We had very happy Easter with family & friends as 4 very excited kids went scampering around a little beach in Deshais, Guadeloupe in search of Easter treats!

We then took our new crew of family Ward in search of volcanoes in Montserrat. Where not 1 but 3 volcanoes awaited us. We pulled up & anchored off Rendesvous bay after a 5 hour sail downwind. A poorly 2 year old didn’t stop family Ward enjoying the first cruise & their eldest Jack (5) fell quickly in with Lily, though they aren’t in love apparently.

A jump in to snorkel and explore the busy reef before sunset was the perfect end to a busy day. Slightly worried Lily would knock off her respiratory drive I had to keep reminding our part mermaid to breath…always useful.

Despite the bank holiday we were stunned to meet the Caribbean’s friendliest port authority & immigration team! Montserrat quite literally rocked.

Levels of organisation were high for team Ward & we’d even pre arranged a island tour with Joe Phillips. A local legend, who is obviously very passionate about his Island & the history of the world renowned volcano that wiped out 2/3 of the island and busy thriving communities during our lifetime. We made a trip into the exclusion zone and now deserted capital city of Plymouth which has been buried under a mountain of ash following successive eruptions over 20+ years. 4 story buildings, hotels, businesses, churches and the capital Plymouth have been engulfed since 1997. A whole golf course, roads and bridges were buried and swept into the ocean in a mudslide in 1997. Parts of the island have been extended hundreds of metres by the flow of material into the sea.

Joe’s before and after shots help set the scene & highlight the devastation & full force of nature. Scientists initially believed the dome formation & collapse cycles which see 2 container loads of lava produced every second would stop after 5 years. 20+ years later none of the criteria for rendering the volcano inactive have been met. The magma chamber is still growing despite no recent dome growth. The observatory was a particularly exciting visit for me. It reminded me that as a teenager I wanted to be a volcanologist! The last major dome callapse and eruption of the cauliflower shaped plumes of pyroclastic flow occurred in 2010. Travelling a 100km/hr the gases, rocks and firey hot debris destroyed everything in their path.

It was a surreal experience and great geography lesson when we could get Harry away from having his nose in his kindle. Pretty tricky to appreciate the sometimes subtle changes to the landscape if you’re a kid. Particularly hunting for glimpses of houses. Jack remained amazingly attentive as-long as he could but for the 2-5 year olds it was a big day!

A beach bar trip was a welcome end to the day before a quick wakeboard to burn off some energy. Just before sunset we decided to make the night sail downwind to St Barths. This approach seemed a lot fairer on the kids, especially as poor Jack was coming down with his brothers bug.

Pulling into Isle de Fortune for breakfast we were pretty happy with our night crossing call & so we’re the kids when they could bomb in for a snorkel with an array of fish, stingray, turtles and a reported nurse shark sighting. Poorly kids had a chilled day & made attempts to bounce back with a lot of hydration & calpol. A good night sleep for all was just what the doctor ordered.

Exploration of St Barths then commenced.

The kids have wandered around the streets of Gustavia with all its finery, they danced on tables over lunch in Nikki’s like any self respecting under 7s and chilled out at Shell beach, which is some feat as it seems to have its own climate 5degrees C above elsewhere on the Island. I may have used 1 of my self allowed 10 alcohol tickets for the year after nearly 3 months off the booze. But the couple of cocktails were worth it with great friends.

Whilst St Barths is mostly in full swing evidence of last year’s devastating hurricane season are still evident in corners of the island. As it is such a wealthy island the bounce back has been quick but a few hotels are yet to reopen & a walk to Toiny beach or Grande Cul de Sac reminds you that a lot of damage was done.

Captain Chris fitted in Hobie cat tours with the full rabble of kids off St Jean beach. Many a screech of delight was had. Wardy met up with “Serial divers” and passed the diving mantle onto Katie & myself promising us sights of spotted eagle rays, sharks and barracudas. We both got our dive back on after many years hiatus. Emmanuel was a fab instructor. An hours dive around the rocks off Gustavia gave us plenty to see and time to get our skills back up. The first of many more dives on this trip I hope.

Wardy had very kindly taken charge of the 4 kids for the morning as Chris was racing in Les Voiles St Barths. Whilst Katie & I did our dive, the kids spotted nurse sharks off the dock, skate boarded and caused mischief. None gave Ward the runaround as much as Theo -captain Chaos himself. My new favourite 2 year old. Wanting to fish gaze a bit more gravity got the better of him & he took a full dive off the dock quickly followed by Ward! Cheers came from the other 3 for great dives! The morning continued in a similar vein with a trip to the race village. The kids returned with dog poop on their flip flops due to some irresponsible dog owner….or was it?! Turns out Theo’s morning was epic! Wardy then continued Hasslehoff style rescue missions most of the afternoon as he dived in for various paraphernalia.

