Canouan, Mayreau and the Tobago Cays

Our journey south through the Grenadines continued this week as we departed Bequia and made stops in Canouan, the Tobago Cays, and Mayreau; all enchanting anchorages.

Canouan was a great stop because of the huge anchorage and nice beach, allowing us to get some filming done for some navigation training videos.  On that front, "The Sailing Channel TV" picked up one of our videos for their site, so that was exciting news.

Otherwise on Canouan, a short hike over to the other side of the island greeted us with a huge coral lagoon for snorkeling.  Unfortunately, Kellee forgot her contacts, and Chris forgot the lens to the underwater camera...so no one gets to see anything.

After Canouan, we headed over to the Tobago Cays, a group of 4 uninhabited islands protected by two fringing coral reefs.  We had been looking forward to the Cays for some time because of the great reviews.  It ended up being good and ok.  The ok part was that there was about 50 other boats there, and the anchorage was really rocky and crowded.  However the good part was that we were able to snorkel on some reef areas away from the hordes.  We saw tons of turtles and a huge nurse shark (which we frightened without meaning to).  There was also a scary looking barracuda just cruising around checking us out in the weird way only a barracuda can.  The current was so strong that we simply jumped overboard from our dinghy and floated along until we ran out of reef and then reset - like a typewriter.

We left the Tobago Cays and headed over to the island of Mayreau, which as a nice anchorage with a thin patch of land between two opposite facing beaches - perfect for star photography, so we got some good shots of the southern sky.

All the turquoise water in this area had us wanting to get some interesting photos of the boat, so Chris hauled Kellee up the mast and she took some awesome photos from aloft.  One (the one at the top left of this post) was so good we submitted it to a sailing magazine, so we'll have to see what they think about it!

Otherwise, we've been eating through our canned food in the hopes of arriving in Trinidad in a few weeks on fumes, so we don't have to waste any canned chicken.  Kellee whipped up some homemade cinnamon rolls today which was the cause of a well-recieved food coma amongst the crew.

In a few days we'll quit the Grenadines belonging to St. Vincent and head over to the Grenadines belonging to the nation of Grenada, and spend our last 3 weeks there, before the hurricane season starts and our travels take us across the pond.