Never dreamt I would be so happy to be out at sea again!

I did the 1 – 5am shift, it was great sailing conditions, full moon so you could see and winds pushing us at a very comfortable pace. Rowan kept us on the leeward route which I am grateful for, I think he did attempt to go windward while I was sleeping but said it got very choppy and uncomfortable. The winds died a little behind the islands but actually it was so comfortable and as we were in no rush, it did not matter. We could see on our AIS radar an Italian sailing boat doing the same route as us. They were far more obedient and keeping well out of the the territorial waters, at least 12 miles off land. Between islands the wind would pick up massively, Rowan said it was nearly 30 knots while I was sleeping and he managed a boat speed of 13 knots for a short time, but all very comfortable. I managed 10 knots briefly on my shift a couple of times and felt very comfortable (Yay! I’m getting braver).

Passing St Vincent

Rowan woke me up as we arrived into the Tobago Keys at about 8am, to make a decision about what we wanted to do. These islands belong to St Vincent and we don’t have permission to be there, the plan had been to sneak a night under anchor somewhere. If we kept going we would easily be at Port Louis, our quarantine marina by 4pm. The Tobago Keys looked stunning and had very few boats, one enormous sleek Gin Palace, that Rowan reckoned was a dodgy vessel (most probably Russian) because it had no IAS details! Apparently the Tobago keys are the jewel of the Caribbean so always packed. Very tempting to be there when it is so empty but hearing the coastguard on the VHF, I was a bit wimpish about getting into trouble and jeopardising our 3 day slot for entry into Grenada which expires tomorrow. We were also tired and the thought of a good night’s sleep was appealing. I also like passing and admiring the islands in the day time. Rowan was happy with the decision and we decided to press on. When we returned to the leeward side we caught up with our Italian boat but now we were way behind!

Rowan just reminded me we passed a submerged volcano called ‘Kicking Jenny’, very apt! Last erupted in the nineties, Rowan assures me there is a 6 mile exclusion zone, so we didn’t get too close!

Tobago Keys

We really zipped along in great winds, so all worked out well as we got into Port Louis at 3:30pm. It was all so efficient, we were called into the dock and met by very friendly staff all in masks. We provided all our details and had our temperatures taken. We were given our quarantine certificate, and in 14 days we will be called in to do our Covid test. We then went to find an anchoring in the quarantine bay, which has 80 boats in it already. It is incredibly deep so it took a while to find a good spot in the designated area. We are pretty close to a gorgeous huge old 3 masted boat from Zanzibar called the Mandalay.

Port Louis marina next to the big tanker at dock.

Our fellow quarantiners!

The elegant Mandalay.

We were very happy to be ensconced in daylight and all seems incredibly efficient and well run. We are both happy we came directly here as the area will be getting more and more crowded judging by the steady stream of boats arriving. In between the 3 day arrival slots they have 5 days of no boat arrivals, which all makes a lot of sense now.

I did a bit of boat cleaning as it was in a terrible state from the solar guys, and washed all the salt off the windows so we have clean windows for our 14 days here. My G&T was very welcome by sunset, in fact any ice cold drink would be just as welcome!

Our only sad news was we got an email today from BA saying they’ve cancelled our tickets home! Rowan had warned me not to get too excited about them, and Luke had told us that he had read BA were selling tickets that they knew they wouldn’t fly, to improve their cash flow! So back to square one, looking for a way home!