Flooding on the Anclote River – by Theresa

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We received word from back home that there has been a significant deluge of rainfall in Florida this past week resulting in parts of the Anclote River exceeding her banks, flooding neighboring homes and businesses. Since our home port, Port Tarpon Marina, is on the Anclote River, we are sending positive vibes from Grenada to all of our marina friends back home, not the least of whom are the fine crew at the marina waterside dining restaurant Davidson’s Dockside. Thankfully, we are told that there has been no flooding there and that they are open for business. It is a must stop place to go for anyone visiting the sponge docks or Tarpon Springs!

Davidson's Dockside at Port Tarpon Marina, Tarpon Springs, FL

Davidson’s Dockside at Port Tarpon Marina, Tarpon Springs, FL

Kick 'Em Jenny

Eastern Caribbean on Heightened Alert as Underwater Volcano Activity off Grenada Increases – by Randy

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Kick 'em Jenny Alert

Kick ’em Jenny Alert

Thursday, July 23, 2015, the University of the West Indies Seismic Research Center (UWI-SRC) raised the alert level to “Orange” (the second highest) due to increased seismic activity of “Kick ’em Jenny”. As described in our previous post, Kick ’em Jenny is an active underwater volcano, located 8 km north of Grenada. Since tsunamis triggered by underwater eruptions are a potential hazard for neighbouring islands if Kick ’em Jenny erupts, we monitor and receive Eastern Caribbean volcanic activity updates at: http://www.uwiseismic.com/.

As it turns out, we were on an island tour, enjoying lunch at Petit Anse Resort on the north shore of Grenada, looking north towards Kick ’em Jenny when the raised alert was first broadcast!

Petite Anse Resort Petite Anse Resort looking north towards Kick 'em Jenny

Petite Anse Resort looking north towards Kick ’em Jenny

Fortunately, UWI-SRC advises that at this time no tsunami warning has been issued for Grenada. However, the alert level at the Kick ‘em Jenny volcano, has been moved from yellow to orange which means that the exclusion zone around the submarine crater has been widened from 1.5 km to 5km. On the day we arrived in Grenada, our approach route brought us 1.5 km to the west of  Kick ’em Jenny, a route that if followed today would place us firmly in the exclusion zone. One of the hazards of particular concern for mariners when dealing with underwater volcanos is the reduced water density that results from the volcanos release of hot gasses into the surrounding waters. In some cases, this can result in a loss of buoyancy sufficient to sink  any vessel traversing the affected area.

CNN: Underwater volcano rumbles off Grenada

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/25/americas/kick-em-jenny-volcano-rumbling/index.html

Frequently Asked Questions About Kick ’em-Jenny:

Click to access KickemJenny_FAQ.pdf

Read more: http://www.caribbean360.com/news/alert-level-raised-as-heightened-activity-recorded-at-underwater-volcano-off-grenada#ixzz3gvRuxPAi

Port Louis, St. Georges, Grenada

St. Vincent, The Grenadines & Grenada – by Randy

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For the past nine months, our family has been cruising south, through  the Caribbean including to and through the Bahamas, Turks & Caicos, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Spanish Virgin Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, St. Martin/St. Maarten, St. Bart, St. Eustatius, St. Kitts & Nevis, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Alas we have arrived in our summer home, Port Louis Marina, St. George’s Harbor in Grenada!

ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES

Charleston Bay, Canouan, Grenadines

Charleston Bay, Canouan, Grenadines

After departing the serene Piton anchorage in St. Lucia we set a course towards St. Vincent & The Grenadines. Upon arrival, we opted to pick up a mooring ball in Charleston Bay in Canouan, the Grenadines. The bay, formerly home to a Moorings base that has apparently been closed down, was virtually empty the day we arrived. With only one other cruising boat in the harbor we moored within 30 yards of the beach  just off the Tamarind Resort Hotel and enjoyed a pleasant evening ashore. During our brief period ashore, we found the locals to all be pleasant and helpful. We discovered a charming beachfront restaurant with tables set in the sand from which we enjoyed our dinner while watching the sunset over Charleston Bay (the name of the restaurant was the Coconut Bar and Grill and the owner’s name was Ezera. Ezera and his beach dog “beachboy” made sure that everyone including our Cocker Spaniel, Patton were well taken care of).  From St. Vincent southward to Grenada there are literally dozens of small to medium sized islands, each with it’s own distinct personality and allure. Unfortunately, we have arrived too late in the season and must press on to Grenada but to be sure, we will be exploring as many of them as we can when we make our return trip northward.

