Dec. 27: Cumberland Bay, St. Vincent
We left Chatham Bay in Union Island at 7:30 am and started our return to St. Lucia and the end of our charter. We had a brisk sail upwind averaging 7.5 knots and topping out at over 9; the sun was bright but the wind kept us cool on the way. Our usual spot, off Mojitos in Cumberland Bay was already taken so after refilling our water tanks at the dingy dock we anchored on the other side of the bay in a small cove.
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Dave enjoys a swim in the anchorage

Two young boys motored up in a beat up fiberglass dingy with a five horse outboard, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it was Frankie from Wallilabou and his brother Ezekiel. I first them four years ago on my first trip to the Grenadines. Even then as a young boy of about fourteen he was a good salesman and had good business sense. He is now attending college in Kingston, majoring in Business Management; he plans to move on to the University upon graduation and is teaching Ezekiel the boat boy business. We all bought some jewelry from them wished them the best before they left. We had made dinner reservations at Mojitos for 7:30 so some of us went to shore early for a few drinks and the sunset. We started out at Josephs then went on to Mama Elmas where Dan finalized arrangements for tomorrows excursions before we waded across the stream to Mojitos. The very lovely Venisha was our server for the night and the table was elegantly set with full dinner service and highly polished water goblets. Julian, the proprietor is probably the only one in the bay that could be called a chef, his dedication show in his dishes and presentation. Mike was the first one to notice that something didn’t seem right, he said “this is the first time I’ve been to a restaurant and there isn’t any aroma coming from the kitchen”. When an hour went by and we hadn’t gotten our soup course we got a little curious and upon going back into the kitchen we saw there wasn’t any activity there; apparently we were the first dinner customers of the season and he hadn’t gotten a gas bottle yet, so he couldn’t use the stove. We then found out he was cooking our dinner at a friends house up the road from the anchorage on a small household stove. Venisha and Doddsie, the neighbor, were very apologetic for the delay; soon afterwards we say someone came down the trail carrying a pot and shortly thereafter our callalou soup appeared. It was nicely prepared and slightly spicy, you could tell it was freshly made. Around 9:30 another troupe came down the trail with pots and our dinner was finally placed before us. It was well worth the wait, the servings of pork and tuna were huge and the sauces fantastic. It was easy to tell all the ingredients were fresh and not frozen, and all cooked to perfection. We got back to the boat around 10:30, the latest some of the crew had been awake since the start of the charter; we kidded each other that it was a training session for New Years Eve, when we hope to see the fireworks on Reduit Beach. This is the Caribbean, and this sort of thing is what makes our “off the beaten path” holidays memorable; personally I was happy for the delay since it was nice just sitting around on the outdoor deck having drinks and smoking a cigar, rather than being gathered in the cockpit struggling to stay up past nine. As usual the boys enjoyed some rum after returning and then tucked in for our busy day tomorrow.
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Another beautiful sunset

Drink all day at home, your friends worry about you; do it on vacation and they say "what a good time you're having". Save your friends needless worry, travel more!