Sailing in the Eastern Caribbean

 The Eastern Caribbean - sometimes referred to as the Lesser Antilles or Windward Islands - is a chain of islands running north to south at the eastern edge of the Caribbean Sea. It is comprised of seven independent nations, including Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. In May we ventured to the island of St. Vincent with four friends to embark on a 10-day sailing trip from Kingstown to St. George's, Grenada. The Eastern Caribbean is apparently not a hot destination for people in the western U.S. based on flight routes and connecting schedules. We arrived only a little worse for wear after our 18 hour journey. 

We gave ourselves a free day in Kingstown to explore the city before picking up the boat and sailing away. Our ride from the airport into town was a great introduction to traffic rules (or lack thereof), narrow island roads, and island scenery. We arrived in the late afternoon just as schools were getting out so there was no shortage of vehicle, person, and animal dodging to get into town. We stayed at the Grenadine House, originally built in 1763 to house the British officials serving the Crown. The building has had many lives since then, including as the hub for the Pirate's of the Caribbean cast. The property is nestled amongst the surrounding vegetation, overlooking the city and the harbor. It was a lovely setting with amazing staff that took care of us and gave us lots of local insights on culture and everyday life. 

Original stone wall from 1763

The big attraction (for me) in Kingstown was the botanic garden. It was established in 1765, making it the oldest botanic garden in the western hemisphere. The garden was initially established to grow native plants used by locals for medicinal purposes to support the British military and improve the economy of the colony. At the far end of the garden, there is a breadfruit tree grown from one of the original saplings brought to the Caribbean from Tahiti by Captain William Bligh (of Mutiny on the Bounty fame). The garden is also home to a captive breeding program for the Saint Vincent amazon, an endemic parrot that is listed as a vulnerable species by the IUCN. The garden included a wide range of local and exotic species from around the world. Pete's favorite find was a bin full of chunks of wood that had been trimmed from various trees. My favorite was the cannonball tree, a stately tree covered in ornate flowers. It was also a lively home for multiple species of lizards. We were adjusting to the very hot and humid conditions, so the botanic garden was a perfect outing that was cooler than the surrounding streets and provided shade when we needed a break. 

breadfruit tree

cannonball tree flower

green bin explorations

We walked down into the heart of the city, navigating the narrow roads that provide the stage for Vincy Van Culture. The minibuses are a main stay for local transport around the island. They stand apart from the other transport vans with their colorful designs, and are hard to miss as they careen down streets, honking and music blaring, and often one or two people hanging out of various windows to make space for more. Sidewalks were few and far between and were more often flanked by one to two foot deep stormwater gutters. St. Mary's Cathedral sits at the edge of the town center on a busy corner, but is quiet as soon as your pass through the gate. For a cathedral, it is a small structure that manages to pack a punch with a mix of architectural styles that feel ad hoc, at best. The courtyards outside the church were beautiful and a green sanctuary for residents, students, and parishioners. From the church, we strolled through open air markets, around the port, and eventually back up through the steep streets to our neighborhood on a hill. 

narrow streets with deep gutters

food garden nestled amongst the colorful houses

colonial architecture in Kingstown

St. Mary's Cathedral

cathedral courtyard

Rested and ready for the next part of our adventure, we met up with our friends for all things sailing. After we dropped our gear at the boat charter office, we divided the team into the provisioning crew and the orientation crew for expediency. Kingstown was likely to have the supermarkets with the widest selection of goods for the entire trip, so we aimed to get as many of our supplies as possible. We would likely be able to find small markets with fresh produce along the way to restock, but specialty items - like gluten free foods for me - were not going to be common elsewhere. After three supermarket and two produce market stops, we had crossed nearly everything off our list. The orientation crew was still deep into their briefing when we returned and would be for nearly three hours total. The charter company owner was a font of knowledge about routes, anchorages, weather constraints, and sights not to miss. 

Hoping for a midday departure so we could do a few hours of sailing, we enthusiastically carried all our gear down to the dock. And then waited. And waited. And waited some more. There was another boat leaving that day, but it was having loads of mechanical issues. Unfortunately, that meant they could not bring our boat to the dock to load. Eventually, they ended up ferrying us and our gear to the boat while it was on the mooring so we could get on our way. Just before 3 pm, we were off on our adventure on our 42 foot lagoon catamaran, Ulysses. We did a short sail to the next island, Bequia, with our remaining daylight. We quickly settled into a rhythm and our days took on a similar pattern: slowish mornings, sailing to our next destination, snorkeling and/or a walk where possible, beverages on the beach, and delicious dinners on the boat.  

