobago Cays
The Cays consist of three uninhabited islands surrounded by reef, the main reason for going here was to snorkel. We anchored among a large fleet of boats put the steps over the side and we were off. I have to keep a close eye on Matt otherwise he tends to swim off in the opposite direction to me. I'd already seen a tender pointing at something and asked Matt if he thought they might have seen a turtle, he thought that maybe they dropped something. Well, I couldn't believe my eyes when there was a turtle about 2meters infront of us. He was bigger than Matt's flippers, of course it took me a few minutes to get Matt's attention while trying not to scare the turtle and then there was a second one, but this one was the length of my arm and boy was she fast when she took off. Stunned by our first sighting of turtles we both came up to the surface grinning from ear to ear. We swam over to one of the reefs near one of the islands and eventually headed back towards the boat and Matt saw a conch out of its shell, I suddenly saw the turtle again and was trying to get Matt to stop pointing at the conch and look up to see the turtle, he did and we followed it back to the Disco. Can you believe how lucky we were. To end the perfect day we had a BBQ on the boat, which was delightful.
Union Island
Union Island was our last stop in the Grenadines before heading down to Carriacou which is part of Grenada. Clifton, the main town is protected by a reef so we anchored right behind it so we had perfect flat water and a great view out to sea and Palm Island. The snorkelling there was good and the water so warm. As described in our guide book "The main harbour is protected by a reef that shows off its brilliant kaleidoscopic colors and patterns" which was so very true. We settled here for a few days and enjoyed the locals company and humour. The supermarkets were able to provide almost anything, although we didn't find anyone this time to help us with our damaged fishing line.
Carriacou
Hillsborough was the first port of call. We headed in for our sunset beer and tied the dingy to a Rum Shop, we were then obliged to have a beer in there. We were greeted by a little man called Michael, who had no front teeth, that kept trying to kiss me on the lips everytime he introduced himself as Michael, he was a boat boy although boy doesn't quite describe him, he said he'd watch our dingy so we bought him a rum. Actually we bought him a Piti which is a small jug of rum about an 8th of a litre!! This rum is called Jack Iron and is 95% proof and has a flammable liquid warning on the side of the bottle!! Of course we tried it!!!! We then wandered further down the street and went to a restaurant for another drink, then in came another couple we'd seen earlier that day at the airport on Union Island. We got chatting and eventually moved onto the same table, Vicky and Matt are from Oxford and are about to head down to South America for 6months of travelling but thought they discover the Windward Island along the way. We decided we should head our seperate ways as I still had dinner to cook on the boat and they had to do the same, however, this place had caught my attention on the way down, so I dragged the 4 of us down some beach alley way and we appeared in a beautiful beach bar, we then realised we could have got in the other side!! We stayed for another and made them try Jack Iron, and then finally we all trotted off home. The following day we went round to Tyrrel Bay, a walk into town showed us the damage of hurricane Lenny over 2 years ago. They are currently building a road that should not be washed away like the last one, most of the places in our guide book had shut, Panic on this was the first place the Wides were going to see after flying up from Grenada! We took a taxi round the island, it was reaaly interesting and the most expensive house on the island cost £150,000 to build, it was the size of a mansion!! We also found a cute place for Steve and Irene's first night.
Revised -- Sunday 27 January 2002
Carry on to Part 2, A Holiday with the Wides
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