Saturday 10^th  December  2022

Tobago Cays, St Vincent and The Grenadines 12^o 37.8 N  61^o 21.5W

Today's Blog by David  (Time zone: UTC -4)

This was the unmistakeable sight as we approached our destination – Union Island - in the early morning light, earlier today.

Union Island from the north

We didn’t get to the islands early enough yesterday to safely make our way all the way there, so we anchored overnight at Glossy Bay, at the south of Canouann  2,947 miles sailed in 18 days 6 hours. We then upped anchor this morning  to get to Union Island as the Immigration Offices opened.

I had rather missed this immigration process,  a sophisticated advance notification internet portal, but then re-documented on arrival in triplicate – carbon copies, the lot!  No-one is allowed ashore before the skipper has travelled directly (without “passing go”) to their offices to  ‘sign in’  and then they wonder why you don’t have the EC$ 141  (£40) required to process the paperwork – the processing of which stalled while they sent me to ATM, thus losing my place in the queue!

Having completed the check in process, the boat was still intact:

Serendipity “Dressed Overall” as it were!

I radioed the crew, who came ashore to get some fresh fruit and veg, and then we set off to Tobago Cays for a couple of days. 

On arrival  were given the customary greeting by some “boat boys” plying their wares. Ours was called Carlos. who was inviting all and sundry to a lobster barbeque (circa £50 per head) on the beach tonight -- as every night. He also had Snapper and Lobster for sale to eat aboard.

We talked about the idea, and then I dropped the crew off for a swim over the coral reef and went back in search of Carlos.  I asked some other boat boys where he might be – not surprisingly they couldn’t help but DID happen to have some  lobster. Here is tonight’s dinner:

The Ruler is 16 inches (40cm long J)

Well. That’s about it.  Safely across the Atlantic; the boat is still working as well as it did before we left (Result!) and we are now going to veg out for a couple of days before making our way to St Lucia for next Tuesday evening, probably via Basil’s Bar in Mustique. 

Wish you were here!