Greetings! After several BVI trips, I decided to give the Windwards a try. I opted on a one way from St. Vincent to St. George. Alas, it's only a 7 day trip rather than a 10. I'm posting my trip plan with the hopes some of you veterans would have anything to add. So far TTOL and the Cruising Guide have been very helpful. I will be cruising the first part of June.

Night 1 Clear Sunsail Base at Blue Lagoon and overnight in Bequia.
Night 2. Canouan
Night 3 Salt Whistle
Night 4 Tobago Cays
Night 5 Union Island
Night 6 Undecided either Petit St. Vincent or Carriacou
Night 7 Undecided. I dont want to be too far from St. George for my noon turn-in. Thinking Happy Hill, Dragon, or Grand Mal.

Obviously I can't see everything in a week, but does this plan look sound for the short time? Have I missed any "must see" goodies?

Fishing. I enjoy having a line in the water under sail. Usually I rent some tackle. However, this being a one way trip, do I have any rental option besides buying my own?
The same goes with diving. I like to keep tanks on the boat, but crossing countries seems to make this difficult renting as well.

Thanks in advance for any input, and I'm sure I'll list a ton more questions.

Cheers!

Carriacou is really charming..nice people, authentic atmosphere. I think it would have a bit more to offer than PSV.

Since you have such a short amount of time -- skip Canouan and either add a day in Bequia or Tobago Cays.

Agree w/ skipping Canouan.

Day #1 - might push on to Mustique and eat the $85 mooring fee just to get closer to the Grenadines. In the grand scheme of things you'll never remember the $85.

Day #6 - suggest PSV w/ Dingy trip to Mopion. The snorkeling West of Mopian is wonderful - like flying through the grand canyon on a tiny scale.

(BTW, we tried to anchor the yacht near Mopion but clearly didn't get the secret-handshake right. It's a lot of rock & coral, not much sand, and very shallow.)

I agree with skipping Canouan as well. I would rather spend more time in Bequia or the Cays.

We're there the first part of June too, what is your start date?

Toad you're on a tight one,
Day 1 is good
Day 2, as said skip Canouan and go to Salt Whistle
Day 3 and maybe day 4 head for the Tobago Cays
Day 4 or maybe day 5. Hmmmm, If you didn't spend the extra day in the Cays you might want to slide around the south side of Union and spend the night in Chathem. Kind of a neat place. Good things going on on shore.
From there a quick trip back to Clifton and either spend the nite at Happy Island or make the run for Hillsburo and clear into Granada. Boy that's a quick trip, I'm wondering when you will have time to enjoy yourself.

The highlight of the trip is the Tobago Cays - so as others have said - skip Canouan and spend 2 nights at the Cays.
Last year we sailed from Grenada - up to the Cays and back. On the way back we left the Cays, cleared out of the Grenadines in Clifton and then spent the night at PSV. Long sail down the east coast of Grenada to Prickly Bay and clear in to Grenada. Its an easy hop to St George the next morning.

We are off tomorrow for a one way charter St Lucia to Grenada. I'll try and post a trip report.

Bob

Heh. Canouan by all accounts from the TTOL crew, is now off the "list."
You guys are awesome.
Dawn, my start date is June 3.

Was there last June as well. We loved Bequia and I am surprised that no one else mentioned. We did all our fruit provisions in the market and we also only had a week and left plenty of time for everything else. We also loved PSV and went to both Mopion AND went across to Petit Martinique for provisions and dinner. Also felt Mustique was not to be missed. Very different and since we stayed on the boat at several previous places it was great to get off and dine at Firefly.

Mystique is a must! Take cab on Island tour,sunset at Firefly,we had drinks with Mick one trip!

We leave on the 3rd as well! Although we have two weeks on the boat and are returning to to St. Vincent.

Maybe we'll see you? Are you staying on St. Vincent before your trip? We'll be at Beachcombers for two nights before our charter.