GRENADA

Cruising into Grenada

Cruising into Grenada

With the “hurricane season” upon us, our boat insurance requires us to position the boat south of 12o30”   north of the equator. As such, we departed Canouan and continued our journey south towards our summer home marina in Grenada. Since our course took us in close proximity to “Kick ’em Jenny,” an active under water volcano, prior to departing Canouan we obtained an Eastern Caribbean volcanic activity update at: http://www.uwiseismic.com/.  Kick ’em Jenny has a reputation of kicking up nasty seas and she did not disappoint on the day we cruised  by. Despite staying well clear of the 1.5 km safety exclusion zone, there was a noticeable shift in seas, which continued until we got into the lee of Grenada. The island of  Grenada has all along been our end of the Caribbean chain destination and so we had yet another surreal moment as we cruised into the sheltered lagoon at Port Louis Marina, Grenada in our own boat.

Port Louis, St. Georges, Grenada

Port Louis, St. Georges, Grenada

Once settled into the marina, we set out to explore new our new summer home base. Since we will be here for several months, we will have ample time to explore Grenada at a leisurely pace.

Port Louis, St. Georges, Grenada
R&R hiking the mound, Port Louis, Grenada

Already we have discovered a local hiking/running club which organizes weekly hikes in different locations around the island.

Grenada hike trail marker
Grenada hike – crossing streams
Grenada hike – some people ran
Grenada hike – the rope obstacle
Grenada hike – the boys scaling the rope obstacle
Grenada hike – some people walked

The boys have completed their homeschooling for the year and we are looking forward to exploring all that Grenada and the surrounding islands have to offer this summer.

R,R, and Patton-Port Louis, Grenada
Henry’s Safari Tours, Grenada
Approaching St. Lucia Piton anchorage

Dominica, Martinique & St Lucia – by Randy

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DOMINICA

Ryan supervising refueling at Riveiera Sens, Guadeloupe

Ryan supervising refueling at Riveiera Sens, Guadeloupe

After departing Guadeloupe, we proceeded south to the island nation of Dominica. With under two weeks to go before our insurance induced requirement to be in Grenada, we are not getting to spend as much time as we would like in each of these enchanted islands. We will spend more time exploring on our return trip north after hurricane season. With that said, we did get to spend a wonderful evening anchored in Prince Rupert Bay on the northwest coast of Dominica. There is a professional organization in the town of Portsmouth known as PAYS (Portsmouth Association for Yacht Security) that provides everything from taxi and laundry services to divers, guides and nighttime anchorage security for visiting yachts. The night that we arrived we were greeted by several PAYS boat boys who invited us to a beachfront barbeque for visiting boats. There were probably fifty yachts at anchor in the harbor. Dominica is a large volcanic island with rivers, mountains and rainforests and we really look forward to exploring it more completely in the future but for now, one night was all we had and at daybreak we were underway to our next country of Martinique.

MARTINIQUE

Fort de France, Martinique
Martinique
Fort de France, Martinique

Fort de France, Martinique

Our stop in Martinique took place in the captial city of Ft. de France. Ft de France is probably the most cosmopolitan city in the Caribbean, with elements of both ancient and modern architecture. A beautiful waterfront city that is heavily geared towards the maritime industry. Martinique is a colony of France and as such it has a highly developed infrastucture complete with government built dinghy docks, excellent roads and parks and almost anything a visiting yacht could need within easy reach.

The afternoon that we arrived there were about 10 boats anchored in front of the town dock at the base of the 17th Century French Fort. We enjoyed dinner aboard and marvelled at the good fortune to have found such a picturesque and tranquil anchorage.

 

Fort de France, Martinique

Fort de France, Martinique

The next day our tranquility was abruptly interrupted when approximately 90 sailing catamarans arrived in our anchorage. It turns out that they were part of a trans Caribbean rally and they were all in a serious partying mode. Most of the sailors were well qualified and did a good job of securing their boats in the anchorage. That said, given the sheer number of boats, we still got to spend most of the afternoon fending off boats that were dragging their anchor or had just gotten too close to us and would swing into our anchoring arc creating a hazard for both themselves and the Pilot’s Discretion.

