We decided after the marina to go back south. We originally were thinking about going to Mustique – north, the direction we’re generally heading – but after some thought, reading, and talking to people at the marina we decided not to. Mustique is a very exclusive private island where cattle like us are highly restricted. You can hike through the salt-marsh area, stay and moor on one beach, and visit the shops in town, but you can’t go anywhere else without permission. Fine, I get it, people like their privacy (I certainly do) and don’t want others gawking.

And there was a Jazz / Blues festival at a bar on the beach coming up, which would have been fun.

But the book which we use as our guide also mentioned that the anchorage was “swelly” at least twice. Ocean swells will keep you up all night and make you seasick so we try and avoid them.

But we like the Grenadines so far and were looking to spend a little more time somewhere. Many people we met mentioned Chatham Bay on Union Island, so we decided to go back south and visit for a couple of days.

Anyways, the point of this post: this bay is very steep to the bay all the way around, as shown in the first pic. There is no good road in, no electricity, and no running water. Also, no homes built anywhere – beach bars and one 3-room “resort” on the beach, but no permanent homes in sight (you can see some of the beach bars in the background of the second pic). I don’t think I’ve seen any other bay like this.

But, the one thing it does have is cell-phone reception (LTE) – you can see the tower on top of one of the bluffs in the second pic. This has also been very regular down in the Caribbean – regular cell phone reception and everyone has a smartphone – everywhere.

So why Tom Brady? Well, I was sitting here monitoring the Bucs game last night and thinking that when Tom started playing, cell phone service and smartphones were not regular, they were just starting to come into widespread use. It is simply amazing to me, and has to be one of the fastest rollouts and transitions of technology in the history of man, how quickly pretty much the entire world has hopped on cell services.

If I had had a streaming service and if I had the money to pay for the bandwidth, I could have sat on my boat in a fairly secluded bay and live-streamed the bucs game on my large-screen TV. I don’t have a streaming service, didn’t pay for the bandwidth, and don’t have a large screen TV so I read a “live-blog” only to watch the greatest QB of all time lose in the final seconds.

But the technology is simply amazing.

Steve and I really enjoyed the time we spent on the sleepy island of Mayreau. With only 250 inhabitants, it is easy to relax.

We anchored in Saline Bay, which has calm waters and a beautiful beach. The town itself sits on top of a steep hill and enjoys views of its own bays as well as other islands. Everyone we met made us feel welcome.

The marina on Canouan was named Sandy Lane Marina. It was fairly new and very nice.

The marina consisted of a winding channel about a mile long parallelling the beach (Glossy Bay – nice Bay also), with tie-ups for boats along both sides. I think it holds about 100, but there were less than a dozen there and many were charters. Shops (yummy bakery), condos, and the fuel dock are at the entrance.

There were also slips for about 8 superyachts. About 5 were there: Steve Jobs yacht, still owned by his wife, and one of the owners of Home Depot has a boat named Dreamboat that came in last night. It was too big to fit in their slips, so it parked in front of the condos (if I owned a condo, I’d be upset that some guy ruined my view).

The second picture is of the airport terminal – thatched roof, nice touch. The airport backs up to the marina. They fly prop planes in for the cattle but the airport mostly supports private jets.

Steve Jobs, that is.

Because of the operator error yesterday, we went back to see if we could get some turtle / ray / fish pics today.

We got a bunch of video which I have extracted screen shots from here. I will try and upload some of the video this weekend when we get some decent WiFi.

There were no turtles in the roped-off turtle area, they were right outside it (they must not like to be roped in). It was early in the morning (about 8:00) and they were just eating grass on the bottom. The pics could obviously be better, but they were eating on the bottom in about 10 feet of water. So for that depth and the fact that they kind of blend in with the background, I think they came out OK. Obviously, the video will provide more context and motion.

The first pic is a ray and starfish. Lots of starfish. Large starfish. The second pic is – I think – the momma turtle because it was larger than all the rest I saw in the area. The third pic is of two of the children (I think), and the fourth is one of the children (I think) and a ray. The fifth is of a ray trying to bury itself and the sixth is some big fish I saw. (I think the band Heart has some song about this type of fish.) It was about 4-5 feet long. I didn’t tell Chris.

On one of our last nights in Carriacou (owned by Grenada) I snapped this picture from our boat , which is anchored in Tyrrell Bay. This is a multi-faceted bay where private yachts anchor as well as tug boats. The bay is protected with land on three sides and many fish swim beneath the water’s surface. We have stayed in this bay on several different occasions because it is a relatively calm anchorage that is convenient to local stores.

Well, it is a beautiful day today (after a fairly wavy night), so we went out snorkeling this morning before the crowds showed up. We found a good place to snorkel with quite a few fish of different colors, many in schools, nice coral, fans, etc. Chris even saw an eel. I took the GoPro along and was videoing the whole time.

