Brad and Anette's Grand Tour: St. Vincent and the Grenadines

After a shameful delay, we've finally gotten around to sharing stories and pictures of our honeymoon!

Our Last Day in St. Lucia
After a lovely champagne breakfast on the balcony of our villa, we spent most of the day after our wedding building a HUGE sand castle on the beach.

Grenada
The following day, we hopped on a plane to Grenada - the island of nutmeg, cinnamon and rum (guess that's every island in the Caribbean!). Once we arrived at our hotel, we waisted no time... and promptly spent most of the afternoon napping.

(Hey! Getting married is exhausting business!)

Well rested the next day, we took a cab to St. George's port, where our ship was docked.
Since we were way too early for the boarding time, we spent the afternoon exploring the town, which was highlighted by a fantastic lunch of roti (curry filled potato flour wraps - a Caribbean staple). If you're a curry fan, you HAVE to try one of these. Anette had the lambi (otherwise known as conch) variety - not something you see on North American menus often.

Boarding the Yankee Clipper
We finally boarded the Yankee Clipper at 5:00 and settled in to our tiny, "rustic" cabin.
Here's some pictures of the ship - a 3 masted, 60 year old sailing vessel.

Windjammer cruises are known for their ultra-relaxed atmosphere, sailing (well at least part of the time), an abundance of food and drink (aided by ease of using "dubloon" drink tokens), captain's story time every morning, and crazy activities (as you shall see).
Oh - and their hate for large cruise ships, otherwise referred to as "pieces of shit" (more on that later).

Day 1: Grenada to Carriacou

We set sail for Carriacou at 3:oo AM! ...
The day was spent at a relatively secluded beach where we snorkelled and enjoyed a picnic on the beach. (Our romantic assumptions about the remoteness of the spot were proven wrong when we were joined by a group of locals enjoying their long weekend - but, the more the merrier!)

We sailed to St. Vincent that afternoon, where we picked up some passengers who hadn't made it on the boat in Grenada because of a major flight delay. (At least they made it on the boat eventually!)

Day 2: St. Vincent

We took an awesome 1/2 day power boat tour with a local guide who could only be described as a character, and his rastafarian side-kick who served up the most POWERFUL rum punch you've ever tasted. Quite literally, one sip and you're feeling it. We did some snorkeling, visited a volcanic beach, and had lunch on the set of Pirates of the Carribean.

As if we hadn't had enough rum on the powerboat, when we got back it was "make your own swizzle" time on the ship. (Swizzles are Windjammer's signature rum punch - everyone in the Caribbean has their own blend, which are always advertized as "the best.")

(Our swizzles didn't turn out. But - nothing beats drinking from a coconut!)

That night was PPP-BLT night, where the rule is no costume, no dinner! (PPP-BLT = Pirates, Pimps and Prostitutes - Black-tie, Lingerie, Toga.)

Luckily, we had brought along some pirate patches (you've gotta be prepared for everything in the Caribbean!). Brad was a pirate, and I was his pirate-wench.

Day 3: Bequia

We sailed for this tiny whaling island around 6:00AM, and I got to steer the ship under sail!

(Brad may have been a little nervous! haha j/k)

We took a bus tour around the island - by some standards the worst tour we've ever been on. Our gum-chomping guide pointed out only the most obvious or inappropriate landmarks ("This is a school." "This is where we dump our garbage."), and couldn't answer quite a few of our questions (When asked what type of whale the islanders had last caught - they catch 2 or 3 per year - she paused for a while, and then answered "It was a female.")

The highlights of the tour were (1) the turtle sanctuary. Just a tiny open-air with simple concrete tanks, run by a man passionate about increasing the turtle population and educating locals about conservation.

And (2) the moment that our guide, after screaming for her kids from the bus as we passed he house, jumped out and fetched her massive "baby" girl to show to us.

Not the best or most informative tour, but somehow fitting for this small island that really sees very little tourism. (Basically just the Yankee Clipper and private yachts, far as we could tell.)

After that taste of local flavour, we stopped at an awesome little pizzeria down the beach for lunch.

After lunch, we decided to check out some of the local craft shops - the island is famous for its hand-made model boats, an art brought over by the Scottish some time in the 1800s. We checked out the three main shops and decided to buy a boat made by a local man who had worked in the shop for 17 years.

This size model would take 2 to 4 weeks to finish. There were some amazingly elaborate ones that must take more than a few months!

That night, we enjoyed a wine and cheese on the ship before heading back to the island for dinner at a restaurant high on a hill facing the habour. Okay food, but a great little view.

Day 4: Tobago Cays and Union Island

We had another early-morning sail to the Tobago Cays - a beautiful clustre of sandy islands atop some amazing coral reefs. This was one of the busier places we visited, packed with yachts and cruise ship shuttle boats. Luckily, there was some space to spread out, so we had our little spit of sand mostly to ourselves.

We spent most of the day soaking up sun on the beach and snorkelling (which was amazing - we even saw squid!), and getting wonderfully sun burnt in the process. And we had yet another feast of a beach picnic. This time, humungous pizzas.

On the way to Union Island that afternoon, we crossed paths with a "piece of shit."
The Jolly Roger raised, the cannon was mounted, the war music announced our intentions, and attacked!

That little cannon packs a lot of punch! So LOUD! (The man on the right is our captain.)

After arriving at Union Island that evening, we had some spirited crab racing action on the top deck. We were high-rollers - bet $4 and won $5!

(yes - that is the ship's events coordinator wearing a crab hat)

Then we headed over to the island for a tiki torch-lit beach BBQ.

Day 5: Grenada

We returned to our home port, Grenada, the next day and decided to take a fascinating tour into the rainforest to hike to and swim in the Seven Sisters waterfalls. On the way, we walked through a local farm growing spices, bananas, plantains and callaloo.

That night was the Caribbean shirt party. Everyone wore their brightest shirt and enjoyed one last massive feast, complete with bananas flambe.