Friday, 2 Mar: Woke up to find ourselves still surrounded by the beautiful blue water of Petit St.Vincent, private island paradise. So inviting for a morning wake-up swim. Last evening, because we arrived late, we only saw the resort in the twilight of dusk, and in the dark as we strolled through it mid-evening. But this morning it looks really special with manicured gardens and lawns running down to the white beaches. Last evening we saw that the daily rate is US$1,500 a night, and they told us they are full – yet we hardly see anyone around.
We take the dinghy in and fly the drone. We struggled yesterday to get the brightness of the drone camera correct. The images were generally under exposed making the palm trees look a dark green. After that, Glen did some reading so we try again to perfect it. The flight goes well until he flies it all the way along the beach without realizing the drone is actually 700m away around the other side of the island!
Then the signal to the drone is lost and Glen nearly had a heart attack! But after a few panicky seconds the automatic “fly-home” function kicks-in and he waits on the end of the jetty to catch sight of it. It was likely only a minute but it seemed an age before it appeared over the landing spot and touched down perfectly where it had taken off from.
Playing back the video, the drone has cut directly across the hill in the middle of the island. It is programmed to return at 30m … but each time it arrived at a higher tree it stopped, hovered upwards then continued. This happened a few times until it was clear of the hill – clever thing eh? And the view that it took by itself on return was spectacular! After the flight we walk along the white deserted beach to the end of the island, passing the occasional hotel guest nesting in a chair or hammock among the trees. Definitely a classy resort, this one.
After a short swim at the boat, where the current is so strong that we can hardly swim against it, we head off in the dinghy to see the stand-alone palm sunshade in the middle of the sand bank. We don’t have it to ourselves, there are some French people already there, but nonetheless it’s quite a special place, this small sand island, barely 30m across, in the middle of a coral sea. We swim for a while and walk all the way around the island (!) but then head back to CB as there is a large black cloud heading our way.
After a midday snack we up-anchor heading for the Tobago Cays. We gently sail away from Petit St.Vincent under full main and genoa. The wind is only 5-7 knots, the lightest we have experienced since arriving in the Caribbean, and we even have to motor a while to ensure we clear the reef to the east of Palm island.
Tobago Cay is a national park, and uninhabited reef and island complex. Go and Google some aerial photos of it – it’s quite something. But this also means, in high season, as it is, that it’s over crowded with yachts. And today is no exception, especially in these calmer conditions. We find a spot to anchor in among the other yachts just before sunset. Right now it just looks like a crowded anchorage – but we hope it will come alive and reveal itself when the sun is up tomorrow.