We've just looked at the date of our last round robin and can't believe that it was at the end of August!

We've been so busy that we think we must be due a holiday!

 

In the end we stayed anchored at St. Georges until the 1st September, we kept trying to move on but more things kept happening. First Sharon decided she wanted to stay here for her birthday and had a mini shopping trip.

Then on 30th August some of the cruisers organised a ‘Ladies Day'. First stop was the t-shirt factory. This is really good as they have lots of t-shirt styles and you can choose different designs to be put on immediately. Next was Art Fabrik where they do the most amazing batik work. Sharon had previously bought a couple of pieces but with the arrival of some birthday money more were purchased! After lunch the last visit was to the Arts Centre where a beautiful pestle & mortar made from a tree felled by Hurricane Ivan was acquired.

Andrew vowed not to let Sharon out alone again!

Finally on the 2nd September we hauled the anchor and sailed around the southern tip of Grenada to the beautiful anchorage at Hog Island . Sheltered from the sea by a reef on one side, the mainland on two and Hog Island on the fourth it is a popular place to spend your time in Grenada .

One boat hasn't moved for thirteen years!

There are no houses nearby and the only sound at night is the chorus of tree frogs. For those who have read ‘An Embarrassment of Mangoes' this is where Receta spent her time in Grenada. Since we have been here our social life has been a whirl!

As soon as we had anchored we had a visit from friends who we had last seen in the Bahamas and they got us up to speed with all the events. So starting at the beginning of the week these are our choices:

Sunday – Rogers BBQ. Roger is a Grenadian who has built, with the help of cruisers, a beach bar on Hog Island. Sunday afternoon it is the place to be for cruisers and locals alike. People stand knee high in the surf drinking cold beer and listening to a local band play. If you don't feel like cooking there is always the BBQ or fish cakes to nibble.

Monday – Movie night at Whisper Cove. Whisper Cove is a small bar & restaurant with a few dock spaces, a short dinghy ride from the anchorage. Run by ex-cruisers Shelley and Phil it is the focal point for cruisers activities. On movie night there is a happy hour, pizza at $EC1 a slice and free popcorn. You sit outside to watch the film!

Monday is usually the day that a local bus is hired to pick us up at Whisper Cove and take us shopping to the various supermarkets so we don't have to carry beer crates back on the normal bus.

Wednesday – a choice. Games night at Whisper Cove or salsa lessons at Mangoes!

Friday - another decision day – pot luck at Clarke's Court Marina or Party on the Patio at Whisper Cove.

And finally on Saturday afternoon it's back to Whisper Cove for cold beer and hot dominoes!

We've both taken to playing dominoes on the boat to stop us from reading too many books and it's getting quite cut throat!

In addition to the above, Sharon has art lessons three times a week. Lucy, a cruiser, ran her own art school for fifteen years and has started free lessons for cruisers. Sharon can now turn out a reasonable drawing and has just started learning to use watercolours. Another cruiser negotiated a deal for scuba diving and, after a rather intensive weeks training, Andrew is now a PADI open water certified scuba diver.

If all this wasn't enough we are working towards painting the boat and so for the last few weeks have been up very early in the morning sanding, filling and re-varnishing prior to painting which we hope to start soon. Our working day starts at about 6.30 and we usually finish at about 10a.m. because of the heat. To cool ourselves down we have both had fairly drastic haircuts, Andrew with his army cut and Sharon, after having about 10” removed discovered she has wavy hair!

Usually we get around the island by local buses which run regularly and are cheap. Centrally governed but privately owned these vary in style and driving style. They all have names such as King Elvis, Shark Attack and Deliverance. We are staying clear of The Executioner!

The vehicles are usually 15 seat but they all come with a 'packer'. This guy hails you out of the window as you are walking along offering you a ride (using a bus stop is rare!) You then get in regardless of the number of people already on it – the bus is never full! The most we have had is 22 and the worst place to get on is at the bus depot as they don't leave until there are no gaps!

We decided to see more of the island and went with some of the cruisers on an island tour. Cutty, our driver and guide, was excellent and would stop by the roadside and dive into the undergrowth coming back with various plants – lemon grass, ginger, turmeric, cocoa and of course nutmeg. Until hurricane Ivan two years ago Grenada was one of the worlds largest producers of nutmeg, in fact the nutmeg is prominent on their national flag.

We went into the rain forest to some waterfalls and to an area where there are still a few Mona monkeys. Cutty has a knack of tempting them out of the bush and Andrew had the dubious delight of one on his head!   

Lunch was at an excellent local restaurant and then on to the Grenada Chocolate Factory where they produce delicious organic chocolate. It's not very big but the staff are very proud of their product and after tasting samples rightly so! Our penultimate stop was the River Antoine Rum Factory.

This was a real eye opener.

press the button to hear the water powered cane crusher in action

Still powered by the original eighteenth century British water wheel, which crushes the sugarcane, everything is still done traditionally. The sugar cane juice flows along an open gully to the first stage of rum making – boiling. This is done in four giant vats, the furnace fuelled by the leftover crushed sugar cane. Next stage is fermentation where the liquid stays for about seven days. They do not add yeast, as everything is open to the air and yeasts just arrive!

Finally is the distillation where huge copper vats are heated. As with most non-exported Caribbean rums they are strong. The first we tasted was very strong, in fact too strong to be taken on a plane so they produce a second which just slips under the guidelines!

Our final stop was at a beautiful bay with a just one hotel converted from an old plantation house and we paddled and had a cold drink.

If anyone visits Grenada then we would certainly recommend the tour.

We have been incredibly lucky with the weather so far and are keeping fingers crossed that it lasts as we want to get the boat painted before we move on. We hope to visit Tobago next before starting our move north sometime in December. We have guests for most of December until mid-January but let us know if you would like to visit.

We do not pick up our e-mails as frequently as we would like but love to have messages waiting for us so please keep writing.

We would love photos of your summer holidays. And don't forget we still have the phone.

Warm regards

Sharon & Andrew