St. Vincent

Katherine Petting Cool Breeze at Gary's Farm

If you like remote unspoiled destinations, then definitely get the courage to visit St. Vincent. This is a large island in the West Indies that is still untouched from massive tourism, resorts, and shopping. Most people on the island do their own farming and many are fishermen. St. Vincent is another fruit paradise, it’s lush, green, and mountainous. This Island is discreetly known for it’s Ganja (Marijuana) farming and that might be one of the reasons that negative opinions have spread around about St. Vincent. However, locals have been more friendly, giving, and loving than many other islands in this region.

Earthling was anchored in Cumberland bay for 11 days and during this time we got to know almost everyone in this area. It has been easy to bond with the locals and some are going to be friends for life like our new friend Gary. He lives in Coulls Hill and his farm is further up the hill in a valley. Gary invited me to go farming with him and the invitation was accepted. We had a full farming day and did chores, such as moving animals (goats, sheep, horses, cows) and tied them up in different grassy places. I climbed mango trees and picked some of the biggest and tastiest mango ever seen, dug out and filled bags with freshly made charcoal and a variety of other vegetables. On the way home down the hill, I carried an overloaded backpack and another large bag full of mango, bananas, pineapples, wax apples, peppers, green onion, eggplants, limes, and so forth. Nobody should go hungry on this Island and it’s certainly easy to live on the minimum resources available.              

Gary moving around the goat

Lime Tree

Mango bigger than my hand

Digging up Charcoal

Avocado Tree

Cacao Tree

Roads are few and far many here. Even though distances are short, it might take longer than expected to get around since there is lots of hills. One should not be afraid of riding the minivan that zooms through turns with full passenger capacity (15-18 people) in a minivan as the Rasta music is jamming! After all, this is the best way to get around on a budget while having the most fun!

There are many waterfalls on this Island and we got to hike to one with our cruising friends and neighbors Mike and Rebecca. The hike to the Trinity Falls took longer than originally anticipated but it was well wroth it! Trinity Falls is spectacular and unique, the pressure of the water in the fall is so strong that swimming would be dangerous and obviously not recommended. Even so, this group of Earthlings was not afraid to dip in the fresh water to get the sweat off after a several hours of hiking! Please be careful if you want to be crazy like us!

Trinity Falls

Bath by the Falls

Mike is loving it

Katherine behind the Elephant Paw Leaves

A couple days ago Katherine and I went on a dinghy adventure and rowed to the bay south of Cumberland, Wallilabou. The distance was underestimated since last time Mike zoomed there on his tender. Rowing 45 min each way was a great exercise but more importantly we met a friend of Earthling, the French Trimaran “Margaret”. It seemed like “Margaret” has been anchored in Wallilabou for a long time, the anchor lines had lots of growth on them! We sat down with Eric and his wife at the Anchor house and over a couple of drinks, they explained that Eric had suffered a serious staff infection. A mosquito bite on his leg was the cause of the infection and he had to be on antibiotics for three weeks. Now he was almost back to normal health and the following day was their last day in St. Vincent. He suggested that we have a BBQ at the local beach bar run by Rasto. Done deal! The following day a great local BBQ was put together for Eric and we enjoyed some delicious food along with the entourage. Wallilabou has also become an attraction site since the recording of the movie, “Pirates of the Caribbean” took place here where remanence of the stage is still on display.

Stage Canon

Grilled Crayfish

Coffins

Eric, Rasto and I Uniting

Furthermore, it appears that staff infection is common in the boating environment.  Sandflies have been eating us alive here, especially since we are anchored so close to shore near an old mango tree! The solution is to clean all the bites regularly with alcohol and stay on top of your hygiene!

Love from St. Vincent