:

Trawler day for a whopping 10 miles around the tip of Union Island, drug the lines but no bites. Wind on the nose but at 5 knots, not much going on. Crew is in recovery mode from last night but Chatham bay does not disappoint.

Striking out on the provisions hasn’t hurt us, we just helped the local economy by chilling at the beach bar run by Seykek and Vanessa. Seykek, not exactly sure how that’s spelled, even if it was on the plastered on the side of his boat, but he is the nicest boat boy around. Patiently waited till we had the hook good and set 30 feet from us before he told us about his girl’s beach bar and happy hour. Whats not to like about happy hour? so we took them up on happy hour drinks for about 5-8ec and general good vibe.

We met some great sailing folks from 2 yachts who shared some great tips!!

Since we were here 5 years ago, a couple of new beach hut/bars have sprouted up, including one high end Italian place called Aqua with 20ec drinks and also very nice boat boy that gave us the flier.

Still love this place, even if we have not adult beverages on board. We did get some awesome sunset pictures. Last time here we spent 3 nights here this time we have already cleared customs and are to head south tomorrow, again a 10 mile distance.

We fired up the Honda to make electricity to support the watermaker as we went beach walking. Of course it ran out of gas while we were at the beach bar, but the water maker kept making water so we are no 1/2 full of fresh water. Showers for everyone! And I need one, after sweating out all that rum all day.

As we were beach walking we heard someone yell “Sugar Shack”, its almost like walking down 5th street in Austin. Turns out it was the same folks we met at dinner at a restaraunt in Bequia with Shawn and Sharon. We passed them yesterday too, they are on a moorings 46 with a bunch of pirate flags as we were leaving the Tobaggo keys.

Before Beach Walking I had taken some wings out of the freezer, and some of the Mahi. Oh my, that was the best fish ever! Shawn you rock, catch us another! Fish for tomorrow as well as its in the fridge for tomorrow. Can’t complain, weather is good, quiet bay, few more boats then when were here last but its all good.

After dinner/snacks of wings and fish – we went back to get a beer and meet some more Canadians on Cat Tales 38 catarmaran, and Magique a C&C monohull, nice folks also on their way to Trinidad, and this is not their first trip south so they shared some good insights in to what to expect and how to pronouce the names of the places we are going. I totally butchered them! So we’ll be at Sand Island tomorrow based on their recommendations!

Short motor over to Salt Whistle Bay from Tabbago Keys this morning, looked crowded over the spit of land, but must have been the trees as there were only 4 boats in the small bay when we got here. We made a little water on the way 1/4 tank full on the starboard side. It was only an hour motor, but at least the watermaker was working.

We dropped the hook in 3 meters of water and went to explore this place again. The swim to shore looked short, but wow, I’m out of shape. Walked the Caribbean side and checked out the small bars, of course we didn’t bring money for a beer. Then we walked the Atlantic side and almost walked all the way back to Tabbago keys, finding an English family enjoying the day on the isolated beach.

The swim back to the boat wasn’t as hard, and now the cold water felt great. Swimming back with our found treasures was a like swimming in caramel. One hand for the treasure and the other trying to stay above water. So I balanced the treasures on my hat so that I had both hands free to swim and made it back to the boat with everything intact.

Jello for everyone and I sucked down the last beer on board. Doh! Thawed some tuna had had a lunch snack that turned out pretty good, even Christine had enjoyed her side of fully cooked tuna while Wayne and I devoured the seared tuna.

Meanwhile another catamaran, Afloat, came in and anchored behind us, we exchanged hello’s and they had seen us in St Lucia, they invited us over for a beer. We let them get settled anchoring etc, they we made a fresh drink and grabbed some Jello and went over to meet our neighbors from Canada. The flag on the boat is a dead give away.

Brant and Terry were very hospitable and we drank some of their rum and used their ice. Of course we running low on our own rum so that was a bonus for heading over to Afloat. Afloat seemed like a weird name for the boat, but after talking to them, it was a play on Terry’s last name, Loat.

We had talked about going a shore for dinner but being that we were snokkered, I called and audible and said we should go back to the shack for dinner with our new friends. Course I needed to thaw a few things so headed back to the shack to thaw some tuna and burger for dinner. Then back to Afloat for some more cocktails, like we really needed more.

Tuna for appetizers and burgers for dinner came out yummy or was it the rum? Taught Brant an Terry dominoes and completely polished off our rum and had to did our best to finish Christine’s Turkish beverages onboard.

All in all a great evening.. course we are getting a very slow start today.

We are heading over to Union Island to get some provisions to replenish what we have run out of.

Sunny and beautiful here in Mayreau this morning.

Salt Whistle Bay

After the morning hike which I forgot to post, and since we are miles away from internet, will probably fill in the gaps next time we get some real wifi. This update is coming from Tabbago Keys in the Grenadines, just inside the reef/turtle sanctuary/marine park.

We only had 6 miles to go to get here, so we didn’t raise the sails, with the intention of making water and cleaning the water maker on the way. Then I read the manual and its going to take 3 hrs to complete the cleaning. Circulate the hot cleaning solution for 1 hr, then let stand for 1hr and repeat each time with the solution @ 150 degrees. I’m not exactly sure how to run a stove in the engine room to keep the cleaning solution warm. So I decided to just ‘flush’ the water maker to make some semi-clean water to bathe in as we are running under 1/2 of our water supply. The rinse process started out fine, but when it came time to take the salt out of the water, nothing came out of the water maker. Doh! So today’s project was try something then have a beverage and try again later, eventually running a warm ‘fresh’ water instead of the ‘flush’ process started things working, so we can no make water. Or course that was well after we arrived and Christine had navigated through the reefs to Tabbago Keys. We made a little water just to verify it was working and didn’t taste to bad, so we went snorkeling after all the tourist boats had left.

We had a grand snorkel in the Turtle Sanctuary, lots of turtles and a couple of stingrays, I have some pretty fun video of them, but will have to wait till later to upload. Then we went out to the reef and swam around, this time there were a whole lot more fish than last time we were here. Was fun found a few more stingrays, in fact one just jumped out of the water as I sit here on the bow typing this update. Lots of parrot fish, and even some dog faced puffers eating the sand where our anchor chain is stirring up the bottom.

Lovely sunset behind the moat, pretty close to a full moon and a nice breeze off the atlantic. And Donald drink to boot, can’t ask for much more!

Probably 40 boats out here in this big wide open area. Nice and peaceful even the seaguls love thie place.

We have found the secret to the boat boys, just tell them you landed fish on the way over, and they don’t try to sell you fish and lobster.

We had a nice dinner, some grilled Shrimp pasta, its lent after all, was quite yummy no leftovers.

Tomorrow, maybe Salt Whistle bay, its only 2 miles away so we’ll see, it is the quintessential island spot tho, so we might just have to camp there tomorrow and make water on Sunday.