While enjoying a convivial night at Cattewater Cruising Club in Plymouth in October 1997, a friend approached my wife and I and asked if we’d be interested in chartering a yacht for a fortnight to sail down the Windward Islands in February.

After discussing a few details we jumped at his proposal. Why wouldn’t we?

We were great pals with him and his wife and like us, they were experienced sailors.

We never need much persuading to get away from British winters.

After an eight-hour flight from Heathrow to Antigua we caught an island-hopping flight to French Martinique and a taxi to Marina du Marin where Sunsail had their base.

Marina du Marin

We settled into the charter yacht, a 40ft Beneteau, at about 2300.

After breakfast in the local bar we met Sunsail’s Roger (pronounced Roj-air) who produced some very old paper charts marked in fathoms and feet.

He briefed us where we could and could not go and how to handle the ‘boat boys’; the local lads who come out to yachts on everything from a surfboard to a 15ft motor launch to sell anything from bread, fruit, fish and clothes.

Many will offer to guide yachts into various ports.

We were encouraged to buy anything we wanted from them as it helps the local economy and can often make a difference to their standard of living.

Roger also told us not to allow any boat boy on board nor to take navigation advice from them because they were not qualified pilots and thefts may not be covered by insurance if a stranger is invited on board.

We were also advised against mooring to any buoys as their condition can be suspect.

After Roger’s briefing we were bundled into the back of a white van with no seats and taken to the supermarket to buy provisions.

Once our goods were stowed, we set off south to St Lucia, 25 miles away.

Sailing south

The Windward Islands chain runs from Anguilla in the north to Granada about 375 miles south.

Our plan after St Lucia was to head south to St Vincent, Bequia, Mustique and Union Island via Tobago Cays before retracing to Martinique.

Situated in the easterly trade wind belt north of the equator, the Windward Islands are in a perfect area for sailing.

In February the wind is normally from the east or north-east at strengths averaging Force 4 to 6.

There were a few showers a day but it was warm so everything dries quickly.

Rough seas Port de Plaisance du Marin is sheltered in the lee of the trade winds so we had little idea what actual wind would be blowing in the open sea between islands.

Three yachts left Martinique with us.

The wind was blowing Force 5 gusting 6 and having the full fetch of the Atlantic Ocean it had built up waves more than 3m high.

The other yachts turned back but it was warm and sunny and an easy beam reach so we didn’t worry about a few waves.

We welcomed their cooling effect as they came aboard.

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Local marine life

We were thrilled to see our first flying fish and shouted whenever we saw them skim the waves for 20m or 30m before splashing back into the sea.

Occasionally one would land on the deck before we threw it back.

After the first day we discovered that flying fish are as common in the Caribbean as sea birds in UK waters so we stopped pointing them out.

We made good progress to Rodney Bay in the north of St Lucia where we dropped anchor and were soon approached by our first boat boy.

He was actually a mature man selling papaya.

We bought the sweet, juicy fruit but it was so large we grew tired of eating it after a couple of days.

Another popular fruit was bananas sold in huge bunches.

But a more experienced visitor on our flight in, had warned us that they all ripen at the same time forcing you to eat the whole bunch.

The most tedious feature of our trip that we had anticipated was the mandatory immigration check-in and check-out with our ship’s papers and passports at every island we visited.

This could take anything from 30 minutes to two hours depending on the queue in front and the demeanour of the officials on duty.

Our wives did sightseeing and shopping while we suffered these tedious waits in hot offices.

We were convinced the immigration forms we had to fill in triplicate would never be read.

However, a cautionary tale of a yachtie being arrested and jailed for seven weeks for failing to check in at one island ensured we never missed appointments.

After an overnight stay in Rodney Bay we motored to Marigot Bay, a ‘hurricane hole’ halfway down the west coast of St Lucia.

We generally motored in the lee of the mountainous islands due to the sheltered conditions, then sailed between islands.

Superyacht surroundings

Huge sailing yachts are a common feature of the harbours and marinas here.

Strolling down a pontoon wide enough to take a lorry in Marina du Marin, we saw dozens of superyachts over 100ft long.

Rodney Bay had a short canal leading to a marina which also had its fair share of superyachts.

Even little Marigot Bay had a few tied to private pontoons surrounded by jungle.

Being owners of 35ft yachts we had been looking forward to the space and kudos provided by a 40ft yacht and were crestfallen to discover she was one of the smallest yachts there.

Before we left Marigot Bay we paid to fill her tanks with water at a rickety wooden jetty before setting off for Bequia.

The small town Port Elizabeth, capital of Bequia faces west over the substantial and sheltered Admiralty Bay.

