We picked up our friends Neil and Barbara up in Prickly Bay, Grenada. We were ready for another vacation, to forget about working and spend the next couple weeks just having a good time. We headed north on the fast track. Neil really enjoys sailing. That's what he wanted to do for his vacation and that's what we did! We cover over 275 miles in less the two weeks. When you are of a cruising mindset that's a lot of miles to cover. Barbara had only sailed a few times before so she became our "cadet trainee". It was amazing she learned anything as all three of us sailors were trying to teach her how to do things right.
Day one we sailed from Grenada to Carriacou. Day two we sailed to the Tobago Cays and spent a few days snorkeling the beautiful reefs there. The local Rasta boat boys took care of all our needs. We ordered fresh lobster to be delivered to Reality in time for a wonderful dinner feed. Barbara our trainee was delegated the task of cleaning the lobster in preparation to throw them on the grill. This task entails tearing the lobster tail off the body…. Not a pretty task! She handled it like a real trooper. There was just a bit of screaming during the process from both Barbara and the Lobster. Neil set the tone for the vacation by introducing us all to a lovely little cocktail called a "Mudslide". It's taste like a milkshake…. But a lot more potent…we all got mud slid! We had an excellent dinner and enjoyed lots of laughs. We sailors decided Barbara was doing such a great job, we presented her with a seashell metal and promoted her in 1st class seaman or woman in this case.
The following day we set sail for Bequia. We had nice winds and great sailing right into the bay. We spent the afternoon wandering the town. Neil stocked us up with fresh Mudslide fixings, while the gals stocked up on vegetables from the Rasta boys. There is a great pizza restaurant in Bequia so we went to town for a Pizza dinner. In the morning we sailed to Cumberland Bay in St. Vincent, The following day we were off again sailing north to St. Lucia. We stop at the Pitons in St. Lucia for a quick snorkel and swim. The Pitons are two peaks that rise straight up from the water to 2000+ feet and are quite beautiful. Unfortunately the anchorage was a bit rolly so after our swim we pulled up anchor and headed to Marrgott Bay St. Lucia for the night. We arrived just in time to enjoy the sunset. We again set sail in the morning and had a nice romp up to Martinique.
We stayed a couple days in Martinique and went sight seeing in Fort-of-France. Barbara really enjoyed the spice market and old buildings. Then we headed out early the next morning for Dominica, a 75-mile sail!
On Dominica we hooked up with our old friend Cobra. We asked Cobra if he had the time to spend the day with us showing us all around the island. Unfortunately he was busy with meetings and keeping track of his boat boys. Cobra is the Union Leader of the boat boys. As he says, "we are getting organized". There was a cruise ship due in that day so he had an opportunity for lots of business. We understood, when duty calls, duty calls. We missed getting a chance to spend some time with him but we will next time we are in Dominica. Since Cobra couldn't join us he arranged to have a couple of his boys show us around. He introduced us to Budda and Jerome, his roommate who we had met before, to take us for a wonderful hike up to Milton Falls. The hike was through thick beautiful rainforest. Neil and Barbara really enjoyed the beauty of the rainforest but weren't use to hiking in the heat. The falls were very powerful, booming down to a gorgeous pool. Our guide Jerome, Sharon and Barbara immediately took advantage of the cool inviting pool and jumped in for a swim. The power off the waterfall almost took your breath away as we waded near where it plunged into the pool. The force of the falls was so great you couldn't swim directly toward the falls. We swam around the side and where able to work our way up underneath the fall. It's such a wonderful experience to see a waterfall from behind. The water was booming just inches from our body. You can almost feel your body absorbing and tingling with the energy from the falls. Thoroughly refreshed we headed back down the trail. Budda was pointing out and naming plants and animals for us all along the way. He found a river crab and quickly snatched it so we all could have a closer look. He found an orange fruit tree full of nice ripe oranges. In a flash Budda had scrambled up the tree and was tossing us oranges for a trail side snack. They were some of the sweetest oranges we have ever tasted. Bubba pointed out coffee beans, papayas, coca beans and more. We enjoyed sampling lots of the natural goodies Dominica has to offer. It's a wonderful, wonderful island!
We drove back from Milton Falls all bouncing and dumping and all crammed into Budda's jeep. As soon as we arrived back at the beach Cobra's brother David joined us. David, Budda and Jerome then took us all for a lovely tour of Indian River. We had enjoyed seeing Indian River last year when we were in Dominica but it's always nice to see beautiful places again. Of course it was all new to Barbara. David did a wonderful job of explaining all the plants and natural wonders to us. We all had a wonderful day. Then we returned to Reality and topped off the day with a round of Mudslides and watched a beautiful Caribbean sunset.
The next day we sailed from Dominica to Le Saintes. Sharon of course had to have some of the best Ice Cream in the world. Everybody joined her and agreed it was really great ice cream. Neil and Barbara rented scooters and checked out the island. The next day we headed to Guadeloupe the last sailing leg of their vacation. We had just a couple more days to play before Neil and Barb flew back home from Guadeloupe.
We anchored in Point-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe and rented a car for a couple days. The first day we drove to Base Terre and hiked to Chutes du Carbet waterfalls. Chutes du Carbet in like the Yosemite of Guadeloupe. It's the most popular tourist attraction on the island and for good reason. The hike is relatively short and the trails are excellently maintained. You descent down stairs through beautiful lush rainforest and pop out at the base of a beautiful 300+ foot tall waterfall. It was really lovely. We didn't stop to enjoy the beautiful swimming pool for it was still quite early in the morning and we had lots of other things we still wanted to see. We continued to drive around the southern end of the island and then up the mountain to hike the volcano Soufriere. The weather just unusually calm so the top of the volcano was not covered in clouds like it normally is. It was a perfect day to hike to the top. The view from the top of the volcano was wonderful. The truly wonderful part of the hike is exploring the top of the volcano. Without the clouds obscuring the top we were able to explore huge open fumarole hissing and venting and spewing sulfurous gas a hundred feet into the air. This volcano is still very much alive! It's a weird feeling to be exploring an active volcano…very mystical and a bit frightening. We found a huge fumarole that had a large pond at the bottom. The water was literally boiling and bubbling and gushing while gases vented in huge plumbs all around. As we explored there where all kinds of ash as well as big and small rocks scattered everywhere around the huge fumrole. This thing was alive! As much as we were enjoying exploring and marveling at the power of this volcano we were a bit nervious that it may decide to chuck up a rock any minute. So with one last look we head back down the mountain. We finished the day with a nice drive around the rest of the island.
The following day we drove around Grand Terre, the other half of Guadeloupe. We enjoyed stopping at St.Annes. We found some lovely beaches where the boys had cold beers and the girls had some good tea punch. We had another full day before returning to Reality. The following day Neil and Barbara needed to pack their bags and jump on a plane back for home. We really enjoyed their visit. Barbara had done so well we even promoted her again. With another seashell medal we declared her an official sailor! With waves and hugs good-bye we saw them off.
We spent the remainder of November in Guadeloupe just catching our breath. We actually got a chance to do some reading and just relaxing. We still had a whole list of boat projects that needed some attention so some of that even got done. For Thanksgiving we enjoyed a lovely dinner in a nice French restaurant. Sharon had fish and Vaughn had steak. There isn't any turkey on the islands. It would not have felt like Thanksgiving at all except we were able to call home and talk to our families. It's just not a holiday without family! It was great to talk to everybody briefly. We had a nice Thanksgiving Day after all.