"KALEIDOSCOPE"

Picture a kaleidoscope.
Fill it with turquoise water, bright blue skies,
green palm trees and a golden sun
- lovely colours tumbling around,
reflecting smiles and laughs.

In the mood for a couple of turns of our kaleidoscope?

You’ll meet more of our cruising buddies,
some good friends from Canada,
and a family member or two.
And there just might be an island beach along the way.

We left Carriacou in mid-January.
On the way north, we ran into good cruising friends
Charles on ‘Margaret Sharon’ and Kathy and Greg on ‘Indigo’.
The ladies love Charles because he has a ready smile
and he likes to dance.

Here’s Charles dancing on the beach with Kathy and me,
in Friendship Bay, Bequia.

 All the husbands like Charles as well.

One reason might be that he likes to dance
and thus keeps the ladies happy?

The reason for dancing on the beach in Bequia
(not that we need a reason)

was the Bequia Mount Gay Music Fest

and Saturday’s free concert.

Our chosen vantage point changed when a group of young ladies

set up a table in front of us.

The blog photographer called this next photo ‘Rum Bums’.

Look what they were setting up. Mount Gay. Free tasting.

Here’s Greg, Kathy’s husband, checking out the choices with me.
Decisions, decisions.

So. No more pictures of that afternoon.
But there was definitely more dancing. It’s a bit of a blur.

Goodbye to Bequia and on to St. Lucia
to meet up with Dave and Rose Johnston
who were flying in to join us for ten days.
Their arrival night was a party on Beach House.
Fourteen people brought food and libations.
There wasn’t a shrinking violet to be found.
Lots of stories and lots of laughs.

Two days later we headed to Martinique with Dave and Rose.
It was a boisterous sail.

The seas were bigger than the pictures indicate,
with the wind at 20-25 knots, gusting higher.

A great day on the water.

We checked in at Marin, did a walkabout and had lunch.

Ste. Anne is just a short motor around the corner.

The public dinghy docks in the French islands are magnifique.
What a pretty little town.

Next day, Dave took the wheel to take us along the south coast of Martinique.

We passed Diamond Rock and headed up the west coast

to Grande Anse D’Arlet.

 

It was fun to play tourist, walking along the beachside promenade,
stopping for a cool one when needed.
Our last Martinique stop with Rose and Dave was Fort de France,

the capital of the island.

We walked and shopped.

And walked and shopped.

One more turn of the kaleidoscope finds us further up island in Antigua
to meet our daughter, Jodi, and our grandson, Max.

No sooner did Max come aboard and he turned into Gilligan.
But we did a little more than a three hour tour.

On the first full day we took the bus into St. John’s.
Here are the requisite tourist shots.

Next day we were off to the beach where Max gave body-surfing a try.

Grandpa taught Max the ins and outs of driving the dinghy.

He became our number one driver for the rest of the week.

 

And having visitors gave us the chance to see more of Antigua
than we had previously. We rented a car and hit the road.

So much of Eastern Caribbean history

and economy is tied to sugar cane.
Betty’s Hope Plantation is a rustic example of what life was like here
in Antigua for hundreds of years.

Devil’s Bridge is a limestone arch, formed by the pounding

of the Atlantic Ocean over the centuries.
Numerous blowholes surround the arch.

No tour of Antigua is complete without a stop at Shirley Heights
where the view of English and Falmouth Harbours speaks for itself.

Shirley Heights is part of Nelson’s Dockyard National Park.

The grounds and buildings are beautifully kept.

And the museum had a surprise for Max.

Antigua boasts 365 beaches, one for every day of the year,

so we wanted to get Beach House to one more
before the end of Max and Jo’s visit.

What a lovely sail from Jolly Harbour to Deep Bay.
Gentle winds, calm seas, and only five miles. Perfect.

Time for some fun in the water for Frogman Max.

Then a walk.

No beach visit is complete without the ‘dinghy shot’.

No dinghy shot is allowed to stay so normal.

Here's hoping Jodi and Max enjoyed their Antiguan vacation.

We did!