We then went to the designated turtle location and actually saw some turtles. All eating the grass on the bottom in about 10 feet of water. You could just float above them and shoot video and they ignored you. There were also a lot of really nice star fish in this area. I was looking for rays, but didn’t see any – but when Chris got back to the dinghy she said she saw a ray and a lobster.

So I got back to my laptop and connected the GoPro to download the video – and no video. I think I forgot to click the “take video” button. The GoPro was on the entire time, just not recording.

So, instead, I posted a pic of a square-rigger cruise ship. They came in this morning and anchored a little ways away and have been ferrying people into the small island all day – “mask-up” everyone, even on the ferry.

The second pic is of the island. They have lobster BBQ here nightly. Don’t know if we’ll go – probably not if it is going to include a bunch of cruise passengers – yuck.

So we’ll have to go out again to get video – hopefully later today or tomorrow.

Here is a setting moon from very early this morning. It was a really nice sight.

— wedged between the incoming super-yacht (parked right behind us) and the Canadian-flagged boat.

(The super-yacht pulled in and launched a 20-foot dinghy with two 300-hp engines. A guy drove the thing right up on the beach in front of us, unloaded a tent and some chairs, and then went back to the super-yacht to pick up a woman who came out and set up the tent and chairs so the super-yacht passengers could enjoy them later in the day. And then it started raining.)

We moved to Tobago Cays this morning and it has been a truly unpleasant day – raining on and off pretty much all day and “cold”. We ventured out in the dinghy to check out the area and turned around when it started raining again. More later, this area is a designated wildlife park – where they collect park fees – and is supposed to be the “crown jewels” of the Grenadines, so I’m sure we’ll take some great pictures as soon as the rain clears.

So I’m posting these pics of a Catholic church at the top of Mayreau. The church was closed at the time (but was an operating church), so we couldn’t go in, was at the very top of Mayreau and was a beautiful church.

We’re still in Mayreau today. Had a hike the length of the island yesterday and also had drinks and dinner at two different establishments last night. (Also had a good talk with a nurse from Denmark – another story for another day.) I’m sure Chris will post a bunch of pics about the beauty of the island and the friendliness of the residents later.

For this post, I want to tell a quick story.

Our generator has been broken for several days now. The feed / cooling water pump seized and the fuse blew. We will need a new pump to fix it. Along with that, we needed a new fuse. The top pic above is a pic of the fuse. It is a standard 10 amp fuse that you can find at almost any hardware store and probably even some pharmacies in the states (and Walmart, Target, etc.)

Knowing that there aren’t many shops on Mayreau, I was doubtful that I would find one, but wanted to see if they had anything because the islands for the next 5 or 6 days are going to have nothing. During our walk, I had Chris walk into a grocery to check it out for what food they had (I had forgot my mask) in case we needed anything urgent. On the way out, the owner also walked out and said hi. I asked her if she knew where to get a fuse on the island. She didn’t know for sure, but suggested we talk with Arthur next door who runs a boat parts store. We were a little hesitant because just moments before, Arthur had been doing a little shoving of another guy in the street and we didn’t want to get in the middle of any local issue.

But we went back, walked up to his entry door, and asked if he had any fuses. I showed him the fuse and he said no.

Then things got interesting. He said, pointing to the junk car across the street (literally 15 feet from his front door), hey, why don’t we look in there? I though maybe he had a stash of spare parts in the car. The guy who he had earlier been shoving opened the door to reveal an old, junk car. The back seat interior is the third pic. What he had meant was that cars have fuses and why don’t I see if the junker still has some in it.

So I hesitantly crawled across the front seat to look under the dash (pic number 4 – nice butt shot, honey). The dash was a mess: broken, wires everywhere, pieces yanked out, dirty, and completely open to the elements. Anyway, sure enough, under the dash on the driver’s side (the right-hand-side), was the standard fuse box that most cars have. And sure enough, it had about (4) 10-amp (red) fuses. I tried to get them out, but couldn’t wedge my fingers in enough to get a grip, so I got out of the car and asked Arthur if he had a pair of needle-nose pliers. He did and handed them to me. I dove back into the junker and yanked out the 4 red fuses. They looked good.

I asked him how much he wanted for them and he said whatever I thought they were worth. I gave him $4 EC for all 4 and he seemed happy. I was also happy because I doubt there are any others on Mayreau or any of the other islands for the next 5 or 6 days.

I got back to the boat, plugged the fuse in and the generator worked for about 45 minutes.

P.S. The cooling water pump froze again.

P.P.S. When we went in for dinner last night, Arthur happened to be at the beach landing, recognized us, and asked how the fuses had worked out. I was surprised that he recognized us (probably not everyday he talks someone into salvaging from junk cars).

All-in-all a telling story about the friendliness and genuineness of the people we have met on Mayreau. More on this later as Chris tells about drinks with Bobby at Righteous & de Youths and about Dennis at Dennis’s Hideaway.