Agree with suggestions to skip Canouan. For fishing advice and gear (not rental) on Bequia go to Wallace and Co. - they were great in making recommendations for lures, etc. (note they have moved to the south end of the harbor near the walkway to Whalebone.) Depending on the desires of your crew, if you want to visit one of the most beautiful islands (the other being St. Bart) take the suggestion of doing a taxi tour of Mustique including dinner at Firefly - it is all more expensive than other places but worth it.

After Tobago Cays I always seem to find Salt Whistle jammed, almost like a BVI harbor! So, we always seem to end up at Saline Bay on Mayreu. We like it because it has a great beach, good snorkeling on the south end and is a closer walk to "town."

One of our favorite spots is Petit St Vincent, including snorkeling around Mopion. We also always spend a night in Clifton, Union Island. You can get onto a dock which is good for letting the crew leave the boat by walking, instead of always in the dink, get water, hit an ATM, etc.

Dawn, I'm spending the night of the 2nd in Barbados, and catching the first LIAT ( hopefully let them be on time) out to STV and departing out of Blue Lagoon with Sunsail.
I'll be on one of the new 44' Cats. Look for a big Texas flag. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />

I've determined that renting fishing gear for a one way sail is impossible. My plan is to pack a reel, rod holder, and small tackle box. I talked to the fine folks at Wallace and Co, and I'm going to purchase a rod when I get down there, as well as some ballyhoo. Then, when the trips over, I'll make somebody a hell of a deal on that rod when I turn the boat in.

We have always used a handline trolled behind the boat until just last year, if you don't have any luck the bally hoo are pretty good eating anyways.

Just got back from the Grenadines. We visited Lulley's Tackle shop in Bequia for fishing advice - on a scale of 1 to 10 we are around a -5 for collective fishing experience. I'll always remember the comment when we asked the lady to wish us luck in catching fish - "luck - you dont need luck ".

We bought a 100lb hand line - with a pink 'squid like" lure(if thats the right technical term).

From Petit St Nevis to Mustique we caught a 40" or so Dorado - but it got away due to inexperience in landing it.
From Mustique to Canouan a 30" Barracuda
From PSV to Grenada a 25" tuna and a 35" Dorado.
All good eating.
We ended up using the boat hook as a Gaff.

Good fishing

Bob

Handlines? Holy smokes I totally forgot about those. What an easy solution. I've actually never used one, but a quick google provided some info. Hopefully there is a learning curve.

You guys are great!

I use 100 feet of green P-cord with an 80lb 10-foot florocarbon leader for a hand line.
Tie in a bungie so you don't break them off at the strike.
Bring two, they are small!

Quick clarification from earlier post - our fishing skills/experience are minus 5 on a scale from 1 to 10.
Once the fish strikes - just let out the line till you are under control. It helps to have a sailing glove on when you wind in the hand line.

Thats it
Good Fishing

Bob

PS: we learnt after the trip that if you pour gin/spirits on the fish that it paralyzes it - makes things easier. I'd be interested to hear if that works !!

The gin trick, (we use tequila) works but you have to pour it in thier gills. I always wear my sailing gloves when trolling with a handline, even though the fish you catch might not be too big, you can never be sure if something larger isn't going to hit it on the way in and it doesn't take much for fishing line to cut you.

Nobody has recommended Palm Island as a stop... Is that no longer an option? We stayed a night there on a charter about 15 years ago.

Doug

Hey Doug, IMOP Palm is an OK stop but the holding is iffy for a good nites sleep I would slide around the corner to the west side of Union.

We are thinking about making the same trip. Is it easier to fly into Barbados than it is to fly into St Lucia?

In fact, we do not allow charter guests to overnight at Palm - as Rick said, the holding is lousy.

