Sarah Jacobs

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 🪩

Our best overnight anchoring yet! ⚓️ Lovely stuff 👍 Becca disappeared early for a walk on the beach with some stray dogs 🐕 🦊 and I went to collect her with Kevin. We sailed DOWNWIND off anchor and gybed between the other boats, classy 💁‍♂️. Becca sailed us quickly to Frigate Bay where we anchored in turquoise water and took Kevin on another adventure, this time to Ashton for some supplies. Later we will head over to Clifton.

Crew got the sails up quickly out of Salt Whistle bay and we zoomed off towards Union Island! The wind shifted around from downwind to beam reach and even up wind as we rounded Mayreau, but overall we had perfect beam reach and broad reach sailing to Chatham Bay. We took the sails down whilst entering the bay and anchored calmly in 10ft of turquoise water and sandy bottom (first anchoring this trip!) Philip from sunset cove came and insisted we anchored closer to shore, for the good snorkelling 🤿 and less intense gusts 💨. The katabatibc gusts are pretty wild here every 3-5 minutes! Snubber deployed using our new technique for the first time since getting tips in Greece. Looking forward to a quiet night 🙏

After one extra (more sheltered) night in The Cays & a lobster beach barbeque we had a leisurely sail over to Saltwhistle Bay in Mayreau - it felt like sailing back in time to how all The Caribbean might have looked 30 years ago & the most turquoise waters ever seen 🩵💙