Tuesday, June 15, 2010

March/April 2010: Caribbean

It’s been a while since we’ve up-dated our Blog, it is difficult when travelling, with only a month to see everything and the will to meet local folks, internet and Blog where the last of our worries. Sorry friends ;-), I think you’ll understand…



So, we reached land after 24 delightful days at sea, we arrived in Saint Vincent on March 24th, 2010, just in time to call my mother for her birthday. We where happy to see land, but in all honesty the crossing was so peaceful that it was almost sad getting there. After settling in Young Island around 5pm, we picked up a bit, went for the first swim in the Caribbean, cleaned up and then went out for diner at one of the nice beach restaurants in the bay. We had local curried chicken, grilled BBQ chicken and a few ICE COLD beeeers…yumm, yumm, DELICIOUS!
We decided beforehand to stay in Saint Vincent for a few days, we didn’t want to rush since there where so many things to see. Our first day was focused on doing the check-in in Kingstown and getting fresh groceries, since we where already in town we decided to do some research on home style cooking the end result being a lovely and affordable restaurant called “ Sunshine” in the heart of town. Second day was focused on buying the Pilot book for the Windward Islands, dropping off charity clothes in the hospital and visiting the Botanical Garden which happens to be the oldest one in the western hemisphere dating back to 1765 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botanic_Gardens_St._Vincent). While waiting for the Maxi Cab I met a very nice woman by the name of Eves who was nice enough to accompany us to the Hospital in view of the fact that it was complicated figuring out where to transfer at to catch the cab that went that direction, we parted at the hospital exit having already settled Sunday lunch on “Tobago” with her and her three boys. The hospital was on the road that led to the Botanical Gardens, the maxi cab ride took only a few minutes and at the entrance we met Jeffrey, a friendly school teacher who offered his services as guide; in the end it was a good deal given that we wouldn’t have been able to recognize the different variety of trees and plants…the only thing we would have been able to recognize was the cow;-).Being that we had realized that distance wise everything was closer than what it seemed, we decided to walk back to town passing by the two main churches, one being Saint George’s Angelical Cathedral and Saint Mary’s Catholic Cathedral. The ride back to Young Island was once again a Hip-Hop rally experience, we where dumb enough not to film it so you could get a better idea. Third day was dedicated to the eastern part of the Island- Georgetown which in better days was wealthy from the sugar industry, now it is probably the poorest town in the island but it seats underneath La Soufrière volcano (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soufri%C3%A8re_(volcano)) which was
our goal.




On the fourth day we left Saint Vincent to go meet our friends (from Barcelona) Alessandro and Marisa from “Black Sheep” in Bequia- first Island in the Grenadines, there we started our chill session that lasted all the way to Grenada. From there, at least my tension built up since we had heard stories about Venezuelan pirates robbing sail boats that where headed to Trinidad. Luckily we did not encounter any problems reaching Trinidad on the 18th of April. To our surprise Silvia and Beppe -which we had met at La Graciosa in Canary Island, where there with their sailboat “Tacabanda” and the day after Magdalena and Carlos which we met via SSB during the crossing arrived with their catamaran “Prati”.





After intensive cleaning days on the dock and many happy-hour rum punch with our friends we finally left “Tobago” on the dry dock hoping to find it safe in our return. Normally Trinidad is hurricane safe but you never know with the new and unpredictable weather conditions. Let’s hope for the best!