Sunday, 4 Mar: We awake to cloudy skies. It’s actually nice not to have the intensity of the full sun for a change. The winds are light, so today we will attempt to fly the drone from the yacht. We clear the decks; fishing rod, runners, topping lift all put away and boom moved over to one side, leaving the aft deck as clear as we can get it for take-off and landing. After a bit of a debate about today’s flight plan, Glen nervously takes off from the top of the aft cabin and clears away from the boat… then comes around and back in for a landing. Phew, that wasn’t so difficult. After second take off it flies off around each of the 3 islands, with views over the Tobago Cay reefs. As we playback the footage Oana comments that there are various items lying around the deck and cockpit – so we have a bit of house cleaning before another flight!
While getting ready we spot the Dutch couple whom we met in Hillsborough, coming passed in their dinghy, and we invite them on board for a drink and chat. Interestingly, they also used to have a J22 which they bravely cruised to Denmark and Germany. Hmmm the thought of living in our J22, MaiJay!! Well, let’s face it, it would be more like camping.
Once they are on their way we fly the drone again then head ashore to climb the hill on 2 of the islands, Jamesby & Petit Bateau. (Note to readers: sorry for all this drone talk …. don’t worry, we are sure the enthusiasm for this new toy will soon fall down!)
The first island, Jamesby, is really cute, with a lovely sandy beach backed by coconut trees. We haul the dinghy up the beach (our daily workout!) and tie it to a palm-tree. We find a foot path and decide to follow it up the hill. Flip-flops were not the ideal footwear to climb the hill, but once up, the view over the Cays was great. And the island has lots of large iguanas, most quite tame. We are also surprised to see they climb in the canopy on top of trees!
Onto the next island, Petit Bateau, we do the same. Again, lovely view, iguanas and lots of birds. This is the island where we had the BBQ lobster last night. But today there is the massive Club-Med cruise liner anchored off the island, and lots of its guests have some ashore, so it’s not the quiet quaint place that it was yesterday.
Back on Cloudy Bay we have a quick lunch then raise anchor and head off windward to World’s End reef. But when we get there we decide it can only be a day-anchorage, so we head to Petit Tabac island. 3 yachts are already here, in the very small anchorage, but we manage to squeeze in OK. Just need to cross fingers that the wind doesn’t change, or we will be on the reef!
Petit Tabac is a very small deserted reef island where the desert scene in Pirates of the Caribbean, Curse of the Black Pearl was filmed. But it’s too late to go ashore tonight. That will be to look forward to in the morning.