We've spent a whole week anchored in Chatham Bay. Notice in the photo above that I'm holding Cat Tales in my hand! Over the last few days our hiking took us to one of the taller peaks looking down into the Bay, across the mountainous divide and into the little town of Ashton for a nice lunch, and a trip around one of the peaks on one of the new concrete roads. This island has beautiful concrete roads almost everywhere, albeit steep at times and narrow, but with literally no traffic. I figure that a country provided some economic development money that had the roads constructed to open up the areas (Chatham Bay, for example, has had no habitation for some time, although there appears to be some plantation ruins in there), while providing work and training. Anyway, with hiking we did from Clifton when we first arrived, we've covered most of the island. It's been fun.
Coast of Union Island
Above is Ashton, Union Island.
We also made a hard attempt at fishing. I came close to perfecting the skill of throwing the bait fish net, but still didn't catch any of the little buggers. Undaunted, we got into the dinghy one early evening and trolled around the rocky edges, in the shallow and the deep, changing lures regularly. Although some young fellows from a charter boat (unworthy) caught a couple of barracudas, we caught nothing. I'm not bitter - ha - I'm devastated. Nancy Cole asked us if we can eat the barracuda here. Absolutely. There are a number of fish that feed off other reef fish (pelagic fish) that can build up a toxin from the reef called "ciguatera". It can cause great distress to the central nervous system and even death if enough of it is consumed. The amount of toxin, especially in barracuda, increases with size and age. However, the books say that the probability of a problem starts dropping fast after you are south of Guadeloupe, and all sizes of 'cuda are enjoyed.
Yesterday we had a wonderful sail around to Clifton, where the customs office is. To do it sailing, we had to tack way up to almost beyond Mayreau, then back. It took about 2 1/2 hours, but with little sailcloth up, it was a nice sail.
When we got here, we motored in to anchor past another Canadian catamaran, a PDQ 42 named "Stray Kitty", with a couple and three young children. We've been waving to them for months now as we moved along the island chain, and they dropped by and invited us aboard for sundowners, which we happily accepted. It was an enjoyable time. One of the children was having a birthday, so all three were being doted on. The funniest one was Kerry, about 4 years of age. Father, Chris, had made them all a chocolate, ice cream, crushed cookies and gummy-worms dessert called "Dirt", that got rave reviews. At one point, the mother, also named Chris, called out to ask for a damp rag to clean up where Kerry was eating; and he responded that there weren't enough damp rags in the world for the job. Kerry came out to the cockpit while eating (they were in watching reruns of "Gilligan's Island") and asked us to be quiet. She had no top on, and had a chocolate smile the size of Batman's Joker's grin. Chris explained that, to control laundry, the little girl was told to remove her top for all eating to control laundry. Apparently, skin is easier to maintain. She reappeared 20 minutes later (we were getting loud again) and indeed had a completely chocolate chest and body. She was a really cute kid, but I didn't want any sticky hugs.
Today, we are going into Clifton. I'll track down the customs people to check out, and Dawn will get an Internet connection and send this along with a picture or two. We're off to Hillsborough, Carriacou. This is the last of the St. Vincent Grenadines, and we start into the Grenada Grenadines. The sail should be only two hours, but maybe we'll catch a fish!
Happy Mother's Day to my mother-in-law along with all the other moms out there!
These are the mangoes we picked back in Bequia. They became ripe 2 by 2 and then the last 7 ripened all in one day!
