After Mayreau we sailed to Mustique, «the Billionear island» and they where hosting the «Mystique Blues Festival», 👍 we joined it for 3 days 😃.
Clearly this was the island for "rich people". Insanely stiff prices, an example was an ice cream dessert, 2 scoops of ice cream, sauce and brownie pieces = 18 US dollars !! 🤣 and if many celebrities / owners where visiting the island, all traffic on the island is closed to us "ordinary" people … ..
It was an expensive but fun experience. After 3 days we had had enough, so we set course for Bequia.
After being ashore and made measurements of the dinghy for a top cover, we went for a hike with Sheryl and Heikki from "Zelda".
It was an "exciting" trip with climbing in steep forest, which turned out not to be the right path, but we then came up to a plateau where we found a path and got all the way up to "Peggy's Rock". There we got a great view of Admiralty Bay with all the boats, including ours😃.
The trip down again, on the other side, became significantly easier 😜.
We also took the ferry over to St. Vincent with Caron & Martin (Escapade), Barbara & Stefan (Nova) and Ulli & Andreas (Dulcinea) and had a full day road trip on the east side of the island.
Some photos show destruction after the volcanic eruption last year - a powerful eruption with large lava flows down the mountain sides on the eastside. There is little edible that is grown on the island and the little that is grown is made by single people - there is not enough areas for industrial production of fruit or anything else - apart from marijuana for "medical" use - in large quantities.
Marijuana is cultivated with public "blessing" as it contributes to the island's economy.
Public statistics say St. Vincent is extremely poor, but it certainly did not look like that = marijuana sales. It is mainly transported to Trinidad by high-speed speedboats - we saw a boat late one night in the moonlight on Bequia, close to our anchored boats…. 40 knots, V8 x2 ?, no lanterns… .. public transport of goods 🤔
We also took the trip over to Hope Beach Bequia one day - it was in quite rough and not very used terrain 😀.
After a week at Bequia we set sail for Martinique. We had an overnight stay in Rodney Bay, St. Lucia, and then had a fresh sailing in rough sea the last stretch to Martinique. With a speed of 6.5-7.5 kts in 20-26 kts wind we spent only 3.5 hours on 23 Nm, Kai was very happy with today's sailing 👍😃.
We anchored up and checked in at Sainte-Anne, Martinique.
Together with Judith and Peter from Germany we went on a long walk of almost 10 km, in the woods and past several beautiful beaches, south of the island. A great trip, but "expensive" when Kai's mobile took a swim !!, iPhone does not like salt water 😩. We ended the trip by hiking with a local pickup when we came out on a dirt road.
That was very nice since the way back to Sainte-Anne was quite a bit longer than expected 😉.
We rented a car for 4 days and explored parts of the island. One day we took another trip with Judith and Peter. This time we drove to Fonds-St Denis and walked the Canal Beauregard, a "levada" (canal) built in 1777 to direct water from the mountains and to distilleries in St-Pierre and Le Carbet.
A great, exciting, scary and quite risky trip in beautiful rainforest, 4 km each way on a 30cm concrete edge - inside there was a gutter and a rock wall, and outside sometimes tens of meters straight down ……
We also took the trip to Fort-de-France, not really that impressed, big city, but it suddenly became very European - the Caribbean feeling disappeared a bit 😏, but we got to shop a bit, something for the boat and a bit for personal use 😃 .
In Martinique we had a beach party with 15-20 people from different boats.
We met some Americans from Colorado, in fact from Boulder which is a few kilometers away from where Monica's father lives and she had many acquaintances there - the world is not big 😏
Following a recommendation from a local, we decided, together with Caron and Martin (Escapade) and Barbara and Stefan (Nova), to sail to the Baye de Anglais to snorkel. It was a disappointment😏, nothing to see, but we got a nice sailing trip, especially with downwind back to St.Anne.
