We have FLOWN down the Caribbean chain! After leaving the States in November 2017, for our 2nd season cruising, we aimed the boat for Grenada.

Of course, we didn’t take the direct route. You can quickly get south by going way out into the ocean and basically making a beeline south.  And some boats have done just that – a quick hop down for work, etc.  While others are still taking their time to get to Grenada by July or August. But since we only made it as far as the Bahamas our 1st season, we decided to take a quick, yet scenic route south.

The views at the Glass Window Bridge, Eleuthera never disappoint!

The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos

We bounced quickly from Savannah to Florida to the Abacos, then to Eleuthera, the Exumas and east for our jump from island to island to get to Turks and Caicos.  While it is beyond beautiful in T&C, it is fairly expensive and not exactly set up to welcome cruisers.  T&C typically caters to cruise ships and those arriving by plane.  No biggie, we just hopped over to the Dominican Republic after about a week – when the weather cleared.

Dominican Republic

We LOVE the DR!  Not only did we finally reach an island where we can live comfortably on our budget (somewhere in the US$1000-1500 range/month) but the people are SO.NICE.  Like, seriously.  Some of the nicest people you will ever meet.  Unfortunately we are still working on our Spanish and the language barrier can create some issues.  But the country is gorgeous, and we look forward to going back and exploring by land one day.  This is another island where traveling by boat can be a challenge.  We hope to eventually hop from AirBnB to AirBnB, and really explore everything there is to offer on this amazing island.

Puerto Rico

From the DR, we braved the Mona Passage and had a quick zip across the southern coast of Puerto Rico.  We were fortunate enough to have a weird weather anomaly with winds out of the west.  We took advantage and zoomed over to the Spanish Virgin Islands after provisioning in Ponce.  Didn’t realize there are SPANISH Virgin Islands, you say?  You are seriously missing out.  These are some of the most beautiful islands and anchorages you will find – and again, the people of Puerto Rico are just as friendly as the Dominicans.

US and British Virgin Islands

I will admit we stayed in the Virgin Islands for a few weeks.  Longer than planned, and one of our longest stops along the way.  It’s completely the fault of some of our friends from Savannah, who now live on St. Thomas – and, well, Amazon…  When you have a mailing address that Amazon will ship to, after 4 months of travel and a few broken items (hello hand held vacuum cleaner!) you take advantage and restock.  The food was a good bit pricier in the Virgins than the DR, but NOTHING like the expense of shopping in the Bahamas.  We took full advantage and stocked up on all the fruits and veggies we could find.  And let me just add, St. John USVI is one of my all time favorite islands! (this will become a theme.)

St. Martin

From the Virgins, we made a hop to St. Martin.  This was one of our last exhausting sails.  While we didn’t have any problems – it was just a long, lumpy sail, we were happy to be anchor down in Marigot Bay.  The French side of St. Martin (it’s half Dutch and half French) gets a bad rap.  But I have to say we absolutely loved it.  I immediately found the giant Super U supermarket and began to stock the fridge with delicious French cheeses, meats, BUTTER and veggies.  After spending US$8 for a block of mediocre butter in the Virgins, you better believe I stocked up on affordable European butters!  And yes, it makes a difference.  🙂

St Kitts and Nevis

We made fairly quick stops in both St. Kitts and Nevis – but were able to catch up with some boaty friends, and made a few new ones as well.  It’s always more fun to explore the islands when you have like-minded cruisers to drag along on your adventures.  We enjoyed both islands, but I think both deserve a more thorough exploration next go round!

The Saints

When we’d finally had our fill of pain au chocolat (apparently even I can get burnt out on chocolate croissants…) we scooted on down to The Saints – a small group of islands just off the southern coast of Guadeloupe.  Here we roamed around the quaint, yet beautiful towns and hiked up to the various forts.  As bad as we thought our Spanish was, it turns out our French is much worse.  Between the struggle to communicate and the poor cell service, we had our fill in about a week and moved on to Martinique.  After eating a few more pain au chocolat…

Martinique

Another French Island (like St. Martin and Guadeloupe) meant more struggling to communicate.  In the northern end, in St. Pierre, we really didn’t have too much trouble.  With a strong cell signal I was able to find most information online, and then able to use charades and my Google Translate app to figure out the rest.  It’s fairly comical to watch, I imagine, as we dance and flail about trying to explain that we want to rent a car and hike a volcano – but we managed just fine. The French island crowds tend to be chill, and just go with our flailing flow.  Fort de France was also on our list of places to roam, and it was a lively spot for a few days.  However we initially skipped hiking Mt Pelee, and immediately regretted it.  So we sailed right back up the coast to St. Pierre and hiked our first volcano!  I’m quite certain it won’t be our last.

