Caribbean Log
Well we finally got here (late November) after a long light wind passage, but hey we made it. I am just
going to lump the whole Caribbean into one log to make life easy.
Saint Martin: Expensive... They mostly use the Euro on the French side so things are not cheap. The
diving is just barely OK. Some of the small islands are neat to explore, but don't expect clear water
anywhere. Provisioning and boat parts are cheaper on the Dutch side so either take the mini buss or
dingy over to that side. Island Water World marine store actually is not only nice, but really can answer
questions unlike a west marine or budget marine.
Saint Barts: Very expensive! Somehow this is a place for the rich and famous who don't mind paying
up to 12 euros for a cheeseburger in paradise! So if you name is not gucci or prada then run away!
They even charge by the square meter (lovely for a cat) to anchor off the main town! During new years
you can almost walk across the decks of the anchored boats and I am talking mega yachts not sailboats!
There is a nice marine park at the NW corner of the island, but don't trust the free moorings. We took
one for a sail one morning at 4 AM during a squall. You can now find mooring number 7 on the beach at
the island just north of saint barts at yet another free mooring area. We debated carrying it around in
case we could not find any available moorings but it just clashed with the whole gray / white color scheme
having a big yellow mooring on the deck.
Saba: Seriously cool place and one dang rolly as heck anchorage. Mono hulls seldom last more than
one night on the moorings here. There are lots of hikes around the island and killer diving. Too bad you
are not allowed to dive on your own here so try and make a deal with one of the three dive shops. By
email we got a better rate than in person and they even pick us up each day from our boat so not bad at
all. Now please be freaking smart about landing a dingy on the west side of the island. There tends to
be large NW swell at times (2 to 3 meters) making these landings dangerous. To days ago someone
tried it and is now in a coma in the hospital not expected to make it from hitting his head on a rock in the
surf. Dingy around to the tiny harbor on the SW corner if you want to go ashore!
Saint Eustatius: This island has a nice small fort and old downtown section. There is one store that is
OK for provisions. The diving is just OK and the so called wrecks that they are known for in the lonely
planet are very new sunk on purpose with little marine life on them yet. Like saba you are not allowed to
dive without a dive shop. The hiking up to the old volcano and around the rim is very nice jungle.
Guadeloupe: We did not explore the main island much, but rather hung out around Pigeon island and
dove. The wrecks here are also fairly new, but better life than the previous island. The diving around
the island is decent and the corals are pretty good on two of the dives. Even some of the diving nearby
on the mainland is pretty decent. We spent bit of time down in the Saints islands looking for decent
diving and found none. Also the saints are a bit hard for any provisions so bring what you can from the
main island. The saints are great for walking and exploring on land and have a small town kind of charm.
There is a killer dive site half way between the island of Guadeloupe and the Saints, but you need to get
lucky and have calm conditions and find the mooring about 10 feet under water to tie off to. It is one
great dive on par with some of saba's best.
Dominica: We skipped the north end of the island due to boat boy stories. We pulled in at the capitol
town of Roseau. Don't believe the guide book about anchoring and moorings. Some of the moorings
mentioned in his book have not existed for years! Anyway this was our fist boat boy experience.
Somehow these guys can get into your face to make a buck off you. Luckily for us he pretty much left us
alone and life was good. Now the folks on the island are good at begging or trying to con you out of
money and the tourist industry is great at taking a hunk out of the wallet. The diving was the most
expensive so far (can't dive on your own there) and not worth the cost. The land tour was nice, but god
forbid you spend a half day with a van full of cruise ship "tourists". We did like all the waterfalls and
jungle. Too bad Montserrat volcano had to hiccup one day when the trades died so we got a great
dusting of ash for two days. Don't expect much out of most of the grocery stores and to be honest the
prices are higher than the average French island!
Martinique: So far this island is a bit expensive (another euro place) and the diving is pretty bad. They
take fishing really seriously here and apparently don't know what a marine park is. There are fish or
lobster traps everywhere and they are poorly marked with clear plastic coke bottles so you can't even
see the floats when sailing. It is terrible to find these large fish traps (even around known dive spots) full
of dying reef fish and a lobster or two. I don't know if they are after the lobsters or everything, but often
you find a trap that is missing the float (likely snagged by a prop) so nobody will ever retrieve it, but it is
full of fish! Luckily there are a few other folks around here that think like me and we cut those traps open
to free the fish. Now if they still have bait and a float marking them then of course we leave them alone.
Everywhere are abandoned fish traps in various states of decay. So basically this place is completely
over fished with nothing but tiny baby reef fish left and somehow even a lobster or two survives. The
diving here can be very depressing seeing what man can destroy.
Saint Lucia: We hopped over to Rodney Bay, which according to the cruising guide is a sailors dream.
I guess they lied a bit. Yes there is a marine store and a sail loft and some grocery stores, but not much
else besides expensive tourist places and bars. I did get a spinnaker repaired at a decent price and got
ripped off on a propane tank filling (they did not get it full but charged like they did). We also did 4 dives
through 2 different dive shops. The shops like to use some made up exchange rate that gives them 2 to
3 dollars more when you use a credit card so watch out. The diving was not great at all. The so called
dives in the marine park were light on fish and a bit heavy on trash. Basically you can give the diving a
miss as far as I am concerned. There is a decent grocery store near a dingy dock in the lagoon and
alcohol is a bit expensive on this island. We did no inland travel so I can't say how that was.
