New Year’s Day we just recovered, slept, read, ate and listened to the incessant rain pounding onto the boat….
Thursday and we are up early as we need to go to the other end of town. We need to replace our sanitation hose and Island Water World don’t have any in stock – so on the local bus we go. A long hot walk from where the bus dropped us and we end up at Budget Marine – mission accomplished. Then we walked back along the Maurice Bishop Highway, the only dual carriageway on the island, to Ace Hardware for more storage boxes. We then waved down another bus and went back to the marina. The weather was holding up nicely so we decided to take the afternoon off and go to Grande Anse beach for some bobbing and relaxing time.
As we dinked around the corner we realised that a huge German cruiseship was in town – and when we got to our normal jetty we were told where to park by water taxi people. Well, this was a new experience. Dink secured we head off to Coconuts and were accosted by people trying to sell us beach chairs for the day. Wow – loads of people on our beach – whatever next!
We wandered off to the other end of the beach and realised that the cruise ship passengers didn’t walk too far as it was pretty empty there…. But no facilities – so we headed back to the bar and just people watched for a while.
So we went into the sea bobbing and I played around with the waterproof camera – Richard really doesn’t bob with two beers, one of them belongs to me! Enjoyed people watching some more and were amazed by how many people could get squeezed into one boat at a time as the hordes came and went every 10 minutes or so…. Interesting afternoon but it was time to go back to the marina for another quiet night on board. Made it back in time before the heavens opened, again….
Friday and it is another shopping day – the ship brings imported goods into Grenada on a Thursday – so this is the best day to go to the supermarket. Ah….my last chance to shop in a supermarket that is well stocked for a while….so I actually enjoyed it! Yes, I know I’m sad.
Mission accomplished – huge shop done – and we got a cab back to the marina. Offloaded all the stuff and then Richard stuck his head down the hole again to replace the hose whilst I did some laundry in preparation for our departure. Jobs done and time to get tidied up as we are going out to dinner with Tom and Kerry (Dragon’s Toy) at Sails to celebrate his birthday. We had a lovely evening.
Saturday was supposed to be our departure date… but the weather window had closed and the forecast was pretty brisk! – so we decided to stay until Monday instead. So off we go to visit St Georges for the last time – and dinked round through the commercial harbour alongside this huge container ship. They are pretty large up close!
It is really good that they have now allocated a part of the harbour wall for dinghies in the Carenage… so secured dink and headed into town. Walking through the historic part of town – we admired the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank Agency office, which would have meant something to us in a previous life!
And then we walked through the Sendall Tunnel, which is 350 feet long, 9 feet high and connects the east and west side of town. It was opened in 1894 by the British in honour of Grenada’s Governor Sir Walter Sendall and is considered an engineering milestone for the 19th century. To walk through it is an experience as it is still open to traffic too – one way thankfully – but you have to bend your head into the curve if a minibus / taxi comes through!
Through the other side we wander around and get some local fresh produce in the market. Phew really hot today – glad I’m wearing baggy cotton clothing! Had a great time – with a stop for a couple of really tasty smoothies while we were out – and made it back to the marina – via our short cut under the dock where we lay down in the dinghy to get through! – dodging a few more showers on the way. We cleaned up and spent happy hour in the bar and enjoyed watching Bliss, a very sleek superyacht, come into the dock. An early night followed.
Sunday the weather remained changeable – and we just really tidied the boat and got Morphie ready to go to sea. We were invited on board Fru Valle by Dorte and Rene (our Danish neighbours) for sundowners and to say farewell. So spent a couple of hours with them… and then had an early night. Really nice people.
Monday up bright and early – got the meters read and paid the bill for the power / water that we had used – and with sandwiches and flasks of coffee in hand – we headed out around 10ish. Saying goodbye to St Georges behind us we motored between two cruise ships who are in today. After we had cleared them and the shipping channel we got our sails up and headed north.
The wind was forecast to have a south element in it – er wrong! It was supposed to be between 15-20 knots – er wrong! And the squalls were all around.
But hey – 23-25 knots close hauled is fine by us although the seas were a bit lumpy at times – and the huge squall of very heavy rain at 37 knots was something we would have preferred to do without – but nothing could detract from the big grins as we were back out there again.
With the sea state, strong currents and wind direction we had to tack a bit as we really wanted to sail the whole way – so actually covered 40 miles rather than 30, but still got into Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou, and anchored safely before dark with more weather coming through as the sun started to set.
Settling into a quiet night in the cockpit – well apart from the howling of the wind of course – and we spotted a number of boats coming in behind us. One – a large catamaran – tried to pick up a mooring ball at least six times before they abandoned that and went looking to anchor. They were heading straight at the reef so was a bit concerned and not sure if they touched bottom or not but we did hear their engines straining…. eventually a couple of local guys came out to offer them assistance and got them secured onto a mooring ball. Phew….bet that cost them! We couldn’t help unfortunately because dink was up on his davits and the outboard was on the rail so not in a position this time….
It’s now Tuesday morning and we are just enjoying being on anchor…. Bye for now
Jan