In April 2012 Vicky, Tommy and I fly to Barbados for 9 days to see our old friends JP and Heather and their son Spencer. After a day relaxing (and shopping) on the West Coast we head off in a small plane to Union Island in the Grenadines to pick up a boat that we have chartered for 5 days. Click on the images below to see our adventures or expand by clicking the "Enter full screen" tag:

Our boat is a Lagoon 500 cat chartered through JT Yacht Charters. With 4 large guest cabins, all with their own showers, there is plenty of room for the 6 of us. A large shaded cockpit provides a great spot to sit and watch the action while we are sailing while the rest of the time is largely spent on the rear deck or relaxing in the netting.

We have a "bare boat charter" with JP as skipper and the rest of us helping. Heather shows her experience and brings food, sauce, extra cooking equipment, towels etc so that we only need to get the basics such as beer and ice before leaving dock.

Our route takes us on a short sail up from Union and along the west coast of Mayreau to a fine mooring in Saltwhistler's Bay on the first afternoon. From here we sail all the way to Admiralty Bay in Bequia on day 2 - this can take 5 or 6 hours but strong winds and relatively calm seas see us making it in just under 3 hours.

We have a fine dinner in the Auberges des Grenadines in Bequia and the next morning Vicky and I dive with "Dive Bequia" before we head off to Heather's favourite shopping destination, the Isle of Mustique.

From Mustique we sail back south to the Tobago Cays - tiny islands and reefs to the East of Mayreau where we spend the afternoon swimming with the turtles before having a spectacular lobster dinner on the beach. The next morning we make the short crossing back to Union Island with a brief stop off Palm Island (all palm trees imported by the owner) for lunch and packing.

The locals at each island make life easy. You can buy ice, fresh croissants and baguettes, T-shirts, booze, and fish from the boatmen in every island. In Bequia there is even a laundry service. Here in Tobago Cays the boys are heading off to a floating store to find a bottle of rum.

April turns out to be one of the best times to go - great winds, we missed the rain and the sea was not too rough. We will be back...