Hylia - Three weeks on a charter catamaran in Martinique

We are living our dream: a 4-month sabbatical in the Caribbean with our 8 and 10-year-old daughters. We started this family trip, half on land, half at sea, by renting a catamaran for 3 weeks from Martinique, in order to sail to the Grenadines. After a catamaran training course at the Macif Sailing Center, we arrived at the end of November 2021 in Le Marin and boarded Hylia. For this, our first sailboat charter, a friend of ours, Bernard, who has experience of sailing in the Caribbean, will be accompanying us. We cleared all the entry formalities for Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and pointed Hylia’s bows on a southerly course! Juliette and Coraline were immediately very comfortable on board: they helped us with the charts, took the helm, and dove from the sugarscoops as soon as we were at anchor! We made a first stop in Port Elizabeth (Bequia) to enjoy the picture-postcard village, and then we headed for the mythical anchorage of Mayreau: Salt Whistle Bay, a crescent of white sand fringed with palm trees, and Saline Bay with its pelicans flying overhead. We had been told that these heavenly bays would be crowded, but there were no crowds because of the pandemic. All the better for us! This was confirmed in the Tobago Cays where we grabbed a buoy between Petit Bateau and Petit Rameau. In the morning, we were actually the only ones to enjoy the turtles whose little noses were emerging here and there around Hylia, as well as the eagle ray flying under our hulls and the incredible snorkeling at Horse Shoe Reef. And the girls were still enjoying diving off the sugarscoops. We raised the anchor and headed for Union to discover the village of Clifton - with its colorful houses - and then Chatham Bay, which has one of the most beautiful seabeds that we have seen. Finally, it was time to head back to Martinique. We had had a wonderful three-week adventure in the south.