After the busy day in Dominica we were ready for a relaxing Caribbean day. The morning was calm and warm. The crew climbed the masts and set all sails since the wind was not very strong. That’s a perfect opportunity to put the Zodiacs down for a “photo safari” around the ship. We were very excited because it doesn’t happen on every trip in the Caribbean because the wind is usually perfect for great sailing but too strong for getting off a moving ship and trying to get back on it after a while. But today we were very lucky. The view of Sea Cloud under sail is so beautiful that even those of us that are not photographers were eager to look at her from a short distance. The whole operation is a bit stressful for the Captain and his crew since the wind can change any time and the ship might move much faster than our Zodiacs. But the view is worth all of the stress and everyone was back on board safe and with wonderful memories of one of the most beautiful ships under sail.

After an interesting talk about Caribbean Creole language given by our historian Tom Heffernan we looked through the ship’s boutique items for the first time in the voyage. In the meantime lunch was being prepared on the Lido Deck and shortly after we dropped the anchor in a spectacular bay on Union Island. With the green forested hills around and white sandy beach in the distance with clear blue water, Chatham Bay invited us to explore some more of the underwater treasures and a couple of exotic beach bars owned by two local men with even more exotic names: Shark Attack and Bollhead.  We spent a lot of time in the water snorkeling with big schools of few different kinds of grunts, following some morays, observing octopus’ incredible ability to change colors, looking at colorful angel fish and much more. Some lucky guests had a memorable encounter with a green turtle visiting the bay. Watching the setting sun we took the last Zodiac back to the ship for another delicious dinner. To finish this perfect day we watched the classic square-rig sailing film “Around Cape Horn” which everybody who sailed on a real sailing ship - that means now all of us - should see.

We anchored in Port Elizabeth on the close by island of Bequia for a calm night with an amazing amount of shining stars.