Weeks 54-55: Martinique, St. Lucia, SVG (185nm)

A varied couple of weeks centred around hosting our good friends Eddie & Lisa while exploring the Grenadines and its plethora of sea life. It was a trip with lots of little stories rather than an obvious ‘Story of the Week,’ so we’ve captured everything in the Log for this post. Highlights include Eddie & Lisa’s first sail being an overnighter, seeing masses of turtles, playing games until the wee hours and inventing a new cocktail 🙂

Captain’s log

12th May: After starting the day off in the best possible way (Laura’s banana pancakes) we celebrated US Mother’s Day virtually with Laura’s family. We then sat down to consider the maintenance list and challenged ourselves to rectify an odd toilet smell that we’d noticed over the past few weeks before our new guests arrived. Thankfully we identified the suspect part before attempting major surgery elsewhere, and after a somewhat unpleasant three hours of cleaning and greasing (and despite not having the right spare part) we reinstalled the Y-Valve and retested to immediate success – #toiletteamwork!

13th May: As if our the previous day’s trials with the Y-Valve had been an exercise in paying it forward, we found ourselves blessed with a wonderful sail to Saint Lucia that also provided us with a sizeable Mahi just at the moment the the freezer was empty. We decided to move into Marigot Marina a day early to celebrate and had a wonderful evening of sushi to the envy of the passing hotel guests. (We caught our journey on video – check it out below to see inside what a sailing day is like aboard Serenity!)

14th May: Eddie and Lisa were flying in from Arizona to meet us in Marigot Bay in the afternoon, and before they arrived we had a long list of jobs to work through. Cleaning and tidying the boat, laundry, refuelling, topping off the water, defrosting the fridge, buying more food – it was a pretty full on day but we got it all done before they arrived. We then celebrated our reunion with a dinner of Accra and Roti at Chateau Mygo and planned out our sailing for the week.

15th May: We had a deliberately relaxed morning at Marigot to enjoy it’s benefits to the full before we set out for Canouan in the Grenadines – an 86nm trip that would require an overnight sail. After some finicky winds and current around St Lucia, we really got going during the ladies’ watch and Eddie and I were then able to continue that momentum through the second half of the night. One bite on the lines seemed pretty heavy, but he broke off after a few minutes of vain attempts to haul him in, and so we decided to take up a friendly local on his offer of lobster when we finally dropped our anchor in Charleston Bay around 8am.

16th May: After limited sleep on the sail down the previous night, Eddie and I were out for the count until around mid-day, but then we headed to shore to find the customs and some vegetables. Charleston had a nice, small town vibe and we found everything we needed (including avocados), with the only incident being the difficulty we had shedding the swarm of small kids who had decided our dinghy was actually a playground. We then returned to Serenity and had a chilled afternoon playing Kaboo and Hanabi, before Eddie and I prepared a decent attempt at a lobster pasta dinner.

17th May: With the bulk of our sailing miles for the week already under our belt, the journey down to the Tobago Cay’s only took a couple of hours, and Lisa expertly steered Serenity past the variety of underwater hazards that greet arriving sailors here. Within minutes of us setting the anchor, Lisa and Eddie were off snorkelling, with Laura in hot pursuit, and they all confirmed that this was indeed a place to spend multiple days in upon their return. So we settled down to an afternoon of more games (this time Gloom and Flux) and snorkelling before enjoying a meal of Mahi Mahi fish tacos.

18th May: Eddie decided to lead the day from a culinary perspective: starting with banana pancakes, later perfecting our rum punch recipe (named Serenity’s Fist after what he had originally believed our boat name to be) and finally by making some amazing chorizo omelettes. Around this we spent some more time in the water with the copious quantities of wildlife, and then had an expanded game night in the evening with Daniel and Camille who excelled in their first interactions with Secret Hitler.

The second week, guest logger (First Mate) Laura captured the play by play:

19th May: A busy day in the Tobago Cays started with Eddie and I trying our hands at Katherine’s bread recipe from the Atlantic, which nearly went really well except we only made half the dough we needed. After lunch, we packed up the dinghy to go check out the barrier reef for a snorkel. We dragged Daniel and Camille along with us (literally – we towed Izar), and marvelled at the incredible colours of the water. A strong current meant tough swimming conditions, but we still had a fun time exploring the sea life until our legs politely informed us it was time to head home. We wrapped the day with an epic barbecue aboard, including fish, chicken, shrimp, fried bananas and more, while Daniel regaled us with a crazy tale from one of his early adventures on Arcturus. Doesn’t get much better!