Flamingo float delights, croissants and ice creams sealed off a banging 10 days. The Wards will be well pleased with a shower,beds to themselves and escaping “Frau Brown” and her boat rules!! We’ve loved having you, miss you already & see you in Panama….

In preparation for Chris coming back after 2weeks away, Tom & I moved the good ship north to Rodney Bay from Marigot bay St.Lucia. The captain returned for a surf just off Pigeon Island while the kids & I did a small hike around the historical fort.

We then left St.Lucia behind and skipped 4 hours north across to Martinique for the night. This gave us an opportunity to stock up on our favourite French treats and hook up with Party of 5 and Nomadica. We wish Cheryl & Morgan all love on the arrival of their baby boy Gael Kai!!

A shitty problem delayed departure. We tried to source a part for our French cat in the French marina surrounded by a whole lot of other French cats. It wasn’t to be, but the loo needs fixing before we stink out next months guests, including Chris’s parents…

In a very cruisy 12-18knts and moderate sea we set off round the south east tip & north up the windward side of Martinique dodging lobster pots as we went. Beating up past Dominica we had to motor some of the way, but we did make 181nm in a little over 25hrs & got the chute up for the last hour and a half as our angle into port freed off. Would you believe we even caught a few fish!! But the Barry barracudas lived to swim another day as we aren’t keen to risk ciguatera.

We headed @ to Port Louis in Guadeloupe. It’s a slow fishing village with a long boardwalk perfectly poised on the beach to see the sand bottomed right hand point breaks which littered the coast. Surfers heaven! A place we’d stay for a month if we had the chance. We squeezed in a run, dawn surf and showers before heading out to Antigua. Chris had a evening flight to catch…

Another glamour sail, we reached across with gennaker in 10-18knts which felt like my idea of proper cruising! Falmouth harbour awaited us & the kids were fizzing to see friends from our hurricane camp and get their fish on!

Harry was over the moon to see his friends after 6 months anticipating his return here. He was rewarded by talking Ollie into taking him dirt biking followed by the best food we’ve eaten in 6 months.

Lily was equally thrilled to see her buddy Cade after a few years, & I his gorgeous Mum. Not forgetting cruising friends on Pierina who we outsourced maths homework to & generally keep mini- Draper’s highly entertained.

Having never visited Antigua in season, it’s a little bit of a culture shock & this is apparently a slow week….But it’s so good to be back here & I can’t tell you how good it is to see familiar faces. Despite a few rolly nights on anchor with an odd westerly, we’re hoping we’ll avoid a hurricane this time.

After a fantastic 10 days Tom headed back to the UK. So now we are 3 again. If you are @ in Antigua we’d love to catch up. For now I’m hoping I might swing a ride for race week somehow or other!

Misadventure:

-Someone pee’d the bed which meant full clean & dry of the 2 mattresses on the bed. Whilst re-anchoring 1 mattress flew off resulting in impromptu man-overboard practice…

-Is sharpening pencils some weird skill reserved for 5 yr olds??!

Its been a while! My comms weren’t helped by sending my phone on a mission to the ocean floor and quite frankly I’ve been all out of chat for a while. Changing situations at home and within our cruising community here in Grenada have rocked us a little. Having your plans/goals or even life cut short by things out of your control seems so unfair. All the goings on have made us realise that truly the time is now and that tomorrow isn’t promised. Its time to bounce back from this survivors guilt and blog on….

Unlike in any other kind of sailing rainy days have curbed play here in Grenada! We’re anchored in Prickly Bay with wave access when the surf is on.  The good news is that the water monitor (Lily) is pretty pleased with how much rainwater she has got in the tank. Our plans to trickle back up to Carriacou, and the Grenadines for the rest of the hurricane season have been slightly delayed by crappy weather. Now we’re tinkering around and upping out battery bank in this down time.

Chris was recently away in Europe again and my Mum made a last minute decision to come and join the kids and I for a week! It flew by and we were all delighted to see her and show her our new home. As usual she came armed with plenty for the kids to do. Despite over 30 years experience as a science teacher, she admitted she’d rather teach a class of 32 kids over our 2 any day…. Nevertheless the kids loved the experiments, bread-making and art. Hopefully next time my Dad will join us too.

