Leopard 4600 – Day 2

Tuesday’s post was courtesy of Palm Beach Restaurant in Petite Martinique. Although we typically tend to avoid restaurant’s as a general rule, preferring the more frugal approach of eating on board, as Michael is on a vacation and we were in a charter boat, it seemed only fitting that we venture ashore for dinner. This particular restaurant was referred to us by the gentleman who gave us our initial briefing on the 4600 and it was a good one, the food and ambiance at the beach-side restaurant were excellent. The super-fast Wi-Fi was a welcome perk too!

Our proposed destination for today was Corn Store Bay at Ronde island, about 17 miles south of Petite Martinique. While we enjoyed our morning coffee and breakfast, Michael quizzed me on how far we were from Palm Island, a spot which lay just to our north, east of Union Island. As this was a place that he had visited some years in the past, he was curious to see how it compared today. Stopping in Union Island would have required us to clear customs, something that none of us were interested in doing. It wouldn’t hurt for us to do a drive-by though and with the close proximity of it and our evening anchorage, we thought “why not?”

Again the Weather Gods were on our side and we had a beautiful sail both north to Palm Island and after we turned around, back south to Corn Store Bay. The winds were moderate in the 12-20 range allowing us to once again make good time under reefed main and full genny. I was particularly impressed with how close we were able to sail to the wind and we closely skirted the reef-strewn windward shore of Carriacou and the islands south of it.

Corn Store Bay, which is not always great as an overnight stop, sometimes developing a considerable roll, was perfect for us. We shared the bay with only 3 other boats, each of us with considerable space to swing in the well-sheltered cove. Someone definitely must have bribed Mother Nature before he came on vacation to Grenada because I know we didn’t do it.