solmagique2

We have to apologize for not updating our blog since January 2008. Lots have been happening in our lives since then. We have returned to Canada for our son's wedding and for the arrival of our daughter's first child. We are now grandparents. This has definitely changed our plan of travel. So from now on we will be in Canada 6 months of the year. We will spend the other 6 months in the British Virgin Islands.

Thank you all for following our dream through this blog. This is our last update.

Paul & Ginette

Labels: our first grandchild. Our daughter took a picture of her while she was picking some fresh produce in her gardens., Our little Nyssa

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy and healthy 2008.

After the holidays, we spent a few days in the Green Islands which reminded us very much of the Tobago Cays in the Grenadine.

Après les fêtes nous sommes allés passer quelques jours dans les Iles Vertes qui font partie d'Antigua

Labels: English Harbour historical buildings

Labels: English Harbour

English Bay, Antigua

We spent the Christmas holidays in this well-protected anchorage.

Nous avons passé les fêtes dans cette belle ancrage à English Bay.

Voici le capitaine qui se fait dorer la peau au soleil.

Here's our captain....he's taking a day off!

January 6, 2008 - This is a view of a beach next to our anchorage called Morris Bay. We arrived in Antigua December 20, 2007. Since our last updated blog in October we have been sailing the North Carribean islands from Grenada to Antigua.

It's been a real pleasure to revisit some of the islands such as Bequia, St-Lucia, Martinique & Guadeloupe.

We apologize for not updating the blog since October. Sometimes it is difficult to do due to the lack of access to internet from the boat.

Un autre ancrage calme, le vrai paradis quoi!

La végétation est superbe et verte partout.

Green vegetation everywhere here!

Voilà notre ancrage au loin.

Les arbustes ici sont pleins de belles fleurs. Je vous en montre un échantillon.

At Store Bay, we went for a walk in the mountain to check the view of our anchorage. It is absolutely beautiful.

Voici Store Bay où nous sommes ancrés pour plusieurs jours.

A beautiful sunset...in Store Bay, Tobago.

Voici un jeune homme de 16 ans qui joue des "steel pan" comme jamais on avait vu. Il a gagné la médaille d'or du monde.

A very talented young man who played the steel pan one night. He won a world gold medal so imagine how good he is.

Nous attendons pour un taxi pour se rendre à immigration et voilà qu'un orage de pluie nous tombe dessus. Alors on a décidé de vous envoyer cette photo pour vous montrer que parfois on se fait mouiller dessus. Ha!!!

Here's the friends we travelled with to Tobago. The lady in the red is Barb, her husband Chuck, Steeve at the end of the table, Paul and Linda, Steeve's wife. A great bunch to travel with.

Voici nos amis, Barb, Chuck, Steeve, Paul and Linda.

On August 6, 2007, we arrived in Tobago, Trinidad after 12 hours of motoring across a calm sea from Grenada. It is picture perfect.

I don't know if you can read the blue sign on the corner building but we found our very own "Monckton Street" in St-George. The English took possession of this island in 1779 and it seems that Colonel Monckton left his mark in Grenada as well as back home.

Voir le petit enseigne de rue qui dit "Monckton Street". On a été bien surpris de trouver cette rue à St-George.

A quick view of downtown St-George.

Voici le centre-ville de St-George. Une petite ville très achalandée.

Voici le marché local où les fermiers vendent leurs fruits et légumes dans le carrénage dans la ville de St-George, Grenade.

Farmers market in the town of St-George, Grenada.

Voici un beau petit singe qui vit dans la forêt. Notre guide lui donnait des bananes et des bonbons.

Here a wild monkey, cute as a button.

While on this tour we visited this beautiful waterfall.

This is saffron which comes from the tree trunk.

Ceci est du saffron qui vient du tronc de l'arbre.

This is a Cashew fruit. Yes this is where the cashew comes from. It's large tree bears the fruit which looks like a small apple. Imagine how many apples it takes to fill a can of cashew. No wonder it is so expensive.

