Day 153, Year 6 Lovely Day
Date: Saturday, March 26, 2011
Weather: Mostly Sunny Day, Wind E 15 knots
Latitude: 12 37.945 N
Longitude: 061 21.472 W
Location: Behind Baradel Island, Tobago Cays, the Grenadines
What a great day. The first thing we did was to get the flags of the countries we have visited strung and flying from the mast. It was truly exciting to see all those flags flying and when we took the dinghy to shore to visit the village of Clifton we were able to get great photos. The village of Clifton looked much like it did five and a half years ago with just a little more paint. But all the little shops are all still the same. We bought some fresh produce and a case of Hairoan, the beer of the Grenadines. I’m pretty sure Mark’s sister Mary Ellen and her husband Lee will not be joining us in St. Martin, but ‘just in case’ I want to be sure to be able to share the various beers of the Caribbean with Lee. And if they don’t join us in St. Martin, I will be able to share them with him when we arrive in Florida.
When we returned to Windbird, we jumped in the beautiful turquoise water and snorkeled out toward the reef. It was VERY shallow and there was nothing to see but grass and a few small fish but we enjoyed the warm water. We then took off for Tobago Cays. We sailed north along the west side of small island named Mayreau and then headed east to the Cays. We anchored and took off almost immediately to snorkel out near Horseshoe Reef. This was a delightful experience. Horseshoe Reef forms a shallow lagoon with many coral bommies scattered throughout. We tied the dinghy to one of the dinghy moorings and then snorkeled in amongst the bommies. The Stoplight Parrotfish are the biggest that we saw and there were large schools of beautiful Blue Tangs. As I am writing, I’m having Mark and Steve look in the fish books to identify some of the other varieties, so maybe tomorrow we’ll have a more detailed account.
We had a great happy hour aboard Key of D tonight with Steve and Truus. We met them on the dock in Simon’s Town and it was great to learn about their years together as sailors. I had hoped to be able to list our ‘top ten’ favorites from our voyage in today’s log, but that is an even bigger job than I had thought. In fact, I think it is a book we are talking about, not a quick report in a daily log. I was able to list our ‘top five’ wildlife spots-the Galapagos wildlife, the Komodo Dragons in Indonesia, the orangutans of Borneo, the lemurs of Madagascar, and the Big 5 in South Africa. But that is as far as I got today. I’ll keep working on this and report as I make progress. We are staying here tomorrow to do more snorkeling and to clean Windbird’s waterline and bottom. Then on Monday we will be off to Bequia.
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| 110326 Day 153a Union Island–Clifton Village |
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| 110326 Day 153b Tobago Cays–Arrival |