Bequia’s whale hunting past was obvious as we walked through an arch of sperm whale jaw bones at the entrance to a local bar and sat on bar stools made from cetaceans’ vertebrae.

While we guys were checking in at the local police station, our wives visited the market.

Here, four young male stall holders tried hard to sell them mangoes, papaya and bananas at hugely inflated prices, so they walked to the far end of the market to find a middle-aged lady selling small bunches of bananas.

She told them not to take any notice of those naughty boys because they try to fleece the tourists.

When we turned up we haggled with the ‘naughty boys’ and bought some mangoes off them at reasonable prices.

Impressive efforts

We then found a stall selling fish of many unknown (to us) varieties.

We liked the look of a king fish and ordered four large steaks, at which the stall holder swiped the flies off with a machete knife, chopped off our steaks and put them in a bag.

The next day we motored north of Bequia, bound for Mustique, the Caribbean island favoured by celebrities.

As we rounded Man Point, the northern tip, we were heading into such a big, steep swell that we had to slow down to stop her from slamming.

About 50m to starboard were two fishermen in a 12ft rowing boat.

One was rowing like crazy making no headway against the wind and waves while his colleague was trailing a net.

We didn’t begrudge the price of our fish when we saw the effort involved.

Basil’s Bar

We visited the famous Basil’s Bar, a large bamboo beach restaurant on stilts.

Four fruit smoothies cost us more than £20 in 1998.

Not much for David Bowie or Mick Jagger perhaps but we ate on board that night.

We put our trust in the moorings provided because they looked to be in good condition and anchoring was prohibited to avoid coral damage.

As the next islands we passed were not big enough to obstruct the trade wind, we were able to sail from Mustique to Horseshoe Reef in the Tobago Cays; the most alluring place of our whole trip.

The top of the reef is at sea level which saw us in calm water but as there was no land between us and Africa we had the full Force 5 of the trade wind blowing over the deck.

Lighting the barbecue was a challenge.

Once lit, its lid glowed red hot with the wind whistling through its vents which resulted in our king fish cooking in no time at all.

The sea was clear as gin and warm enough for us to spend hours the next day swimming with mask, snorkel and fins watching all the tropical fish, crustaceans and corals.

Families of curious little squid swam up to our masks and stared into our eyes with bright colours rippling down their skins while large crayfish wandered along the seabed only two feet below us trying to avoid the occasional octopus.

After a couple of days in the heavenly Tobago Cays we visited nearby Union Island for an evening meal and to be entertained by a very good steel band.

Wallilabou Bay

As we had missed St Vincent on our way south we decided to visit its Wallilabou Bay; a popular cove for cruisers with a good beach restaurant and a large waterfall inland.

While motoring north towards the bay, a mile or so off the west coast we saw a man in his dinghy clearly waiting to gain a commission to pilot us in.

Not wanting to explain that we were not allowed to take his instructions, we attempted to avoid him but the speedy oarsman cut us off.

He offered to guide us into Wallilabou Bay a mile or two ahead.

Despite his prowess on the oars he would not have been able to keep up with us and we were not allowed to have him on board or follow his guidance so we told him we weren’t stopping at Walilabou.

He knew we weren’t being honest with him but saw another target and rowed off.

As we rounded the headland into the bay we were greeted by a large fleet of boat boys on surfboards and dinghies.

Following Roger’s advice we selected one guy, called Adrian, to guide us in and all the others departed to offer their services to other yachts entering the bay.

He held onto a bow cleat at which point our helm made a sharp turn to avoid another boat boy.

Our bow swung and knocked Adrian off his board.

He soon popped up out of the water.

We apologised profusely and enquired if he was OK.

He smiled and said, “I’m OK man, it’s alright. It happens all the time.”

Weak knot

The course into our anchorage was straightforward; Adrian rode his board alongside.

He tied us to an available mooring buoy and then swam ashore to tie a stern line to the yoke of a deck cannon cemented into the low wall of the restaurant terrace we were to visit that evening.

After we paid Adrian and he’d departed for his next commission we drove our boat hard astern to test the mooring buoy and Adrian’s knot.

Adrian had pulled our stern line so tight that the small buoy had been pulled under the water so we couldn’t see the quality of its tackle or his knot.

When we left the next day the line untied itself as soon as the load came off it. Adrian had bent our line once round the buoy’s shaft with a single half hitch.

We were lucky it didn’t let go while we slept.

Note to self: always double check strangers’ knots.

As early evening approached, the bay filled with visiting yachts, most dropped bower anchors with a kedge astern.

There simply wasn’t enough room to allow boats to swing.

A 45ft flybridge motor boat stood out because it was not a sailing yacht, and had anchored much further out than the others with a very long line ashore.