20th May: We were ready for some calmer anchorage conditions and so decided to head 3 nm W to the little island of Mayreau. A blissfully calm bay awaited us, with only a handful of other boats and a long, pristine beach. The flat water was great for swimming, so Alec taught Eddie how to free dive while Lisa and I went to inspect the nearby reef. Great success all around – Eddie touched the bottom and Lisa found an octopus (a first for all of us!), which made for a special afternoon. It started to cool off by dusk, so we headed in to shore and found Dennis at his restaurant, who cooked us a fantastic dinner of conch and red snapper. We had to waddle back to the boat we were so full, but it was worth it!

21st May: We got ourselves moving relatively early for a long-ish sail up to Bequia, a favourite from our last visit to this area at Christmastime and close to where we’d need to drop Eddie and Lisa off for their flight the following day. I skippered the sail while Alec, Eddie and Lisa strategised fishing. Lures and lines were out asap, with much discussion of placement, etc. An early hit broke off as we tried to reel it in, but, undeterred, lines went right back out. We almost immediately hit a MONSTER. Sometimes we needed one person to pull the rod while another reeled as we worked it in because it was so heavy. After maybe 45 minutes of hard graft, we finally started to get a glimpse of our quarry, and suspect it was an enormous tuna. But it gave one final bid for freedom and managed to break itself off the hook at the last moment! A bit frustrated, but we gave it one more shot, and in minutes had a medium sized Mahi on the line. There was no way this guy was getting away! Though we lost the big one, we still got a great fish, which meant sushi for dinner once we were moored in Bequia (after a visit to the floating bar in the bay). A fantastic final day with Eddie and Lisa :).

22nd May: We left Bequia early, heading for the south side of St. Vincent to drop Eddie and Lisa off near the airport for their flight home. Strong current and wind meant it was a bit of a slog, but we got there eventually and waved goodbye to our two friends after a truly wonderful week together. Alec and I were keen to find a quiet spot in the Grenadines to hole up in for the next few days, so we immediately turned round and headed back south. We were escorted by a huge pod of dolphins while a brown booby hitched a ride during a lovely, relaxed afternoon under sail, which saw us make Canouan by 5pm. We found a perfect little place to tuck up, and after a quick dinner we crawled into bed by 8pm to catch up on all that sleep!

23rd May: We enjoyed a slow morning baking some bread and then took advantage of having a quiet day to get stuck into planning for the Pacific. Its a daunting task – there are SO many options! Alec spearheaded the effort and has now successfully charted our path up to Tahiti. A dip later to cool down revealed a lovely reef around us, complete with another colourful octopus and lots of cuttlefish – it’s astonishing how much life there is in the waters of the Grenadines.

24th May: Our poor skipper was struck down by a nasty case of the flu so we had a very, very quiet day aboard. I worked to the fullest extent of my First Aid Officer capabilities, providing pillows, positivity, paracetamol, podcasts and, reluctantly, the odd thing that didn’t start with “p.” Whenever Alec was napping, I carried on our work on the Pacific Passage Plan (PPP, not to be confused with Public Private Partnership) and managed to sort out the rest of our timeline to Australia. I’m pleased to say it looks good on both fronts – we’ve got an exciting route ahead and Alec may have turned a corner on this flu.

An alternative log entry for 24th May, written by the captain (from the perspective of the first mate) on the day of his illness. Jury is out on how lucid he was at the time:

Awoke this morn’ to discover the cap’n had taken sick something serious. I scampered to find the ship’s doctor, and after a length examination he announced that there was nothing he could do and the cap’n was in God’s hands now. Unfortunately the cap’n has never been a moral man, and upon hearing this prognosis he began to quiver as if his maker had already begun to take his measure – the crew responded by falling to their knees in prayer and all we can do know is hope our pleas are heeded.

25th May: Alec was much improved by morning and managed not only to eat breakfast but also to venture to customs to check us out of the St. Vincent Grenadines. Skipper then focussed on continued recovery for the rest of the day while I tackled the gargantuan task of editing down the many hours of turtle (and other wildlife) footage we shot last week. See below for the result!