Fort de France, Martinique
Fort de France, Martinique Library
Fort de France, Martinique Courthouse
Fort de France, Martinique, Pedestrian Rue
Waterfront park, Fort de France, Martinique

ST. LUCIA

Approaching St. Lucia Piton anchorage

Approaching St. Lucia Piton anchorage

Happily, it was time for us to move on and our next stop will surely go down as one of my favorites. We headed south for St Lucia with the intention of spending the night in the sheltered bay at Marigot. The weather was perfect for our passage to St. Lucia and when we were abeam Marigot Bay we elected to continue on to the Southern tip of St Lucia so that we could anchor in the shadow of the Pitons. The Pitons are two dramatic volcanic peaks that are some of the most photographed geographical features in the Caribbean. The bay in front of them has a half dozen mooring balls (anchoring is both prohibited by statute and operationally impractical). We picked up a mooring ball about 50 yards offshore in front of the 5 star resort known as the Jalousie Plantation. Given our close proximity to shore we could not believe the depth of the deep blue water. Our three independent depth sounders confirmed we were in 984′ of water.

Pilot’s Discretion moored between the Pitons, St. Lucia
Departing St. Lucia Piton anchorage

The image of the Pilots’ Discretion moored in front of the Pitons was really one of those pinch me moments when we were all amazed by the amazing experience that is our journey.

Montserrat, active volcano

St. Kitts, Montserrat and Deshaies, Guadeloupe – by Randy

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Our first leg south of Statia took us along the west coast of St.Kitts, providing us with spectacular views of yet another island created by massive, now dormant volcanoes. We elected to spend the night anchored in Majors Bay on the southwest tip of St. Kitts. We had the entire bay to ourselves where we enjoyed spectacular views across the Narrows (the passage that separates St. Kitts from her southern neighbor, Nevis).

Cruising by St. Kitts, dormant volcano
Nevis, Nuestra Señora del las Nieves (Our Lady of the Snows) dormant volcano

 

At first light we were underway for what would be one of our longer passages in the past several months (85 nautical miles). We ran southeast, passing just to the west of Montserrat. Montserrat is an island with a still active volcano that has devastated this small island nation. From the late 1990’s until present day the volcano on Montserrat has repeatedly errupted, completely destroying the capital city of Plymouth.

 

Montserrat active volcano, Plymouth rooftops on the bottom left

Montserrat ACTIVE volcano, Plymouth rooftops on the bottom left

As a result, the island population has been reduced by over 50% as the people have found it increasingly difficult to live quite literally in the shadow of an active volcano. The day that we passed offshore, the volcano was in an active state which resulted in a marine exclusion zone being established. The net result for us was we had to remain at least 2 miles offshore as we passed by. That said, our view was still unbelievable. We could see the rooftops of the now abandoned town of Plymouth sticking up out of the lava and ash flows that buried the entire town. The volcano was spewing ash and smoke and when we went outside to take a few photos, we came back in covered in ash. It was a first hand look at the awesome and sometimes devastating power of mother nature.

Montserrat active volcano ash & lava flow

Montserrat ACTIVE  volcano ash & lava flow

As we put Montserrat astern we still had about 40 miles of open ocean to run to get to our next stop, Deshaies, Guadeloupe. The seas were a managable 4-5 ft as we continued on our journey down island. Since we are approaching the beginning of hurricane season, the routes that we are choosing are heavily travelled by fellow cruisers, all making their way towards Grenada. On this day, we passed no fewer than 10 sailboats heading the same way as us. Once in a while we will see a fellow power boater, usually a trawler but the vast majority of boats this far south are sailboats.

Ronan hoisting the courtesy flag, Deshaies, Guadeloupe

Ronan hoisting the courtesy flag, Deshaies, Guadeloupe

After a long day (about 10 hrs underway) we arrived in Deshaies, Guadeloupe. What a quaint, pleasant surprise we have found this French fishing village to be. It has one of the most sheltered harbors that we have stayed in to date. The town itself has a very French small town feel to it. It is difficult to find anyone who speaks English and unfortunately, it seems that the two years of French that Theresa took in college have completely abandoned her so we have had to revert to sign language and the amused patience of the locals as we try to communicate our needs to them. There are many restaurants and open air markets lining the main street.

Deshaies, Guadeloupe

Deshaies, Guadeloupe

The harbor is full of cruising boats from many different countries (This morning, I counted 42 boats, mostly flying the French flag, a couple from Great Britain and Spain. We are the only American boat in the harbor). We have enjoyed Deshaies so much that we have elected to spend an extra day here before continuing our journey south. When we depart here we will make a short trip to the southern tip of Guadeloupe where we will refuel, then head south for our next island country, Martinique.