There's one other small thing which is that the island's owner has been known to like shooting protected birds with one hand whilst eating breakfast with the other, has destroyed a lot of the mangroves which used to protect crabs and other marine creatures, paid the SVG Government in order to try to obtain control of the Tobago Cays for profit, and does not allow visiting yachtsmen to sit on most of the beaches. For preventing the transfer of the Cays Park to this gentleman, the members of the activist organisation Friends of the Tobago Cays, were labelled "malignant individuals" by "very senior" Government personnel.

Good to know! We were thinking of a stop there, but maybe we should try somewhere else!

It's worth skipping Palm and heading on south for another hour or so and visiting Petite Martinique or PSV. The snorkeling SW of PSV is decent. There's a small cut through the reef on the south side of PSV where you can get the dingy through. I'm sure I've got the coordinates somewhere.

And.... of course the snorkeling SW of Mopion is stellar.

If you can find a good place to anchor the yacht near Mopion, I'd love to get the coordinates! We took the dingy from PSV to Mopion.

oh... If you're into finding sea-glass there's a ton of it on the beach near the dock at Petit Martinique.

This is also where you can replenish fuel, water, and Heineken. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Banana.gif" alt="" />

We anchored right off Mopion this April for a lunch stop. Around 3 other boats there at the same time. I seem to remember 20 to 25 feet of water, holding was fine.

Bob

would love to hear where, exactly. Can you put an X on an overhead image?

Please! I leave in 10 days and would love to have coordinates!

Every blog/travel report I read has said that all have had trouble finding good holding. May just do as Twanger did and dinghy over...

Hi Dawn,

Here are a couple of photos looking from Mopion towards Fota and Petit Dominique I beleive.
(The Photos are in the simple photo library - I couldnt easily post them here)
We anchored pretty close to Mopion as you can see. We arrived around noon so had good visibility to spot sand - snorkelled over the anchor - had set well.

I'll see if I can get the actual coordinates off my hand held GPS.

have a great trip

Bob

Our last trip we had what we thought would be a lunch stop on Palm. One of our boats picked up a ball and we tried several times before getting an anchor to hold. We went ashore before noon, the tables were empty and were told we would need to wait until all their guests had eaten before being seated. When would that be?... "maybe around 2pm"! So, no lunch. We walked around a bit and realized it took about 15 minutes to see the entire island.

Perhaps it is a great place to get away from it all, for resort guests. BUT - clearly not a yacht friendly spot!

On the other hand, anchoring off PSV is great and an easy dink to Mopion.

Hi Dawn,

Here are the coordinates of where we anchored off Mopion
N12 32.661
W61 23.754

If you look on the Garmin chart this is just on the edge of the "danger line" around Mopion. The depth is around 25 to 30 ft

Hope this helps.

As always your results may vary !!

Bob

Yo Dawn,
If I remember correctly Wind Dancer had about 50’ of chain and another 200’ of rope rode. Depth of 30’ shouldn’t be a problem unless it’s blowing a stink.

Yes... 50-feet of chain.
If it were my boat it would be 100 feet.
We were constantly transitioning from chain to rope and back again, just about everywhere we anchored.
It's a little unsafe, particularly for those not expert with the windlass.

Moot point now about the chain - Wind Dancer is no longer in charter, see my other post in Charter boats! We'll be on a different boat!

Thanks, that gives me an idea of where to look, we'll see what it's like once we get there!

Hey Bob

No link to the pictures, were you on a cat or a mono?

Thanks!

dawn - for pictures look at the TTOL link here.

However, I find the pictures of the yachts taken from the perspective of Mopion of limited use. You still won't really know what it looks like when aboard the yacht looking at Mopion. The lat/lon provided above would be far better.

Just a little tip - Approaching from the south the water jumps from 20-ish feet to 7-ish feet very rapidly around Mopion.

Thanks for the link, Twanger, I didn't realize what he meant.

And the new boat we're getting has a much deeper draft than Wind Dancer... ~sigh~ so I'll be much more leery about it now!