12:35.66N 61:24.69W

Tuesday 5^th, Wednesday 6^th and Thursday 7^th April.

Chatham Bay is one the ultimate chill out bays. It is quite large enough that the few yachts that do stop here can moor well away from each other and there are no beach resorts to disturb the peace. In fact the few beach huts/restaurants here are very low profile and very basic indeed and so they make a very refreshing change to anything we have come across before.

There is a road down to the bay, well track is a better description and so for the most part the boat boys/ restaurant owners come here from Clifton in open boats each day. These establishments (there are three) are simply wooden huts of the garden shed variety with steel drums converted into BBQ’s. One or two have electricity so they can at least run a fridge. At the right hand end of the bay there is an altogether smarter complex being put together and this has a proper restaurant and bar with prices to match.

So on Tuesday we elected to have lunch ashore and having dragged the dinghy a little way up the beach we walked along the shore and visited each ‘restaurant’. In the end we choose Seakie’s mainly because he had Vanessa cooking and she inspired more confidence in us than any of the very chilled out guys at the other places! Vanessa had just finished making a special local soup (Callalou) and talked us into having that. Well the option was that or nothing... and it was really good as it happens. We then finished our stroll along the beach at Aqua (the new restaurant under construction still) and had a wonderful Tiramasu and coffees before returning to Serafina.

Following advice from Vanessa, we snorkelled out to the headland and were rewarded with some brilliant coral and any number of exotic species of fish as well as more turtles and even a moray eel.

The wind kept up all day and again all through the night, but the water stays flat which makes it perfectly comfortable here if a little noisy.

On Wednesday we were persuaded by Tim who runs Jerry’s bar (yes, very complicated) to have fresh lobster for dinner and so at 1800 hours we went ashore and settled ourselves down at one of his two tables. There was a French family at the other table and we were soon joined by Dennis and Sarah, a Welsh couple (well sort of, who Tim had ‘sold’ to us as English ) and were delighted to have then join us on our table. The lobsters were all cooked on the BBQ and this took forever, but the time passed quickly and we had a great meal even though the hurricane lamps barely allowed us to see each other let alone what we were eating (just as well perhaps?).

Before we had gone ashore though, we were treated to one of those special events and this time in addition to all the turtles heading off on their regular 1630 hrs tour of the bay, we had three Boobies feeding off the small fry that were swimming around the few boats here. Hard to photograph as they actually swoop so close to the boat and dive under the water, almost under the boat as well. The best pictures we could manage are at http://www.rhbell.com . But as well as all this, there were also some tuna feeding in the bay and so larger fish were all leaping and thrashing around trying to escape.

On Thursday morning we bade a reluctant farewell to Chatham bay but we will most certainly be back early next season. The 5 miles round to Clifton took no time at all and we were soon edging our way into this small town’s anchorage which is again formed courtesy of extensive coral reefs that keep the fury of the Atlantic at bay. Very little room really here and plenty of hazards for the unwary, but we are about to head off to Grenada which is another country again and so we have to clear out of St Vincent and the Grenadines first, and Clifton is the last place we can do this as we head south.

We went ashore in the dinghy and tied up on the yacht club dinghy dock and walked into the delightful little town. This is how I imagined so much of the Caribbean to be like and so I have been a bit disappointed until arriving in the Grenadines. Customs and Immigration are based out at the airport and so I set off there on foot. Not such a big deal as it is only about 400 yards to the short strip of tarmac that fills this role. The officials were all very pleasant and helpful and the absence of any computers here meant I had to complete all the forms by hand but this hardly seemed to matter as it was all so relaxed.

Good to have access to the internet again and we took advantage of this to catch up with emails and the like, whilst sitting out in the anchorage gazing out into the Atlantic across the foaming reef.

Sadly the first part of the night was rather spoilt by the arrival of a large gullet style boat which having anchored right next to us, set about having a late night party with dancing (admittedly Sarah did find this quite entertaining to watch: a couple of short, stout Americans(?) dancing very ineptly on the roof of the deck saloon – she was all fingers crossed for further  types of diversion, but they stayed safely on the deck!) very loud music, but fortunately the rum punches took their toll eventually, but not  until after some horrendous community singing....