Voici un fruit de Cashew. Cela pousse dans un grand arbre comme un pommier. Un cashew par pomme alors imaginez-vous comment de pommes cela prend pour remplir une boite de cashew.

In July we toured Grenada with Cutty, our guide. He showed us different food that grows on the island.

This picture shows you a cocoa fruit which grows in a large tree. It is inside a hard shell and when you break it open you find many cocoa seeds glued to each other. They take these seeds and dry it for many weeks. At the end they grate it into a powder and makes cocoa balls. You grate this to make your cocoa powder and it is delicious nothing like what we buy back home.

As you can see some of us have lost it a bit after walking so many miles. Oh well, I guest we had no choice but return this crazy bunch back to the marina. Our taxi driver was a very patient man.

Nous voilà les filles très heureuse d'avoir atteint notre but. On a eu un peu chaud comme vous pouvez le voir.

Here's the girls and me, we made it and walked quite a few miles before reaching our objective...THE BEER!!!

Here's a bunch of us from the marina who participated to the Saturday Night Hashier Walk or Run. Basically you walk or jog for miles and miles up the mountain to test your endurance. This has been going on for many years and is a local initiative.

Voilà les grands atheles qui se préparent à un test d'endurance. On va marcher ou courir pour plusieurs milles à travers la montage de Grenade. C'est une coutume locale qui existe depuis plusieurs année et qui a lieu tous les deux samedi du mois.

You can see Sol Magique wearing its Canadian Flag.

Vous pouvez voir Sol Magique, il porte le drapeau canadien.

We are finally back on the blog. We had technical problems with our computer. It is finally fixed so here we are. We've been in Grenada since early July. We reserved our dock at Clarkes's Bay Marina for 3 months. However after a month we really missed being at anchor where there is a lot of cool air and being able to swim every day so we left for a month and sailed to Tobago, Trinidad. Tobago is a beautiful island unlike Trinidad. It is paradise with its rain forest. Its water is very clean and the anchorages are very quiet usually surrounded by a beautiful white beach.

We are here at Clarke's Bay Marina until Sunday, October 6 and will be hauling out the boat for its yearly maintenance. We have rented a cottage in one of the resort at St.David's Harbour.

View of Hillsborough Bay, Carriacou.

While visiting Carriacou we came upon this 300 year old windmill.

Les couleurs des Caraïbes!

Carribean flowering tree! Beautiful flowering tree by the side of the road.

June 21st - Arrived on the Carriacou Island and the next day we toured the island with our friends from Solstice (Kevin & Amanda), Tussen Takk II (Chuck & Barb), Carribean Soul (Nick & Diana) and finally Adventure Bound (Jimmy & Amanda).

On a eu une belle journée a visiter l'Ile de Carriacou avec nos amis.

June 19 & 20 - Tobago Cays

Tobago Cays are islands surrounded by the Horseshoe Reefs. There is nothing but turquoise clear water and beautiful corals & fish of all colors that you see when snorkeling. It is also the home of many turtles.

Cute turtles again.

Bequia,

During our tour of the island we visited this Turtle farm where they collect turtle eggs from the beach and keep these turtles in their farm until they are 5 or 6 years old. Then they release them back to the sea. This is a way to try to stop the extinction of these turtle.

Bequia

Took a guided tour of Bequia and this is one of many picturesque view.

Bequia Coral Reef

Admiralty Bay - Bequia

Bequia (Grenadines):

Bequia has no water treated plant. They catch the rain water from the roof which is caught in big containers. Every home has this system. They treat the water themselves and boil it and use it for consumption. Therefore, rain is very important for their survival.

Bequia - Arrived here June 12, 2007

This is a nice sunset in Admiralty Bay, Bequia.

St-Lucia

Another beautiful plant growing in this botanical garden. Very different!!

