driving around the island

we rented a convertible jeep and went around the entire island; from sand beaches to jungle through rocky rivers and everything in between. of course we got lost in our tour but that made it even better as we saw almost every single parish and road of grenada.

grenada

this island of just over 100,000 inhabitants used to be a british outpost but after WWII when britain started to let go of all of its colonies, grenada did not want independence. over 51% of its population voted against but nevertheless england gave it up and ever since, they have been a sovereign country. now all the colonial buildings are dilapidated. most houses are very small and poor but look picturesque nevertheless.

the sailing industry is very developed here. there are over 10 fully equipped marinas with yards to haul out boats and stores of the size seen in the us. boaters can find everything they need here. it is probably used as a base point and hurricane shelter and from here they go up to sail the caribbean and down again at the beginning of the hurricane season.

there is also a lot of evidence of foreign investment with beautiful resorts, boutiques and top class restaurants. an example of this is the true blue marina and hotel complex where we stayed. we really enjoyed our stay in this wonderful paradise. on our last night we had a marvelous dinner on the beach and then, in the mooring we had a superb steel band playing in the background.

sailing towards grenada

the sail to grenada was long for caribbean standards. a whole 35 miles which took us 7 hours to do. at the beginning it was rolly but after a few hours we had a most pleasant day sail downwind and even over an active volcano: kick’em jenny is the name. we are not supposed to sail on top of it but because it is in the middle of the most straight route, i think every cruiser disregards the warnings and simply sails over it... until some day the volcano erupts and the sailors on top go in history with it i guess? but this was not the day. it was calm and we sailed right on top of it and then very close to the beautifully lush and green coast of grenada. what a wonderful site. and at the end of the day we arrived into the most charming cove called true blue on the south west of the island. the anchorage is protected from wind but rolly; but we actually thought it was soothing. needless to say we grabbed a mooring. we decided not to bother anymore with the anchor… too much effort. the entire mooring manouver took us maybe two minutes. one only try to grab the line and then back the boat with the engine to see if it will hold. success! easy and we know we can go to shore and the boat will not drag… what little pleasures we are enjoying lately… and with this easy maneuver taken care of, we were off to the restaurant to enjoy the best burgers and rum punch we have had so far!

new year's celebration

after a long day of tourism around carricou we were tired and decided to take a nap of an hour to get ready to party for the new year. this decision was taken around 5 PM.... well, that nap lasted several hours... but luckily at 11PM we woke up and noticed we had not missed it (as we missed last year's in thailand because we had not adjusted our on board clock to the correct time zone). but this year we did not do such a thing. we woke up, got ready and got on the dingui and went looking for food. all kitchens were closed, but the bars were fully open, so dinner was not really healthy or filling. but we did not care, we were celebrating anyway. we went to the local beach bar where they had a live steel drum band and the locals were there dancing to it. it was fantastic. really caribbean style; we welcomed the new year with good reggae, no solid food, but plenty of rum, beer, locals and other cruisers. here you can see raphael, a 10 year old cruiser sailing with his family from france. the kid has rhythm ah?

this year for us was another of those amazing ones we will never forget. but now we look forward to the next and hope we have 365 days with salt water around us. happy new year to all!!!

carricou

to enter in this country you must first anchor in hillsborough on the lee side of the island (the west, protected from the wind) to do immigration and customs. as usual, it was blowing quite hard, but we were protected from it but not from some swell coming into the bay. we anchored, and because the bottom was rock and grass, it did not grab, again! we are just not having any luck with our anchor…. because we have a manual windlass on board (big mistake and the weakest part of our boat); we are lazy to pick up the chain too often…. we figured clearing into the country was a fast affair and did not reanchor, but instead let the boat slowly drag in this huge bay. scary plan considering that it started raining and the protected bay from the wind started producing these massive gusts from the mountain as the rain came down very hard, so our boat was dragging faster and faster. luckily the bay was empty and huge and we cleared in very fast (like one hour only which is speed of light in sailing and island times.) once cleared in, we moved to the more protected tyrrel bay on the south. here we were protected from swell and wind but still the anchoring process was not easy due to the many boats and the terrible bottom for our anchors. we had to try also several times with no luck. we were very frustrated at this point and decided to just grab a mooring from the locals. We have had the worse luck anchoring in the caribbean. it seems like a long process to which neither of us is looking forward to, which requires many tries and a lot of work, and always adds tension when every single cruiser at anchor stares at you coming in to do your anchoring thing, while acting very protective of their little space and frowning upon us if we come too close (like there is any real room to begin with). so our anchoring is not only arrival time but a stressful weird moment that requires a celebratory beer not only to relax and celebrate our arrival to a new port, but to also finally enjoy that we have that thing fixed to the bottom somehow.

but enough about the anchorage. in this island we were actually hardly on board. we went around the entire island (is really not that big) to the north and windward side to see the towns, and also to several beaches. for a total of 7 USD we rode on local buses all day listening to reggae of course and just enjoying the views. it is a cool place and so far we have found the people here to be the best, welcoming and charming. we also found the first decent fast internet place of the caribbean and were able to communicate with families and update the blog very fast while enjoying a great pizza and good beers.