Sailing north to Carriacou

We set sail early in very grey wet weather and a bit of wind. I was grateful Rowan had put a reef in, as the weather app showed stormy weather, it was pretty bouncy sailing up close to the wind. The wind steadily picked up a lot more and was pretty uncomfortable so Rowan braved putting another reef in which made a huge difference to the banging motion. Plenty of rain and very grey skies so we did not see much of the island as we sailed past. We had to avoid Kick’em Jenny which is on yellow alert which means you have to give it a wider berth. The excitement of being free was slightly dampened for me, by the weather and looming squalls.

Grey departure

Into the weather!

We finally had to put the motors on the last couple of hours into Carriacou as we were heading straight into the wind. The sun finally came out as we reached our area where Rowan had planned for us to anchor. We passed a gorgeous small sandy island with 5 boats on buoys that looked pretty idyllic. We ventured further to go to the village of Hillsborough to be close to restaurants, now we are allowed! It was pretty windy and took a second attempt at anchoring to get a good hold.

Arriving at Carriacou

Lovely white beaches, even with wrecks!

We headed into the village/town, their long jetty looked pretty knackered, the concrete all eroded through to the rusting reinforcing. We found a platform with some rickety old steps up to the jetty, otherwise it would have been pretty tricky leaving Jeldi Jeldi bashing into the rough concrete. Sadly it was like a ghost town with everything closed, I think because it is out of season now more or less, people are not going to open up after lockdown. A very tatty little village but with loads of little shops selling all sorts, and not for the tourist trade. We finally found a little local bar and decided to have a drink, but we were the only people there and they knew of nobody serving food.

Back to PolePole which was no bad thing, as we have quite a bit of meat to get through.

There are only 2 other boats moored here, as Rowan says one looks like it is from the movie Waterworld ( I haven’t seen the movie, but young hippie live aboards) and the other was the complete opposite a very big sleek smart black sailing boat called Zulu. We thought we would introduce ourselves on the way back to Pole Pole to see what their African roots were. Three ageing men looked rather alarmed as we approached and we soon discovered they were Spanish and had no connection to Africa whatsoever! Our communication skills never allowed us to establish why they chose the name, I think they were pretty eager to get back to their meal we had interrupted!

Zulu!

I had bought some small chilli like peppers from the supermarket yesterday, as we had so enjoyed a similar looking pepper in our bags from the farmer’s market. Rowan made a delicious chicken dish and added a few peppers in, thankfully whole. I cut mine open and put about a third in my mouth, I nearly hit the roof it was so fiery and I really think it burnt my tongue. Rowan came to the rescue with some mango that I just left sitting on my tongue to ease the burn. Looking back now it can’t have been that bad as I successfully managed to eat my whole plate of food, but at the time it was eye watering!

We went to bed with the boat picking up quite a rocking with the swell, very deceptive as we had not noticed it when we anchored.

I forgot to mention yesterday a rather interesting moment. We were sitting at the bar at the marina having a drink after customs had closed, so not many people there, and an older man asked if he could join us as he needed company after being on his own for a long time. Of course we let him join us and then discovered that 45 minutes earlier he had moored in the marina, the first stop since leaving Ascension Island 37 days ago! They accepted his papers that he had been at sea so he did not have to quarantine or do a Covid test. He had left Vancouver 18 months ago and was sailing single handed around the world visiting friends and family along the way. Family in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa where he stopped for 3 months visiting Namibia and Botswana with cousins. So funny he reminded us both of our friend Simon Marfleet only a lot shorter! He seemed so unruffled it was amazing. He had a great stay at both St Helena and Ascension Island, he just always sails with a weather window…. Rowan’s new mantra! Now he is just waiting for lock downs to ease, and another weather window, so that he can go through the Panama Canal, back up the coast of America to Vancouver. Quite remarkable!