Becca

Finally hired a Dart 16 from Hydro Abersoch and what a day for it! First time on a dinghy for the cousins over from LA and first sail back for Becca after the baby 👶. Tried to take it easy, but the wind was building only 100m offshore and the Dart was flyinggggg. Few times it got a bit hairy in the moorings, having to decide between a slow tack drifting onto a moored boat or a fast gybe between boats. Had the worlds slowest collision at once point 😬. Some big waves and one near miss with a crazy swimmer out the back who didn’t have a buoy, thank you Georgie for spotting him just in time! Been looking forward to this for years and it was so fun 😊 ❤️

No wind for an hour, lots of good light wind fun and some paddling. Then we saw kite surfers in the distance to the south and the wind moving towards us. It kicked in quite strong and we went from 0.5kts to 5kts instantly. Sailed across the lake in 12 minutes (36mins by paddle board) and had a full turtle roll capsize. Took two of us on the daggerboard to right the boat..! Luckily all water bottles floated to the surface and our oar overboard drill was a success. Really enjoyed downwind sailing onto the beach and gybing in the shallows. Awesome compared to common offshore winds at the coast.

I’m converted. Stunning scenery, perfect wind, fast boat and expert crew. We reached 14.6 kts on the Topcat K2 with only two tiny moments of flight, always felt in control. Becca helmed most of the sail and nailed the crazy long, non-folding tiller. Going down in my top 5 sails ❤️ Only negative is we thought we would see the other side of the lake. It was disappointing to see on the map at the end that we barely left Riva del Garda 😂 🙈

Final sail of the trip back to base 😢 Only time we’d set sail with other boats - it’s been pretty quiet. The difference between this sail & the identical one 9 days ago is that I was loving every minute of the speedy sailing & rolling over huge waves rather than being scared 😂 Massive thanks to our skipper Chris & Becca for sharing their knowledge & keeping us safe 😊 This truly was a trip of a lifetime - every day, every island, every beach, every meal was unique & memorable. It’s great to have it all saved here on SailTies 👍 If you get the chance to sail The Grenadines then go ⛵️

Our big sail back to Bequia, done in record time. The main crossing was an average of 7.2kts! We hit a dead patch of the end of Canouan for 5 minutes, otherwise the wind was strong and on the beam for most of the voyage. Bit of fun tacking back into Admiralty Bay before finding a quiet anchor spot at the most southern beach. Kevin had his last few trips, extra long ones through all the HUNDREDS of moored boats - perfect window shopping! Final sail tomorrow morning, but for now it’s time for happy hour 🍻

A simple 2 hour sail up north I told the crew as we departed (narrowly avoiding the world’s biggest sting ray). The first hour was perfect upwind gusty sailing, until we saw a squall on the horizon! I was very excited for my first experience of a Caribbean squall as skipper (we had a great one during round Barbados race when I was on helm). We already had 2 reefs in at this point, so felt prepared. When it hit, the wind increased from 21kts to 36kts! We depowered at first and then attempted to heave too. This didn’t really work as the backed headsail was depowered and didn’t offer enough to counter the main sail. Good lesson. We all got completed soaked through and then continued on. The wind totally dropped off and we headed off on a different tack. The wind then shifted around a lot. We tried another heave too but didn’t quite nail it, didn’t head into the wind enough and ended up on a weird beam reach. Eventually we gave up and put the engine on as our destination was into the wind and our ETA was another two hours away. Now anchored in Rameau bay and it’s raining on our lunch!

Chatham bay is our favourite so far, so we decided to zoom back there as we begin our way back north to St Vincent. Lots of space again, made a bit of a mess of anchoring by trying to save time and adjust a bad position rather than aborting and coming in fresh (which would have been much faster!) Night on the boat under a full moon 🌕

A quick sail past Petit St Vincent (private resort) to Petite Martinique 🇬🇩 Had lunch in the bay with about 300 shrieking gulls then time to head back to St V waters 🇻🇨

Lovely night in Clifton exploring Happy Island bar and then going to shore for food. Woke up this morning to a speed boat stuck on the reef (see video)! We had a great sail over to Mopion, a tiny island with just an umbrella. Tight navigation through reefs to reach it, but we did it under sail 💁‍♂️

I normally cycle from Ashton to Clifton back in Bristol, but tonight we had a glorious evening sun sail. Anchored instead of mooring buoy, with further improved snubber. Exposed to wind, but protected by a reef. Got our eyes on next door which is a bar on the middle of the reef surrounded by ocean..! 🌊 Oh as I’m writing I just saw a plane land, the airstrip is our other neighbour 🤦‍♂️ The sail here lasted the exact amount of time as the chemical brothers album of the same name 🪩