Here's Jim & Paul enjoying a cold one!!! at the waterfall.

St-Lucia

Fleur tropical prise dans le jardin botanique près des chutes lors de notre visite guidée.

Beautiful tropical flower in botanical garden.

St-Lucia

Cette île est toute à fait magnifique pleines de verdure partout où tu regardes.

St-Lucia - During our tour we visited this waterfall and beautiful botanical garden.

Nous avons visité ces chutes durant notre visite guidée de l'île de St-Lucia. Il y avait aussi un magnifique jardin de fleurs tropicale.

Castries-St.Lucia

The capital of St-Lucia it has a population of 50,000. We took a tour of this beautiful island and found it very interesting.

St-Lucia - Rodney Bay

This is a boat boy selling fruits and veggies posing for us. He came to see us every day to see if we needed anything.

St-Lucia on top of Pigeon Island:

Jimmy our friend from Adventure Bound imitating the Statue of Liberty. Not an easy thing to do but he used all his muscles to get up there.

Voici Jimmy notre ami qui imite la Statue de la Liberté.

St-Lucia - Interesting facts about how huge canons were transported from boats on top of Pigeon Island in the mid 17th century while the French and English were fighting to overtake the St-Lucia Island. It changed hands more than fourteen times. The English won at the end and the island became an associated state of the Commonwealth in 1967 & independent on 22 February 1979. We very much enjoyed this island.

St-Lucia - Wild cactus growing everywhere on top of Pigeon Island.

St-Lucia - This is Amanda from Adventure Bound, our dear friend. We are climbing the Pigeon Island mountain which is quite steep.

Voici Amanda d'Adventure Bound qui font le même trajet que nous et avec qui nous sommes devenus de très bons amis.

Paul & I taking a pose for the camera on top of Pigeon Island.

View of our anchorage in St-Lucia taken from the top of the hill.

Vue de l'ancrage de St-Lucia prise sur la montagne.

It's June 5th, 2007 and we are anchored in St-Lucia admiring the beautiful sunset.

Nous voilà rendus à St-Lucia.

Marina shops at Le Marin

View of the village, Cul-de-Sac Le Marin.

Today is June 1st and we are now at Cul-de-Sac Le Marin that you see here. It is a very quiet anchorage with lots of boats.

Aujourd'hui nous sommes le 1er juin et nous sommes à Cul-de-Sac Le Marin où il y a beaucoup de bateaux.

Autre photo de Fort de France.

Photo du centre ville de Fort de France.

A view of downtown Fort de France, Martinique.

This is Fort de France, capital of Guadeloupe. It is a large city and has many, many boutiques for the tourists visiting the island.

Notre ancrage à Anse a Mitan. Nous sommes restés ici plusieurs jours. On faisait la navette à Fort de France qui est une ville assez populé pour faire nos provisions. L'eau est aussi belle et clair pour faire de la natation tous les jours. On a bien aimé notre séjour ici. Le village est plein de belles petites boutiques et restaurants.

Stayed in Anse a Mitan a few days. Loved this village which is quite nice full of boutiques and restaurants. There is a ferry crossing to Fort de France a few times a day which we took a few times to do our provisioning.

Le capitaine qui prend la pause en lisant son livre.

The captain is taking a break and reads his book early in the morning.

Village Anse a Mitan.

We are now in Martinique. Arrived here May 20th. We anchored in Anse A Mitan a very nice anchorage in front of a resort hotel.

Here is Albert our guide.

Voici Albert notre guide.

Another view of the Indian River.

Up the Indian River, we made a stop to a restaurant-bar for a local drink.

This is a small pinapple plant.

Tropical flowers and plants up the Indian River.

Voici un arbre qui s'appelle "Arbres de sang" qui est plein de grosses racines courbues.

Here we are going up the Indian River on the island of Dominica. It's very peaceful and we are in a canoe with a guide admiring the tropical vegetations. The trees are hundred years old.