Definitely its time for some half-term fun next week and a week away from the dry books that Harry is working through. I was thinking about our previous life and thinking how bazaar that the time the kids spend on “school”  is about equal to how much time they used to spend in the car each day. Without the car journeys there is a whole lot of time for reading, lego, playing, fishing, surfing, skirfing and generally being kids without so much structure. It’s also so nice to have time to say yes a whole lot more. Yes we can play dominoes/cards/chess/life or whatever, yes we can paint at some ridiculous hour of the morning, yes we can get up at 2AM to watch the meteor shower. Yes you can actually have some attention! Don’t worry we haven’t suddenly become the Brady bunch!! I am beginning to worry a little less over the “normal life” things they are missing out on though.

Harry has been delighted that some “bigger” kids have been “knocking” for him and taking him for adventures in the bay in their sailing dinghy. Lily has been beside herself that she can’t go and to add insult to injury the surf has been too big for her too…oh the injustice of being 4! We did let her do some kitesurfing with Daddy and throw herself off at the Annandale waterfalls though.

Other news of the last few weeks is that I fell off the boat at night whilst Chris was away! I don’t suppose the glass of vino or 2 helped my cat like reflexes whilst trying to sort the tender out but everyone survived to tell the tale and Harry is now up-skilled in mayday etiquette and location recording. Feeling left out a few days later, Harry lunged off the dinghy and not quite onto the boat in decent sized swell. Obviously this was entirely my fault and I have not forgotten it, a scare that did everyone good I think!! In general both the kids are doing incredibly well at managing themselves around the tender and boat but its never a bad thing to be reminded of the need to respect our surroundings.

Roll on getting cruising again and back to the Grenadines!!

Wow has it really been 2 weeks since we arrived in the Caribbean cruisers hurricane hideout of Grenada??

In that time Chris left me flying solo and in charge of the boat baby for a week. In reality it was a soft start as he spent the 1st 2 days hanging out at Grenada airport with cancelled flights as hurricane Maria hurtled up the Caribbean.

The best part of this lush mountainous spice Island for Harry, has been the chance to catch up with Tom & the Garret family that we met in the BVIs. Lily also found a beautiful kindred spirit in Dasha (6), who’d just moved aboard from LA. Secret harbour provided a welcome sanctuary from swell and wind. The pool, volleyball courts and grounds were a great escape for the kids. Harry also went all swallows and amazons hanging out on an island with his buddies for a few hours.

School Draper organised a field trip around the Island with team Garret. The kids carried out some thorough research on what % cocoa they are prepared eat in their chocolate. The big hitter of the day was scaling the waterfalls. Pete did nearly fractured a few vertebrae sliding down the falls under heavy peer pressure of our guide. It was his own fault of course for not pushing off to miss the 4ft horizontal ledge at the bottom….A better H&S assessment needed for our next trip! However, everyone did come home with their shoes!

The local cruising community down in Secret a Harbour is very active. Everything going on can be heard on “The Net” each morning. For me, Janine & Pete were ace. Not sure I really made much headway with the rest of the cruising crowd down there this time, though I did make it out on a hike with the Grenada hashers in Etang national park. My local buddy JJ, swinging his cutlass, kept me entertained and safe from the odd sheer drop. Did I mention that I’m massively missing my running buddies??!!

We’ve also spent some time in Prickly Bay, just to the West. Some cheeky surf sessions a few hundred metres from the boat with perfect waves for the kids made everyone happy! The quiz at the Tiki bar really did up the academic anti- safe to say we weren’t much help this week.

Since Chris arrived back we snuck North to Carriacou. I’d just like to say I nailed my wind prediction that we’d have 35knts! A sneaky storm cell gave us an exhilarating ride, not so conducive to handwriting practice though. We spent 2 nights in Tyrells Bay, had some epic rotis from our bus lady and are looking forward to exploring more. We then nipped upto Union Island in the Grenadines. Despite some anxiety about Union, having read Noonsite, we received a super warm welcome as soon as we hit the shore at Anchorage Yacht Club. I swear you’d never go anywhere if you read every review on the Internet.

The anchorage really does look like the real idyllic deal. A massive ray greeted us as we dived the anchor and there are reefs and stunning islands a plenty. Whilst many places are closed until 1st Nov, the “snack shack” and fruit & veg sellers on the Main Street have us well sorted. The kids have also resisted any dognapping so far, but heaven help the mutts if they don’t have a collar…

This weekend has been a gem. Stoked to have finally got the kiting toys out of the bag in Union and at the stunning Tobago Cays. We explored random deserted islands, in search of whatever natural phenomena we could find and dined on lobster. Sunsets a plenty. Loving our home right now…

Misadventure
Kid stuff these last few weeks-
Molluscum contagiousum
Impetigo
(Time for a few showers???!)