The next day we sailed all 3 boats to Les Anse d’Arlet (Anse Chaudiére) and here we had 2 days of great snorkeling and a fantastic dive. Colors and coral reefs were indescribably beautiful 😮. We ended the dive with a couple of fearless, funny fish "Porcupine fish" who swam close to us for quite some time.
We sailed back towards St. Anne, first to Le Marin for some shopping and then to St.Anne for a celebrating of Ulli's birthday.
Then we and Caron and Martin on Escapade sailed to Fort-de-France.
Sunday to Tuesday, we as spectators, «participated» in the carnival - Lively, music and lots of nice costumes (we also dressed up) - fun 😃
After 3 days we had enough 😀.
We sailed to St. Pierre, checked out and sailed past Dominica and north to Les Saintes, south of Guadeloupe. Nice sailing the last 20 nm with a speed between 8.7 and 9.3 knots👍 But, just before we got to some cliffs at Les Saintes, Monica shouts "STOP the engine" at the same time as I say we have fish on the hook. There was a moment of chaos when we sailed (engine and sail) straight into a thick and long rope, which fortunately "released" the boat and disappeared backwards towards the fish. The fish was a 1 meter long Wahoo - which later tasted very good.
Les Saintes is truly a "Caribbean" city, lovely place, but very touristy, as "everything" was arranged in the time between ferry arrival and departure. We rented electric bikes and explored the island one day, and the next day had a wonderful but warm hike up to the top with Caron and Martin (Escapade) who came the day after us.
We also had two great dives with them, and we are lucky as they have a compressor on board, so they refill our bottles. 😀
After 4 days we got enough of a rolling boat, we were moored to a buoy, but it was a lot of swell, so it rolled all the time😕.
In addition, there was poor or no internet and telephone contact there - is it possible? 😮😩
We sailed on, along with Escapade, to Guadeloupe and Pigeon Bay, where Cousteau Underwater Park is. A place with a fantastic diving environment.
After a few days, Barbara and Stefan (Nova) also arrived. They dive too, so suddenly we were 6 👍.
We dived in several different places around Pigeon Island, and also down to a wreck, Fran Jack, which was 20-25 m deep. Very exciting and cool😃.
We also met Judith and Peter (FantaSea) who were heading north and Petra and Michiel (Pippin).
Eventually there was a lot of rolling here also and a lot of wind which made the boat jerk and nibble in the mooring, it is very uncomfortable and I (Monica) wake up many times during the night and wonder if the holding is good enough😏… and then it rained a lot here due to the mountains on the island.
We sailed on to Deshaies, a little further north, and hoped for less rolling at anchor and less rain - it was 1 of 2 😏, rain here too 🤷♀️.
Did not dive here, but snorkeled with dolphins😮, 10-12 swam around the boats in the bay - very cool and a bit unreal 😃.
Deshaies is a small, cozy town - it is also the filming location for the TV series "Death in Paradise" 😏
We visited the botanical garden, beautiful 🙂- they are good at creating beautiful gardens, at the same time as they are "natural" (this was the second one we visited). See the picture of the world's coolest tree 🙂 - like a cathedral - Strangler Fig Tree.
We also had some nice walks, one was quite strenuous with crossing the river several times and a lot up and down and dense forest, and not so much trail, but nice walk anyway 😉,......
..... while the other was on a clearly marked hiking trail across the hill to the beach in the next bay, then walking the road back.
The best trip was to "the first waterfall in Carbet" - 1éme Chutes du Carbet.
It was an incredible experience on a very demanding, but nicely made and marked hiking trail, a lot of climbing up and down and over rocks and roots, we even had to cross a river to get to the waterfall, but WOW, what a nice « end »😮… .., but then it was the same way back - a nice hike , 4.5 km each way and 980 meters up and down😅
A few days later we checked out of Guadeloupe. We said bye to Barbara and Stefan who were going south towards Grenada and Trinidad for hurricane-season and haul out.
We'll probably see them again sometime🙂.
Now the trip continues to Antigua & Barbuda.
Monica & Kai Robert
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