catching our dinner

fixing broken stuff

As we sailed south, the effects of the July 2024 Hurricane Beryl - the largest hurricane to directly hit the islands in over 100 years - became much more visible, both on land and underwater. Union Island was the most heavily impacted island. From a distance, the island stuck out because it looked brown from afar compared to all the other lush green islands. As we got closer, the island was brown because nearly all the leaves had been stripped from the trees, leaving a skeleton forest behind. Underwater, the reef was in rough shape. In many places, it looked like it had been sandblasted, if it was not reduced to rubble. There were still a lot of fish, surprisingly, and some healthy populations of sponges on the leeward sides of the islands. 

remnants of a restaurant on Union Island

barren hillside of Union Island

remains of a church on Mayreau 

reefs turned to rubble

baby gorgonian sea fan on the barren reef

 

There was also a lot of infrastructure damage from the hurricane, particularly on Union, which contributed to an issue we had not anticipated...water availability. Our boat was equipped with a water maker, but it was not in working order, so we had hoped to refill our freshwater tank every 2-3 days so we did not have to worry about rationing. The sailing book listed water availability at a number of harbors. The briefing did not include any warnings about water availability, so we were not concerned. We filled the tank at a crazy fancy yacht harbor on Canouan. It seemed so out of place compared to everything we had seen to that point. A few of our group were excited that one of the yachts in the harbor was from the show "Below Decks." Our top up on day 3 turned out to be our last water fill until the end of our trip! Fortunately everyone was up for the challenge of conserving our freshwater for drinking and rinsing dishes and using salt water for everything else. We were likely more conservative than we needed to be, but none of us trusted the accuracy of the water gauge. We had a few other mechanical issues with the boat, but thanks to our crack team that included mechanical and electrical engineers, we managed to deal with most of the problems until nearly the end. 

In spite of the damage to the reef, we did have some interesting snorkels. Tobago Cays is a turtle sanctuary and marine park made up of five small islands. We did a lot of snorkeling in the area and were rewarded with great encounters with turtles, rays, cuttlefish, and schools of fish. We also took turns taking the dinghy to the outer reef, which was quite lovely. The reef is a bit deeper there so it had less hurricane damage, and there was a greater variety of sea life out there. It also sounded like a coral reef, with lots of clicks and pops from the fish grazing the reef and critters communicating with each other.  

cuttlefish!

from Andrew's drone - look closely and you can see
our dinghy and possibly two people swimming along the reef

We spent the better part of our last two days of the trip in marinas on Grenada because the generator would not start, so we had little power unless the engine was running. Along with our low water resources, we decided to make our lives easier and hook up to shore power and water. We spent our last night at Le Phare Bleu, a lovely marina on the south coast of Grenada that had a nice restaurant and pool, as well as an old lighthouse ship from Sweden. Perhaps most importantly for our fellow passengers, we got to have proper showers before our flight home. 

Swedish lighthouse ship

An Eastern Sierra redo

 In October 2020 not long after the first round of COVID restrictions were lifted in California, we headed to the Eastern Sierras for our first pandemic-era outing. We both look back fondly on that trip, but have wondered if it was truly great or if it is inflated in our memories because we had been housebound for over seven months. Last October, we decided to go back to answer that question. 

We had a slightly different route this time, in large part because we only had a week instead of three. We stuck to the northern part of our previous route, including Lundy Canyon, Mammoth, and the White Mountains. We added a stay at Pete's family camp near Calavaras Big Trees at the beginning and a drive through Yosemite on the way home. 

As we travelled east over the Sierras and north towards Lundy Canyon, two differences from our previous trip were already emerging. Firstly, we were going to be sharing our time with many more people than in 2020; and secondly, temperatures were 10-15F warmer during the day and night, so we were not going to have to worry about our water and food freezing overnight. We had hoped to find a camping spot at the US Forest Service campground near Lundy Lake, but all the spots were taken by the time we arrived. The aspens had started to turn, so fall foliage tourism was in full swing. Lundy Lake Resort, just a bit further up the road, still had a few campsites so we opted for one of those rather than driving to Lee Vining and staying at the private campground we stayed at in 2020. 

Lundy Canyon was just as spectacular as we remembered. We hiked from our campsite to the trailhead to stretch our legs. The afternoon sun made the aspens glow. The dirt road to the trailhead had been damaged in recent storms in a couple places, which was going to make navigating in our not-very-high clearance nano-van a bit challenging but likely doable. It was nice to be able to stand in the road, strategize a bit, and take some rough measurements (boot-high clearance required!) before driving up the next morning.  