Bequia (Bek-way)

From Martinique we made an easy sail to Bequia.  Bequia is part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.  As we’d had enough of “big” cities for a while, and we heard it was easy check-in in Bequia, we skipped on past St. Vincent and nestled into the beautiful, yet convenient life of Bequia.  Between Daffodil’s Laundry Boat doing our laundry for us and a cove lined with restaurants, grocery stores and veggie stands, we were hesitant to leave.  But leave we must, and we sailed on south to Union Island.

Union Island

Union Island is the last of the St. Vincent Grenadines.  The Grenadines are divided between St. Vincent and Grenada.  We really only stopped in Union to check out of the country – but ended up landing in Frigate Bay for a great anchorage filled with kite boarders.  Mark looked into getting some lessons, but never did get it scheduled.  While we didn’t particularly love the town of Clifton, the east end that includes the Yacht Club and the kiteboarding school were just our laid-back speed.  We are already making plans to go back up before the winds die down – and at least one of us will finally be getting those kite boarding lessons!  Maybe both of us…

Carriacou

After a week in Carriacou, the first of the Grenadian Grenadines, we deemed it our favorite island.  Our quick “schedule” required us to leave all of our friend boats behind and left us in a bay almost full of empty boats.  Apparently Tyrrel Bay is the place to leave your boat for hurricane season.  While we did meet a few cruisers, we were pretty excited when we met a couple who live on Carriacou full time and invited us to the beach on a Sunday.  (Do not underestimate the benefits of drinking too much at Pizza Night and inviting yourself to other peoples tables…) Not the kind of people to turn down a trip to an island (in a FAST boat, no less!) with drinking and cricket on the menu (the game, not a snack), we jumped in and had a blast.  We met several other people who were either born in Carriacou or Grenada – as well as others who’ve made the area their homes.  Meeting people who live on the islands full time gives us exactly the perspective we’re looking for when we visit.  We don’t just want to hit the beaches and areas easily accessible by sailboat – we want to TRULY see these islands and get to know the people who live here.

Grenada

After leaving the States in November, we finally rolled into Grenada around June 1st.  And let me just say – this is my favorite island!  Yes.  I told you it’s the theme of this post.  And Carriacou is still a top contender!  With Carriacou just a boat hop away, why choose?  The people of this country have been warm and welcoming.  The landscape is varied – from beaches to waterfalls, with veggies and fruits in between.  We have everything we can possibly need.  After 2 weeks, which included a visit from Savannah friends, we are nestling in nicely.  New local and boat friends are being made, old boat friends are beginning to arrive.  Projects are getting sorted and planned.  More than anything, we are resting, relaxing and getting to know our immediate surroundings.  There may’ve even been a little real estate shopping happening.  But don’t worry, we still have more islands to visit before we give up this amazing sailing life!

Why So Fast?

Ultimately, the reason we basically FLEW down to Grenada was for our insurance company. Insurance companies went a little overboard after #Irmaria.  Because we had to renew our policy in November – right in the midst of the post-storm claims, we were required to not only stay out of the Hurricane Box until November 30 vs November 1st, but we were also required to get south by June 1st, vs July 1st. That means our hurricane season has grown from 4 months to 6 months.  And while we’ve been chastised by more than one cruiser for actually listening to our insurance company, neither of us is willing to risk our home for an extra couple of weeks eating delicious French foods.  Add to it that we’d never been to Grenada, and we were happy to hop down and dig into this gorgeous country.  Being in one spot will give us the time to explore the waterfalls and beaches, get to know local people, and provide a landing spot for friends who’ve been trying to figure out how to visit us.  (Check out True Blue Bay Resort if you want to come visit!  We can grab a mooring ball right there in the bay and have a drink by the pool 🙂  )

What’s Next?

Wondering what is going to happen when we leave Grenada?  Well, we are too.  We are tentatively planning to hop back up to the USVI’s and then make our way south again – more slowly exploring those places we loved and the places we skipped.  Or we could go all the way up and spend hurricane season in the States next year, before dropping south and hitting Mexico, Costa Rica, etc.  We can’t really even BEGIN to plan that far ahead.  But in the meantime, if you need us, we’ll be down here bobbing around on our little boat in the Caribbean Sea. Cheers!

About Author

Jennifer

Artist, food nerd, SUP/yoga enthusiast and travel obsessed blogger – chronicling the process of going from land to sea. Selling all of her worldly possessions so that she can set sail into the sunset with her husband and two dachshunds – searching for that next sunrise paddle. Follow along. It’ll be fun 🙂

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