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Rodney Bay, St Lucia
Hello everyone;
I came to St.Lucia to work on the boat on november 17 till dec. 15. Al Kloepper (Johnny's father in law) came dec. 1 till dec. 10 to help me with some electrical problems . Also rented a car for some sight seeing. This was a first for me to drive on the left hand side of the road, drove a little to close to the centre line and knocked the left mirror off, other wise no other mishaps. Al and I also went on Dave's catamaran ride for a day, Dave is from Vancouver Island. Since C'est si Bon was still on the hard this was good for Al to get some watertime.
Went home to the family for Christmas & New year, then back to Rodney Bay Jan. 5th. My friend John Duenk from Brooks joined me on the 10th for a week, put C'est si Bon in the water on the 12th. Went in the bay for a few days to bent on the sails and visited Dave & friends for dinner on Naughtycat.
John and I sailed to St.Anne Martinique for a few days where we met Dave & friends, rented a car to go sightseeing. On the way back John ran out sea sickness pills, so he was feeding the fish.
Clara, Jackie and family came on the 23rd, C'est si bon was in a boatslip so it was easy for them to board the boat with all their luggage. Trvor & I installed netting around the boat to keep the two boys from falling overboard. Anchord in the Bay for a few days then went south to Soufriere stayed overnight. Caveman(lives in a cave on the beach) swam out to the boat with four coconuts and a rock a distance of 100 meters! to sell to us for 10 EC dollars ($4.00) the rock is to break the nuts. Next day to Wallilabou, St.Vincent where The Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed. There are still some props from the movie there and Jackie & Trevor's boys were pretty exited. As we approached Wallilabou, boat boys came out in theire pirogue to help us tie up to a mooring for a price of course, and as we tied up to the mooring we were swarmed by rowboats, surf planks and enything else that floats laden with fruit , vegetables and souvenires. Went into the village to check in with customs & immigration.
Spend one night there, made the boat ready for the trip to Bequia, part of St.Vincent & The Grenadines. Everyone enjoyed the sailing sofar except Jackie who got seasick. The boys watched flying fish pop out of the 3 meter swell and after soaring a couple of hundred metres dive back in, it's their way of evading predators. We had a great wind of about 15 to 20 knots from the northeast giving us speeds of up to 11 knots over ground. After sailing 5 hours we dropped anchor in Admiralty Bay, Bequia.
There is always lots of wind in the bay in part because of the trade winds and also the wind gets funeled between the hills. That night was very windy and a bit rainy, we were all relaxing in the cockpit with a rum punch, the kids playing below when we heard help,help. It was a man in a dinghy drifting downwind, his outboard wasn't working he tried to row but the wind was to strong. We started our dinghy to rescue him & towed him back to the boat he was crewing on, he was from Belgium. He was lucky we heard him because we were the last boat in the anchorage.
We stayed in Bequia for a couple of days, Jackie, Trevor and the kids spend a day on the beach while Clara & I relaxed on the boat. Filled up the water tank and the cupboards with groceries and sailed to the Tobago Cays a marine park with some uninhabited islands and coral reefs, beautiful turquoise water, white sand beaches and seaturtles. Anchored overnight, next day everyone went snorkeling except me. Sailed to Union Island to check out of St.Vincent and then on to Carriacou. Clara, Jackie and the kids went off the boat to spend some time on the beach. Trevor & I dropped them off and when trevor jumped back in the dinghy one of the tubes blew out, made it back to the boat sitting on the good tube and hoisted the dinghy on board & tried to make some repairs. Clara, Jackie & the kids caught a ride back with another yachty who hapened to be an expatriate from Holland living in British Columbia, had an interesting conversation with him.
Spend just one night on Carriacou, left the island at 9 am and headed south to St.George's Grenada. On the way had to go around an underwater volcano called Kik'm Jenny. Those volcanoes can emit gas making the water less buoyant with the boat in danger of sinking!
Dropped the anchor in the Lagoon in St.George's in the afternoon were we met our friends Don & Fiona on Fido from Calgary. Since our dinghy still wasn't fixed Do ferried us to shore to clear in with customs & immigration and then to get better glue at the chandlery to patch the dinghy. We arrived on feb. 3rd and Jackie ,Trevor and kids were leaving on the 6th so we made the best of our time remaining together to explore the island. Gabe got to steer Don's dinghy wich made him very proud.
Don, Fiona and us had made plans to meet up in Grenada, sail west stopping at a few Venezuelan island to the ABC island, then north to the British Virgin Island and then south back to St.Lucia.
We left Grenada at 1700 hrs for an overnight sail to Isla Testigo. It was downwind but not much wind, the boat was rolling quite a bit, we where not feeling great, I turned on the motor to get there a little faster and I left some genoa out that was backwinded. Don called on the VHF asking If we were sailing I replied of course we are. Fido couldn't keep up with us, Don was wondering it was some Dutch way of sailing he had heard of. We arrived the next morning at 7 am and then the secret of us going faster came out.
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