11/1 Thursday

I woke up at 4am again. The Grenadines are 3 hours behind Seattle, but geographically probably should be 4. With darkness falling so early I was having a hard time adjusting my internal clock.
The morning was overcast with showers - the only such weather we had on the trip. By afternoon it was sunny again.
The next two days were supposed to be "free sailing" days for the flotilla, which I guess is supposed to give participants a chance to go places on their own and also give the lead boat crew a little down time. We had a morning flotilla meeting on the Cat and the Okies had staged a minor coup by coming up with their own itinerary for the rest of the trip which included Mustique. With no conflicting plans of our own, we decided to go along.

In light winds we motorsailed past Palm Island and into Salt Whistle Bay on Mayreau. There were already quite a few boats there and a north swell was rolling them. There were a few mooring buoys available and we took one (EC$45). The 39 was already there, and the lead boat came in soon after. They attempted to anchor at first, then took a mooring as well. Leaving my son aboard, my wife and I dinghied ashore and tied up to the dinghy dock which was in bad repair and didn't feel very secure in the swell. We did some walking on the beach both on the bay and the windward side which at the narrowest part is only a few steps away.
Later, I borrowed the lead boat's kayak and surfed a few of the waves breaking at the northern point guarding the bay. Boats continued to arrive - this is a very popular anchorage. Eating dinner aboard was a challenge because the wind held us totally sideways to the swell and we rolled annoyingly all evening and all night. After dark, a charter Cat with a local crew came in and after several attempts to anchor in deeper water anchored so close to our mooring that it made me nervous. The wind kept us apart, but it didn't help what was already not the most restful night.

11/2 Friday

Morning brought a light shower and light winds. We were still rolling and eager to go somewhere else. The others decided to go to Canouan to the Moorings base, but it seemed to me that this location didn't have that much to offer and could be rolly too, so we decided to go back to Tobago Cays instead. After a relaxing run, we entered the Cays (easy the second time around) and anchored inside the reef instead of taking a mooring this time. We took the dinghy to snorkel the passage between Jamesby and Petit Bateau, which was shown as a snorkel spot in our guidebook and was quite nice. We swam ashore on Jamesby and sat on the beach for a while.

Returning to the boat, we got a call from the lead boat that they and the Brits were leaving Canouan and coming to Tobago Cay as well. The Okies elected to stay in Canouan.
When the lead boat arrived, I borrowed the Yolo Yak again and had a nice long paddle, through the turtle sanctuary at Baradel, landing at that island and exploring, then paddling completely outside Horseshoe reef. After several days of fairly light winds, the waves were barely breaking over the reef. Also did some snorkeling around the boat looking for turtles and generally cooling off.

We had a visit from "Mr. Everywhere", one of the boat boys who sold us a bag of ice. He also left us another present - some nice streaks of red paint on the hull rubbed off from where he bumped into us. He was apologetic and offered to try to remove the streaks (though he had nothing to do it with), but also said something along the lines of "Hey, it's just a charter boat". I removed the streaks myself.

My wife baked some cookies and we played another board game and had a generally relaxing evening in this lovely and spacious anchorage protected from the swell and with a nice cooling breeze.

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