This is a photo of St George's where we did a supply stop prior to heading north to he Grenadines. We loaded up with Sally's list from her recipes and more beer & wine and left for Carriacou, the first island. A quick pass over Kick em Jenny, the underwater volcano. I had planned to go around except, well... this boat was gaining on us and well... you know what they say... 2 boats going in the same direction. You know...it's a race.
We left S/V Salonge and our friends from Vancouver Island who stayed to dive the underwater statues, by Sculptor Jason de Caires Taylor, just north of St Georges. This was a mistake as their pictures showed this to be a great scuba area. You can see the confidence 11 year hold Caleb has in 30 ft of water. We also chose to bypass a sand spit island called Sandy Island which they chose to stop at. 
Here are the size of lobsters they caught. Amazing. We had a great sail and arrived in Tyrrell Bay in good time and joined the Cariacou Yacht Club in a wine tasting. We, (actually Sally) met several other boaters who were full of suggestions and all with great stories about where to go.We sailed into Hillsborough on Cariacou where we checked out of Grenada and sailed onto Union Island with a quick stop in a little bit of heaven, Palm Island.
It was very beautiful although we stopped for only a quick swim on the beautiful beach. It is a private Island. We checked into St Vincent & The Grenadines (SVG) on Union Island with a quick side trip to Happy Island to show Bob & Sally. It was not as nice as it was on the way down. The Conch Shell Island was now nothing more then poor quality sand and concrete. There were also lots of ants which made us want to leave quickly before we brought some back to the boat. 
We left for Salt Whistle Bay on Mayreau before nightfall. This is by far one of the nicest spots in the world. Especially with all the boats with nudes on them next door. 
Sister Sally was about to dis-own me when I climbed the mast to install a new radar reflector (and get a better look at the nudes). She was not happy. Off to Canaouan. This is the home of The Raffles Resort which occupies over 1/2 the island. No visitors allowed but we were able to convince them we were looking for a place to go next Christmas so the Manager took us for a first class tour. 
An amazing place. But, you might expect a place that charges $20,000 per night for a 5 bedroom villa to be pretty nice.
With a tearful farewell, Sally & Bob flew back to the cold north. We know they will be back for their 4th visit sometime soon. Sharen & I left back south for Saline Bay on Mayreau. While anchoring we noticed some locals snorkeling for fish.
Shortly after we were settled in, a local boater came by to ask us to move as they wanted to fish in this area. As soon as we re-anchored we noticed they had strung an absolutely huge 1000+ ft net out around the bay from the dock and tied to a couple of small fishing boats. All of a sudden 50-60 locals descended on the beach(men, women & children) and they all started pulling in this huge net. Of course we wanted to be part of the action so into the dinghy we went (along with our Norwegian neighbours on the only other boat in the bay) to do our part!! Every local went home with a pail full of fish with enough left in the net in the water for the local restaurants to use for days to come! Reminded me of a Bible story from years gone by. The next day we sailed north around Mayreau to The Tobago Cays. Wow. This is a tight entry with reefs on all sides. 
Once anchored we sat back to marvel at the beauty of the azure seas and the large Horseshoe reef which protects the area. Salonge joined us there and we had some wonderful dinners on board and some terrific days snorkelling with the boys and the turtles. 
It was fun to watch them chase the fish and turtles underwater while we floated on top. They seemed part fish themselves.Late one day a SVG Police Boat came by asking for our Courtesy Flag. These were a nasty group. Neither us no Salonge had one. We were able to trade an old Canadian flag for one from a SVG learn to sail boat with some Canadians on board.
Kevin & Melissa made one from a cut up t-shirt and some water color paints. Pretty good job. It looks better when at a distance up the mast. The sad day arrived. We had decided to head north and not risk the potential problems heading into the wind, waves and pirates of the Venezuela-Columbia coast as much as we really wanted to. Kevin and Melissa on Salonge were still committed to go. We bid farewell and headed off north. 
I think a few tears were shed on both boats. Us because we were going to miss them. Them because the boys were going to miss our cookie cupboard.We sailed on to Mustique. This is another private island and home to the Caribbean's largest collection of billionaire residences. We were fortunate to meet Ty, the Chief Operating Officer of the ownership company, in Basil's Bar on Saturday evening, the day we arrived. He described the history of the island and how things worked. He was a Six Sigma Blackbelt and was very proud of the efficiencies possible when an island is run by a private company as opposed to a government. The next day we we took the tour of the island. It really is the Who's Who of the financial and entertainment world. Tommy Hilfiger
(that is his with the gates. Taken at hi speed as you are not allowed to stop), Mick Jagger (impossibe to get a picture because of the high hedges), Brian Adams, Celine Dion, Shania Twain to mention a few of the owners of the 100 or so $15 million dollar estates. 
This picture of our sailboat also shows Celine Dion's on the right (top) Shania's & the former residence of David Bowie left of it. But the most interesting has to be English publishing tycoon Felix Dennis. He has falling in love with Mustique and when a property becomes available he buys it. 
He now has 3. We met one of his carpenter-cabinet maker's who spends most of each year working on his properties. Dennis is now 61 years old, worth about $750 million and has never been married although he confesses to having spent over $100 million on women and drugs. One of his 50 or so magazines is Maxim. There also seems to be as many Canadians with homes here as there are Americans.
This is the humble residence of some English dude. But he did have Prince William and his girlfriend there for a visit a few weeks ago.While on board enjoying a nightcap looking at the lights we noticed a bat fly thru under the bimini. Next thing we found one fly inside. Sharen then saw it fly past me into the main stateroom. Look as we (me) could we could not locate it. We slept in the front stateroom with the door shut and the screens in. Next morning.... you would not believe the mess.
Bat poop (guano) everywhere. There must have been a number of them there. We did not hear a sound. We finally cleaned it all up and recleaned and recleaned. They were after some bananas I had left on the counter. We chose to leave rather then risk another invasion.We were interested in an island just north of Mustique which is almost the same size but not much written up on it called Baliceaux. We decided to sail to it and consider staying the night if we found a good anchorage. We chickened out as there were a number of squalls coming thru and if we had a mishap we would be all alone. We did later find out it was for sale for $30 million (if you are looking for a deal here is their website http://www.baliceaux.com). It has a checkered history as it was the island the English conquerers deposited 5000 of the pesky Carib natives. Half of them perished there in the 1700's. A bit spooky.
We continued on to Friendship Bay on Bequia which is the northernmost Grenadine Island. The bay is beautiful. We spent the night and enjoyed the beautiful (but empty) Friendship Bay Resort. We chose to leave the next day as the anchorage was extremely rolly.
We had breakfast ashore and returned to our dinghy to find the dinghy anchor had snagged on a reef so I won the flip (Sharen said it didn't matter who won) and I donned the snorkel et al and dove to free it. While sailing on to Admiralty Bay we passed by Moon Hole. 
This has to be the world's weirdest residential development. No electricity. No easy access. It was founded by the late american architect Tom Johnson.
We sailed into the calm of Admiralty pausing long enough for a squall to pass in front of us (we are allergic to bad weather) and anchored next to an 80 year old boat which we discovered was the band (husband & wife) who have been sailing for 30 years supporting themselves by playing in bars along their route. 
They invited us to join them at their gig tonight. He is a Joe Cocker type and she plays a mean tenor sax.We took an Island Tour and were fortunate to have met Orton King who started a turtle sanctuary about 15 years ago.
We are somewhat still undecided as to how fast to go north. We are looking forward to our daughter Nicki & husband Aaron coming to join us for a week in early December.
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