Grenedines: We ended up doing an over night after having issues with the saint lucia customs idiot
that would not let us have permission to sail to vieux fort to clear out. Government officials... So anyway
we arrived at Bequia (gave saint vincent a pass after all the robbery stories). Bequia is a nice small
island and make sure to clear in before 4PM or you get dinged for overtime between 4 and 6PM. Mind
you they are open and their hours are listed as 8AM to 6PM, but they fail to mention the overtime part
that starts at 4PM for some crazy reason that most likely makes sense to them somehow. Bequia is a
nice place and most provisions can be found in the "specialty" stores as long as you don't look at the
prices. Alcohol is not at all cheap here. There are some decent dives around the island but not a lot of
fish life. We took the ferry over to Kingstown on Saint Vincent and what a dump of a town! The grocery
stores are a bit cheaper, but the town is so depressing we could not leave fast enough.
Tobago Cays marine park is a great place to visit. Anchor at the front of the mooring field and pay your
10 eastern caribbean dollars per person per night to the park rangers. The islands have iguanas, birds,
and tortoises. The turtle reserve area is great snorkeling to get up close to turtles and the occasional
ray. Watch out for stupid dingy drivers and kite surfers that can't figure out there is a speed limit in the
whole of tobabo cays area and even more so in the snorkeling area. Too bad no diving is allowed in the
park without a local dive operator.
Union island is ok for provisions, but has no decent diving at all. Petite saint vincent is a private resort,
but a mere dingy ride across the lagoon is Petite Martinique (grenada side of the line) and alcohol is 40%
less! Not too much in the grocery stores and the island has little appeal. Canoun has minor provisions
and some low vis diving, but not that exciting. Mayreau has one nice anchorage where tons of boats jam
into a tiny spot with a nice beach, but it is a bit of a walk up and down a hill for groceries and the
selection is very basic. Nice folks on this island.
The best diving in the grenedines is at Pigeon island just below Bequia. There is an anchorage at Isle A
Quatre not in the guide book that is fine in most weather if you don't mind bouncing a bit. Watch for
strong currents when diving.
The grenedines are nice with some ok diving. The boat boys are annoying but not super aggressive so
they generally leave you alone after you say no thanks. The veggie market in Bequia is a challenging
place to shop, because the locals are super aggressive. Still a nice island group to visit.
Greneda Area: We did a grueling 7 mile sail to Carriacou from Union island:) The customs thing is a bit
of a pain trying to find all the offices but they are close together. There are a few small grocery stores,
but to be honest not that much variety and not that cheap. Alcohol is cheaper than the Grenedines. All
the dives we did from our dive guide book on this island turned out to be a massive disappointment. It
was mostly 80% dead reefs in low visibility with few fish. Between this island and Grenada is round island
with a nice anchorage and some decent diving at the twin sisters (watch for currents).
Greneda is a strange place. The main town of Saint George is ok, but not exciting. The taxi drivers and
other folks that prey on tourists are aggressive to the point of making you hate the country. There are
no boat boys so that is a plus! The town has several grocery stores and two are big and near docks so
that is great. Also there is a marine store here as well.
We had one great day ashore up in the rain forest that gave us some hope for this country. it was a
sunday and we knew that finding the right mini bus might be hard. We got approached by some really
aggressive bastard of a driver that would not leave us alone offering to take us for a mere 80 dollars
each to the park. Both the lonely planet and another person we asked said it should be 6 dollars each!
Every time we walked away he was back in our face with more lies about no buses run on sunday and a
lower price offer. Eventually when he got down to 25 each we were so pissed at him we still walked away.
The best thing we did was ask a lady about the bus and she said she was waiting for the same one and
to wait with her. She was great at running off other taxi drivers trying to scam us and really protected us
until the bus came. She made sure we got off at the park and the driver said since it was sunday the ride
was free! Suddenly our opinion of the locals went sky high. Most of the rest of the day we saw nice folks
until the return bus/taxi. So anyway the monkeys were fun to see and the hike around the lake was a
muddy adventure and the hike 3 miles down the road to the tourist falls was long and... We met some
europeans that hired a mini van for only 100 dollars for the three of them and they were shocked that we
took a bus for free. Not only that our return trip back to town cost 5 dollars total so a whole days
entertainment with hiking and nature for 5 buck plus 5.50 for the park fee. Now that is a deal, but more
importantly we finally got away from the tourist path (only because it was sunday otherwise there are
shops and stands in the park and at the falls) and met some nice locals.
The diving in Grenada was a massive shock to our systems because it is all pretty bad. The "marine
park" that nobody seems to know about is fished out and not enforced. The corals are dead and the
reef is silting up. One morning we woke up to find most of the bay taken up with fishing nets to get the
last few fish in the park. Depressing as heck. We even did 4 dives with a dive shop to get out to the best
reefs and wrecks. Don't bother is all I can say. We had two drift dives over some ok reefs with few fish
around. The Bianca C wreck (600 foot cruise ship) is a silty dead wreck. The one wreck we saw with
some fish around had no life on the wreck and it is 4 miles out in the open atlantic ocean. We got lucky
and had no currents, but apparently they can be super strong out there.
The anchorages in the south of Greneda are basically mangrove areas with bugs and green water. No
more diving dang it. So for us this is not a great cruising area, but I am sure many folks love it. Each bay
seems to have a marina, store, bar, etc.
So now the boat goes into dry-dock for the hurricane season and the adventure continues next
November.
Well we splashed Nov 1st and have been fixing stuff ever since...