Another anomaly was that the crew had attached canvas window covers, as used to keep the strong tropical sunshine out of the cabin, but it was now dusk.

The two male occupants, dressed in shirts, long trousers and stout shoes, were noticeable as all other visitors were wearing shorts, T-shirts and deck shoes or flip-flops.

We wouldn’t have remembered these details if it wasn’t for the events that were about to unfold.

Cruiser alight

Around 1930 it was dusk and our first course was being delivered to our table, which was next to the two men from the motoryacht.

A few minutes later the waitress approached the older man and said, “Sir, I think your boat has a fire.”

Now if that had happened to me I would have been off like a cat on hot bricks to put the fire out.

Not this guy.

He took the waitress’s hand, kissed it and said, “Thank you, it’s not a problem.” and stayed sitting in his chair.

His mate didn’t even give his boat a glance.

We thought it most odd that the two men showed no surprise that their cabin cruiser was on fire and made no efforts to save her.

We looked out and sure enough, there was an orange glow flickering behind the canvas window covers.

As the fire took hold it attracted everyone’s attention.

The local police turned up in a large RIB but they would not have been able to put the fire out and glided around watching the spectacle.

The motor boat was not near our boat but we discussed contingency plans in case the fire spread.

Our boat was only a few paddle strokes from the slip where our dinghy was tied so we could soon have had her underway.

Burning hull

A spectacular blaze developed over the next half-hour, engulfing the flybridge and decks, which collapsed into the burning hull.

The boat’s flares provided a brief fireworks display with bright red phosphorescent flames spiralling out before splashing into the water.

Then it was the turn of the gas bottles which split open with a loud ‘whoosh’ explosion.

This had us really worried as we had no idea where the red hot metal bottles would land.

They came splashing down a few seconds later, luckily only a few feet from the burning hull.

A good hour later the stern line burnt through, allowing the flaming raft to swing to her bow anchor.

As she burnt to the waterline the windlass and chain toppled and the burning remains were adrift.

The fire was too fierce to allow anyone to get close enough to pull it out of the way of the other boats, all eerily illuminated in the night.

She had become like an Elizabethan fire ship set free to wander among the Spanish Armada, creating a very real threat to the moored vessels in the bay.

Most of the boat crews on the restaurant terrace got to their feet ready to make a dash to rescue their boats.

But before they could untie their dinghies a barely perceptible vesper of wind slowly carried the flaming raft westwards out to sea where a stronger wind took her from view around 2215.

She would have slipped beneath the waves, consigning her remains to more than 1,000m depth of water, a short distance offshore, at least an hour after her skipper and mate had slipped away in a taxi.

Not much chance the insurance company would have found the cause of that fire by forensic means.

The remainder of our trip back to Martinique was relatively uneventful, the highlight being the total eclipse of the sun in Antigua while we were returning to Rodney Bay in St Lucia where the eclipse was about 75%.

We’d forgotten this well-advertised event and were baffled by the dimming light in the middle of the day.

I have often wondered if the two strange men who came ashore that evening were successful with their insurance claim.

Lessons learned

Pack light

We packed far too many warm clothes for the hot climate.

We needed no more than what we wore to the airport.

After which we were in shorts, T-shirts and flip-flops ashore or swimwear aboard.

Local guides

In Walilabou there were a lot of ‘boat boys’ but they all went away once we selected our so-called guide.

They are only trying to make a living and you should not be deterred from this sailor’s paradise for the sake of avoiding a few salesmen on the water.

Exercise caution

Theft from yachts is not unknown but thankfully rare.

Exercise caution where you anchor overnight.

You wouldn’t set up camp in a dodgy inner city in the UK, similarly you should avoid anchoring in secluded, unlit spots within striking distance of run-down habitations.

Your charter yacht manager should be able to advise you of the few places best avoided.

Insecure moorings

Unless you are certain of the strength of any mooring buoy, avoid using it.

We saw many with rusty chain links.

Reef lookout

Coral reefs can grow to be a hazard in a few years that may not show on old charts.

We were advised not to sail at night and to only enter shallow water around midday so a lookout on the bow can see the brown coral heads when the sun is high.

Ship’s papers

Have plenty of spare copies of ship’s papers as some customs officers like to keep them.

We reduced our checking in time by asking for and completing the immigration forms while waiting for other crews to be processed.

With the permission of the office staff in Bequia we handed blank forms to about eight boat crews in front of us and the immigration process sped up.

Ditch packaging

Leave surplus packaging ashore.

We have heard that some insects lay their eggs in packaging which can hatch on board.

Underwater check

Scan the depths with a mask before diving off the boat.

One spot we anchored was a few feet from a sharp, metal post, 12in below the surface.

Diving onto that doesn’t bear thinking about.

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