I then went to Bequai where I completed a 5-day, 169 nautical mile sailing course to become a licensed “Day Skipper”. During the course, we sailed much of the Grenadine Islands as shown in the map.

We started in Bequia (pr: ‘Beck-way’) (Port Elizabeth). I flew over from Barbados a couple days early to enjoy the beautiful location.

The course started bright and early on a Tuesday morning. So, I spent the night before on the yacht. Just at sunset, I arrived at the pier and boarded the good ship, Cinnamon.

The next morning, we collected our crew, and had our first lessons: How to fit a life-jacket, where to stow it, and how to prepare the yacht for sailing. We then learned how to untie from, and then safely leave the dock.

Once underway, we motored out of the harbour and quickly started to literally “learn the ropes”. As we were motoring, we learned how the rigging was set up on Cinnamon. We then came into the wind, sweated the mainsail, and took off. Given the strength of the wind on that day, we also learned, if this wasn’t obvious already, how the wind affects every decision you make.

We were in Force 5 winds with heavy 4 meter swell. Quite an introduction! We quickly learned how to ‘reef’ the mainsail, and then slowly relaxed as we learned how to manage the yacht in the swell. With sails set and a solid 8 knots on the water, we made great speed across the Bequia Channel to St Vincent, where we had a pleasant lunch while watching the spear fishermen do their thing.

We then made haste again across the channel to overnight in Friendship Bay, before heading on to Mustique for some practice coming onto, and off of mooring buoys.

That afternoon, I was ‘Skipper’, and took ‘command’ – charting our course, leaving the mooring, doing spot location checks, and bringing us down to the South Glossy Point Marina on the island of Canouan.

After overnighting in a nearby bay, we then sailed on to Chatham Bay on Union Island. One of my classmates was Skipper that day, and so I was on the winches. Before anchoring in Chatham bay …

… we went offshore of Union Island and did a range of manoeuvers including controlled gybes, man-overboard rescues, hoving-to, tacks, and more tacks. We then returned to Chatham Bay for our first step back on shore of the trip, and some local food.

There is a lovely Italian restaurant on one end of the bay, all by itself.

We packed up …

… and then motored to the shore in the RIB, AKA the dinghy.

The restaurant was quite lovely, with great food and and an interesting hostess. That night was spent at anchor in Chatham Bay.

The next day was also a very busy day, with more manoeuvers, and an unexpected stop off in Tobago Cays.

The Tobago Cays, as with much of the Grenadines, are a protected national park. There are lots of park officials around to make sure everyone can be moored safely with room to spare.

We did not linger long, as we had to make sail for the South Glossy Marina again, to moor for the night in order to practice manouevers in a marina.

The next day, we were up at day break…

… to practice docking upwind and down, tying up to the dock, and untying to make a clean departure without scraping the side of our beautiful yacht.

Then, since we had a few hours to spare before setting off on our night sail back to Bequia, we decided to head down to Salt Whistle Bay.

This quite possibly is one of the most spectacular bays in the Caribbean. It certainly ranks high in my experience. So, I did what you do in such circumstances. I took a selfie.

After an intense night sail (only in my mind – it was fine), we docked at Bequia, slept on board and then the next morning, I departed with my new RYA Day Skipper certificate. Since I had all day to wait for the ferry, I found a lovely spot in a cafe and sat to contemplate my trip.