We were up early the next morning to get to the trailhead before the limited parking spaces filled up. We made it through all the sketchy places on the road with the help of a couple of well-placed rocks. We had bluebird skies for our hike up the canyon. In 2020, we somehow lost the trail just as we got into the canyon and ended up wandering through the freshwater wetland to try to find our way. This time the trail was either more obvious or we were paying more attention, and we were able to continue much farther up the canyon. The golden foliage against the granitic peaks and the deep blue sky was spectacular. 

Our next stop was Mammoth and Devils Postpile. The site has been on my to see list for a number of years, but our last trip was too late in the season (it usually closes in late September or early October). This time the site was only accessible on weekends due to construction on the access road, so we hightailed it there after our Sunday hike in Lundy Canyon. The Postpile is made up of (mostly) hexagonal columns of basalt that formed when a lava lake cooled around 100,000 years ago. The hexagonal shapes are created as lava cools and changes from a liquid to solid state, a process called columnar jointing (fancy science words for cracks that release pressure). There are many other sites around the world where you can see this phenomenon, including the famous Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland (which is spectacular, partly because some of the columns descend into the ocean). The columns making up Devils Postpile can be seen from the side where they make up an impressive wall of vertical columns, along with more artistic swoops and horizontal columns. You can also hike to the top of the columns and see the extent of the columns beyond the initial layer that is visible from below. 

Our next and most anticipated stop was the ancient bristlecone pine forest in the White Mountains. We were able to camp at the US Forest Service campground a few miles down the hill from the visitor center on this trip, which was a vast improvement from the highway-side campground we stayed at in 2020. On our last visit, the visitor center was closed and we started the 5-mile loop hike about two hours before sunset, making for a brisk pace because of the fading daylight and plummeting temperatures. This time we listened to a talk by one of the docents and learned how the field of dendrochronology (using trees to understand historical climate) was advanced by the scientists studying bristlecone pines. Because the trees are so long lived, scientists have been able to create a record of over 8,000 years using cores from living and dead trees. Trees lay down a ring of cambium tissue for approximately every year of growth. The width of a tree ring give us clues about temperature and precipitation, which affect the growth rate of trees. Rings tend to be thinner during dry years and thicker during warm, rainy years. This annual growth pattern is present in other species as well, such as fish ear bones (otoliths) and coral reefs. These annual tree ring patterns can be used to match cores from different trees that were alive at the same time period for some portion of their lives. With that matching section, you can start to put together an additive chronology that is longer than the life of a single living tree and expand the chronology into the past using cores from dead trees. Dead trees are typically not a reliable source for cores, but the harsh conditions in the White Mountains mean that dead bristlecone pines decay very slowly, preserving the wood long after the trees die. 

The loop trail from the visitor center winds past the area where the oldest living bristlecone pine--the Methuselah tree--lives. It has weathered over 4,800 years of whatever Mother Nature has thrown their way, but due to the risk of vandalism from people, the tree is not marked in any way. Both times we've done the hike, we've tried to figure out where it is likely to be. We'll probably never know if we identified the correct location, but it is a fun mystery to try to solve while hiking along. Towards the end of the hike, the trail follows a north-facing slope populated only with bristlecone pines. The conditions are so harsh here that the bristlecones have no competition from other tree species. As the climate warms, scientists are worried this might change. Ponderosa and limber pine and white fir are all able to outcompete the bristlecone pine and may be able to gain a toehold with changing conditions. 

The campground at Grandview was sparsely populated and the campsites were spacious, giving us lots of room from our nearest neighbor, which is not always the case at a public campground. We got a lovely sunset, but a full moon meant no dark skies for us. Hopefully we'll time it better in that respect next time around. 

A stand of bristlecone pines on a north-facing slope - the environment is
so harsh that virtually nothing else is able to grow on these slopes

well-preserved bristlecone pine

"baby" bristlecone pine ~25 years old

Our next stop was Swall Meadows to see a friend. She took us to Rock Creek for a lovely hike. Even after being at elevation for five days, we could both feel the effects of a hike at 10,000 feet. An incoming weather system meant our trip over the Sierras might involve snow, so we cut our hike a bit short and made haste for Tioga Pass. It was snowing by the time we reached the Yosemite National Park entrance station, but not enough to close the road, fortunately. Our views of Yosemite were minimal through the snow and rain, but the trees in the Sequoia grove never disappoint. 

Trip #2 to the Eastern Sierras was just as lovely the second time around as the first, so it wasn't completely a COVID effect. I suspect the act of unplugging from the world was a common theme of both trips that made them immensely enjoyable. Maybe we'll do another redo again this fall...just to be sure.