Today’s destination was small but beautiful Chatham Bay at Union Island, but since we are on a sailing ship the first order of the morning was “Hit the rig!” Only for the crew though, which made a bit jealous those of us who dream of climbing the masts and helping with setting sails. The wind was perfect so we were making more than 7 knots! Sailing between the islands of Bequia, Mustique and Canouan we enjoyed a leisurely morning and outstanding views. While still under sails our historian Tom Heffernan gave a very interesting talk about the Creole language that is still spoken on the islands visited during our trip.
After lunch we entered the country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines where we plan to visit two islands: Union Island and Bequia. After a busy day yesterday today was planned as a perfect Caribbean vacation day: a bit lazy, sunny, with big blue sky and even bigger blue ocean. Zodiacs took us to a white sandy beach for a relaxing afternoon offering a bit of everything: sunbathing, swimming, snorkeling, interacting with local people and enjoying a rum punch or pain killer in one of two little beach bars: “Shark Attack” and “Boll Head!” The owners, very funny local people with nicknames exactly the same as their bars’ names, remember us from the past years so it is always a joy to come back and see them again. The snorkeling was very easy today so most of the time we spent in the clear water observing schools of grunts, different kinds of butterfly fish, trumpet fish changing colors as their camouflage technique or small cute trunkfish trying to escape from our curious eyes. Sunset happened exactly at the same time as moon rise while we were preparing to take the last Zodiac back to the ship.
Another delicious dinner was served and right after that we watched a classic square-rig sailing film “Around Cape Horn,” a captivating story of “Peking,” a four-masted barque on her trip in the 1920s narrated by Captain Irving Johnson 50 years later in 1979. It feels much better to see the big storm in the movie than in the real life so we went to sleep appreciating the calm and warm night with shining Milky Way in the deep black sky.
