St Lucia and down to St Vincent and the Grenadines

We have had a great week at Rodney bay in the marina. It is a first class marina, great docks and facilities. You can walk to most places here, all the shopping and marine stores. It is a bit more expensive here than Martinique. If you want Marine hardware, Martinique is the place to get it, not counting Trinidad.


We are still waiting for some mail, namely our new Visa cards as the old ones have expired. Instead of just sitting in Rodney Bay we decided to take the boat 8 miles down the coast to Marigot Bay. We anchored in here and got lots of good walking in. The place is nice enough but a real tourist hole, lots of boat boys around. Some of them meet you a mile out to try to get some business from you before the others. After two nights here we went back to Rodney bay and anchored out and then took the bus into the main town of Castries. Our mail was there! Apparently there had been a government worker slow down causing delays in the mail.

The next morning we sailed down to Soufries at the south end of St Lucia. This is a less touristy place and a interesting place to walk around, people hanging around asking for money. We were on a mooring ball by a cave that housed hundreds of bats. You could see and hear them if you took the dinghy close. Also did some snorkeling here.

After a couple of days here we cleared out with customs and immigration and at 5:30am the next morning we left for St Vincent. This is about 37 miles to the South. After a hour of motoring we had a great but robust sail to St Vincent. We had 2 reefs in the main all the way with the wind just forward of the beam. We arrived early afternoon at the town of Chateaubelair. There was no other yachts here, that should of told us something. I rowed the dinghy in to clear in with customs, only the captain is to go ashore they say. The clearing in process went okay. The customs was done in the living room of the guys house and immigration in the place station. Then I was glad to get out of town. It was a creepy place with people just hanging around and not much happening and everything run down. This area is suppose to be a big marijuana area, the government allows it as long as they don't sell it to the locals, but they do. Our Doyle guide book says it is not safe to stay over night here.

We left as soon as I got back to the boat and went another four miles down the coast to Wallilabu where part of Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed. We spent the night on a mooring ball here and had a short walk on shore, and not sure how safe we were. There was a number of yachts here but not a lot to do here. St Vincent is not in our top ten places.

The next morning we left for Bequia which we have heard good things about. It is about 10 miles to the South and we had a good sail there. We anchored in Admiralty by amongst dozens of other yachts. This is a nice place to spent a few days. lots of good walking. Th shopping is a bit expensive, but we did not need much. After a couple of days here we took a ferry back to Kingston on St Vincent. It is a lively town with lots of character and better shopping than Bequia and a little cheaper. St Vincent and the Grenadines are all the same country including Bequia. Bequia has a nice walkway down the waterfront as well will lots of small restaurants.


INFO

-Marigot Bay anchored in 30ft at 13 58.02N 61 01.69N is mooring buoys here as well for a cost. Can get diesel here and water at fuel dock

-Soufries, we took a mooring at 13 51.38N 61 04.01W

- Anchored in 40 ft at Chateaubelair at 13 17.62 N 61 14.32W Rolly here and need a stern anchor for dinghy to use the town dock as big swells and it's a rough dock. A beach landing would be difficult in the surf. Kids said they would look after dinghy for a small fee but they got it full of sand and water, playing around.

-Wallilabou we took a mooring at 13 10.96N 61 16.03W Can get showers here with the $20 ec you pay for the mooring.

-April 20 2013. Admilalty Bay Bequia anchored in 12ft at 13 00.62N 61 14.55W We managed to get free internet here from unsecured sites. We actually got free internet at every place we stopped from St Lucia down, using our small wifi booster. Good dinghy dock here and seems safe.