I have done some cruising in a few of the areas you are considering. While
the BVI are nice and very easy, we joked that they are "good your first
time". We were hassled by customs in Virgin Gorda and left with a bad taste
in our mouths. We did enjoy St John (USVI) since it is primarily park
lands. Some nice small towns, too.

Vieques was one of my favorite places in the Caribbean. Ironically, we all
got sick with ciguatera there so don't eat large king mackerels there. Over
two years later we still have some side affects. Vieques has some nice out
of the way anchorages and some others close to the small towns for
provisioning. Culebra to the north has some fabulous spots, too. Your
charter company may restrict you from going to the Spanish Virgins (Culebra
and Vieques) as well as Anegada.

I stayed for 2 1/2 months in Grenada so I have a warm spot for them. It is
a great island but the anchorages are not as pristine as you can find
elsewhere. They are still nice though. Carriacou and Petite St
Vincent/Martinique area just outside the Tobago Cays is very nice with
limited provisioning. Of course, the Tobago Cays are great but hit pretty
hard like the Virgins. They did remind us of the Bahamas though.

The Bahamas have the most fabulous waters. The people can be a little cold
to us since we are the ugly Americans but usually we stayed near the back
country where the locals are very nice. It is the best place to "get away"
that we could find in the cruise from Florida to Trinidad. There is so much
to explore it is amazing. Interesting to note though, when we left the
Bahamas and got through the Turks and Caicos, we went on to the Dominican
Republic and were dazed by the trees and mountains that we had missed while
being in the Bahamas and T/C for the previous 3 months. But we are from
Montana where we love the trees and mountains. The Bahamas still have their
own great geology and "wildlife".

The cats are great party boats. We spent 19 days with another cruising
family on their Catana 47. It was supposed to be a 8 day trip to Trinidad
and Tobago while we left our Baba 30 in the mangroves on the south end of
Grenada. The weather was stable and we were all (eight of us) having fun in
T and T so we stretched it to 19 days. The family of four is now living on
the Catana at a marina in Venezuela. We don't expect them to return to the
US.

The next hurricane season we were home in the US and Ivan hit Greneda with
Category 5 storms for a few hours. 75,000 of 90,000 people were homeless
for a while. It is much better now and friends say it is the same old
Grenada to them.

I have not seen a beautiful cat yet either. The closest things I can
stomach are reproduction Polynesian raft types. There was one other cat
that caught my eye in St Barts and my wife said it looked a bit like my old
Volvo!

Have fun planning your charter!

Ken
Moonshadow II
Whitefish, MT

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Received on Sat Apr 15 16:54:15 2006