St Lucia

Today we await the arrival of Hurricane Beryl. Looks like we will get the edge of it. But that doesn’t mean it will not be tough. Today we went to the store this morning and took another sailing captain with us to stock up. As always it’s an adventure driving here. Tight roads left lane right hand drive! After that we came back to the boat put on Dr Doolittle old movie filmed in part here in Marigot Bay and there is a restaurant named Doolittle’s here. We tried to go there to eat but early closure due to storm. Back to the boat ferry to our dock and getting prepared for Beryl.

Deshaies ( pronounced day yay) Guadeloupe

Steve and I got up today and got the boat chores done then on to exploring and snorkeling. You can just go off the back of your boat and see so much! I looked down and immediately saw a sea turtle skirting the sea floor. We snorkeled to the bank and back seeing a lot of cool fish. Loaded up the dink for exploring the beach north of our anchorage and around the edge of the bay. on our travels I saw a guy scraping scallops off a rock wall, diving fisherman and a small blow hole as we turned the corner to the long Beach.

We anchored our dinghy about 20 ft offshore grabbed our snorkel gear and headed in. Me being the graceful princess I am tried to stand as the swell knocked me into the sand and of course filled my suit with beach 🙄. On to the adventure! We walked to the end of the beach Steve was ahead of me ( as usual), and he signaled me to lay down my fins and follow him. I passed a sign that said AMORE on it and crossed a small creek up a small hill to what looked like an island paradise! BUT looking closer I saw the chairs were worn the huts were aged, but that pool was tip top clean! We thought it was closed but a guy came out and said the Tapas bar opened at 5pm. Everything is so beautiful and lush green due to the amount of rain they get here. We walked on after a nice talk with that guy around the corner where we came in( after grabbing our gear of course) and followed a dirt trail to a cool little beach you had to climb down to by holding on to a tree root and climbing down the rocks. We put on our gear and snorkeled from there back to our dinghy. Seeing some cool fish and lots of volcanic type rocks. Back to our boat we went over the big waves until we rounded the corner then BOOM no waves. We saw the rains coming so we climbed aboard emptied the dinghy and dried off. It just kept raining so we ate leftover broccoli cheddar rice casserole for dinner and enjoyed sitting and listening to the many short rain storms that came off the mountains.

This is a stop worth making if you’re sailing or boating this way! Check in was so easy, you go in to the channel by the fisherman’s marina and check in at the small metal office building behind it. You will know it. The town is so cute and the food is great! Don’t miss this cool stop we didn’t get to hike but heard that the area has some great trails.

Fair winds my fellow explorers!

GUADELOUPE.

I have so much to report since May! I went home to spend three weeks with family and our shop. My grandson Jett stayed with me the whole time! We had many adventures.

So today June 23 Steve and I sailed/motored to Pigeon Island anchoring in Pigeon bay I think it’s called. You can get really close to shore due to the depth of the water. The water is a beautiful turquoise blue and you can see to the bottom. The anchorage is a little rolly, wind shear off the island can be fierce with the rain showers this time of year, and again I haven’t learned to speak French. If you are nice and try to speak French then most people will talk to you in English, if you don’t or are rude, they will act as if they don’t understand a word! Most stores and restaurants are closed on Sunday and Monday. It is their weekend I was told. We did find a cool little food shack for lunch, and oh! They don’t get busy till after 5 anyway when the people come out to play. (And it’s not scalding hot in the evening.)

A really rainy day today! Great for sleeping and watching Huub Vlog on utube on sailing the Carribean! I love rainy days. So on with my relaxing and everyone stay tuned.

It was a scorcher today so we stayed on the boat. I reorganized several areas, retrieved our laundry (laundry is at the end of our dock basically.), sewed up a hole in the boat seat upholstry and glued some reinforcement fabric to it. In the evening we were going out and met Lauren and Chris 0n “s/v ANYROAD” and went to eat Chinese with them. Then got an ice cream for dessert at the supermarket and back to the nice cool boat! Exciting life guys. Havd a great day!

Big Moose signing off.

We left our other anchorage early this morning at Culebra and headed for Flamenco beach. We arrived after a nice hour or little more sail and arrived there at a beautiful beach with a WW tank on the beach and one right above the beach. The metal was rusting away in layers like the flaking off of tree bark. There was a ton of graffiti painted on them. We also swam and snorkeled some, not too many fish. We had Big tarpon under our boat and our boat buddy had a barracuda under their catamaran. Steve and I cleaned our boat off around the waterline and right under it. Steve unstuck our speed wheel underneath the boat so we can tell how fast we are sailing! There was a snack bar open today and there were a lot of people on the beach too. We ordered chicken on a stick had three different sauces with it and it was great! We sat down with Lyle Jocelyn Micah and Jayce under a cool tree at a picnic table to eat while watching the cats and chickens tolerate each others presence. We headed back to the beach to our dinghy’s drove back to the boat and checked our phones to see what the plan was We all got ready to go to culebrita isle and waited on Pete to get his windlasss fixed( blew a fuse) and we all headed to the new anchorage at culebrita. It was a very short sail to it and it is beautiful!! Pristine beach clear water and local boat blasting Spanish rock😂. The music left at around 8:30 so as Pete said, we and the turtles need sleep. Goodnight peoples!

We went to one of the most beautiful parks I’ve seen! We sailed across the bay to a national park with caves hiking and all sorts of great natural places to see.

Hanging out at the marina today.