Exploring the Grenadines!

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The Grenadines rise from the emerald Caribbean Sea in a chain of beautiful islands stretching from Petit St Vincent in the South to St Vincent, 50 miles to the North.

These beautiful unspoilt islands have idyllic beaches of white sand, palm trees, clear blue waters and a myriad of coves, anchorages, and moorings, many of which are yet to be discovered by us. The tropical storm has blown over; the wind and rain are slowly disappearing and the clouds are making more room for the sun and the blue sky. Time to hoist our sails and leave our familiar bay in Bequia to explore more of the grenadines. We make a beautiful sailing trip of five hours where we encounter few other sea creatures besides the usual flying fish. Fishing a delicious Mahi-Mahi, Tuna or Barracuda is not an option this time. Nevertheless, the vegetarian Indian Dahl with rice and an omelette also tastes very good, which we eat during a beautiful sunset, while we are anchored at Palm Island.

Palm Island is a private island leased in 1966 for $1 a year to an American couple. They have built a resort on this, which currently consists of 43 rooms in total. It also remains a paradise for sailors. You can drop anchor off the island and still live out your Robinson Crusoe fantasies. The anchorage was less sheltered than expected and after a rough night of what felt like we are somewhere on the open ocean with high waves, we sailed to Union Island the next afternoon. To be precise to Frigate Island Asthon Lagoon. This was a short 30-minute sailing trip. Once there, we first investigated the depth of the Lagoon. It was indicated on the map that it would be 2m deep and that would mean that we cannot stay there because we are 2.10m deep in the water. At such a moment Jeroen and Rajesh first go out with the dinghy (our small boat) to investigate with a depth meter. It was everywhere between 3.5 and 4.5 m deep so we are safe and can grab a mooring here. What’s so special about Ashton Lagoon? It started about 25 years ago, in 1994. The moment when a foreign investor said, “Let’s build a golf course over the mangroves. Let’s build a marina for 300 boats!” A causeway was to connect Frigate Rock to Union Island. The following year the investor went bankrupt. The project was abandoned, but the damage was done. The moorings of the causeway and marina, made of metal sheet piles and dredged coral , blocked the water circulation and caused massive damage to the mangroves, reefs and seagrass. Then Ashton Lagoon languished. With its stagnant green water and its degraded mangrove forest. It became a lonely place.

In 2004 SusGen made it possible to explore the lagoon and the It was a very long, arduous and complex undertaking, which lasted until 2019, but after the old marina and moorings were breached in several places to allow the water to flow freely again, the mangroves are flooded again with new water and the circulation in the lagoon was restored. Now the moorings in the marina have been turned into “little islands”, with mangroves and an They grow well and provide a resting place for birds and a habitat for other wildlife. Two bridges give access to the entire causeway as a place for walking, bird watching and wildlife and there are some anchor buoys (mooring balls) made on Frigate Island for boats to moor. The next days it was dry, but cloudy and that is excellent weather for a nice walk around the Asthon lagoon and Union Island. From the quiet fishing village of Asthon we walked through the main street with nice small supermarkets and bars over the top Fort Hill to Richmond Bay. A nice bay with a small beach where many seating areas have been made. At the moment, it doesn’t look idyllic, but I can imagine that in good weather and in high season it is a cosy place to be.

Not all beaches are as idyllic as they sound right now. Some white beaches, especially on the Atlantic side of the Caribbean islands, turn brown from March through October due to the invasion of sargassum seaweed. The problem seems to be getting worse every year. Sargassum is a brown seaweed that floats in the ocean and washes up in large quantities on the beaches of the Caribbean islands, but also Mexico and the ABC islands suffer from this. It provides an important habitat for migratory organisms that have specifically adapted to these floating algae, including crabs, shrimp, sea turtles and various fish species such as mahi-mahi, tuna and marlin. Sargassum is common in the Sargasso Sea. The Sargasso Sea is an area of ​​the North Atlantic Ocean. It is surrounded by four streams, but no land. When Sargassum washes ashore, the beaches are transformed into a brown slurry. Once on land, the rotting process begins, which is accompanied by a very unpleasant smell of rotten eggs and attracts sand fleas. Not an idyllic picture where you can sit or lie down on the beach.

After enjoying Union Island for 3 days in the water and on land, it’s time to sail a little further. It will be two hours sailing against the wind to the island of Petit St Vincent. The island is privately owned and has a resort. The resort has 22 cottages and villas. The beach and parts of the restaurant are also accessible to sailors. During the early evening, heavy rain showers and a lot of lightning came around us. It seemed as if we were in the eye of a thunderstorm, because 360 ​​degrees around us we saw the flashes of light, but it came not closer. We can collect the rainwater so that we have filled the water tanks well again. Jeroen has tried the harpoon gun for the first time. I wonder if dinner will be pasta or a nice fish? Shooting with a harpoon gun turns out to be quite difficult and/or those tasty fish had noticed Jeroen already for a long time and did not show themselves. Tonight, it turned out to be pasta!

Located next to Petit St. Vincent, Mopion Island is a small sandbar that looks like nothing more than a deserted cartoon island and houses only a single umbrella. The smallest island in the Caribbean, Mopion is more of a low cove made up mostly of coral or sand and its size is dependent on the tides. But his iconic umbrella was never completely submerged.

There is still a reasonable job waiting for us on the boat: redesigning the electrical cabling, installing the Victron Quattro-II and the shore power transformer. After installation, we have 230V permanently on board and all power sources are connected and can be managed/monitored via the Quatro-II, namely the: solar panels, generator, battery charger, shore power 110V & 230V, 24V alternator from diesel engine and our 8 household batteries. A job that takes us about 2 weeks. Jeroen and Rajesh are going to do this job together and although we initially thought to do this in Grenada, we decided to do it in Bequia. During this 6-hour sailing trip we catch a barracuda and a tuna! I know what’s on the menu tonight. sashimi!