Where's me coat... This chap is about 18 inches long. When grown they have magnificent colouring, combs and spiky bits
After Ian and Francis fly home I move on down the coast of St Lucia to the Pitons - a couple of impressive lumps of rock, the waters around these are a national park, anchoring is forbidden and you must take a national park mooring buoy - for 20 USD. I get visits from a couple of boat boys and the second one says, "hurry there is only one buoy left, follow me" he cries, he will take me to the buoy and help tie me up. I see an approaching catamaran and race to the buoy. I tip the (50 year old) "boy" 7 USD and am much relieved to get safely tied up. I then use the binoculars to note there are 4 or 5 other buoys but I suppose it was a good hussle.
I think watching the sunset when you are single handed is an emotional event. I think of home.
Next day I leave at first light to get to Bequia choosing to bypass St Vincent. St Vincent is the main island in the group "St Vincent and the Grenadines" - sounds like a pop group. SVG is a very scenic collection of Islands and I really enjoy Bequia. The main town is a narrow sheltered bay and has buoys owned by the boat buoys, again I take one near a dinghy dock run by the whalebone cafe
2 dollar beers, I always try and drink local beers and the Caribbean has beer called Carib (as well as Kalik and Presidente(exported from the Dominic Republic)) So the price for parking your dinghy is 2 USD and they give you a beer and free Wifi. What's not to like!
The place is occasionally blighted by cruiseships but the locals have not had their head turned by the commercial possibilities of exploitation. I am please to report, I am most pleased to report that the stands above are where the locals sell coloured beads to the cruiseship passengers. I think we have come a long way and I find this uproariously funny (I do appreciate not everyone has my sense of humour but surely this is ironic)
Actually the numbers of visitors here are quite small as only the smaller ships call here - unlike later when I am in Bonaire when 7,500 people hit the town at once. (200,000 called here in 2010 - and there are only 18,000 locals). There are only 314 cruise ships in the world (2018) I suppose the Caribbean gets a lot of them and they have to go somewhere and the 26 million people (days) want to go ashore somewhere... <sigh>
Bequia, Port Elizabeth has a lovely shore front - a walking dock with nice wee cafes and restaurants (and dive centres), I stay for 4 days to try and get my US gas fixed. Fridge also goes on the blink. I should have kept a list of everything that has broken on Shadowmere - it would be a long list. Eventually I get a new regulator and am on my way. I travel 40 miles to Union Island to Chatham bay (CH below) and leave the next morning to go around the corner to Clifton bay (CL) where I can check out of the SVGs. Clifton is exposed to the swell from the East but is behind reefs which help break it up a bit
The dinghy dock is well sheltered
And Clifton is a pretty wee town. It has boat boys/water taxis but no real hassle to deal with - mine is called Buddha (amazing resemblance but I chose not to photograph him). He sells me good banana bread as well as helping me take a mooring buoy (free) and running me into town and back for 7 USD (20 ECD)
While waiting for the taxt, I have an iced tea - served in an old jam jar with a hollow bamboo for a straw - works perfectly and very sustainable. Who needs plastic cups and straws!
Getting through the reef is tight, the wind is high and avoiding kite surfers is good sport. He missed...
After Union I approach a few islands just North of Grenada after passing Carriacou - which looked nice - I have problems getting the speeling and pronunciation of these places right - I will eventually head for Curacao in the ABC islands. I finally thing of cured ham and female pigs to get cura cao (cure a sow) for the ABC islands - not quite right but very close - the sow needs a slightly harder 'C', By the way - my mnemonic for Carriacou is "Carry a cow" said in Scottish.
I divert a bit East to avoid an underwater volcano known as Kick'em Jenny - the chart shows a forbidden exclusion zone when yellow or red warnings are in effect. I just keep clear. The back of these rocks have jobbly seas - tide over plateaus - a hundred feet deep as opposed to the 5000 feet on the other side.
The marina has chickens - both male and female. The male rooster here is looking pleased with himself for reasons I need not go into on this blog that might be read by children.
And into Grenada - I anchor for a couple of nights and then go into the Marina on the day Kieran and Eamon arrive. The anchorage is spacious but I drag three times - always a hassle for a singlehander - thank God for Anchor winches. I also have an adventure going into the Marina - I had cased the joint the night before and knew that there were stern buoys. I had been told to ready 2 long stern lines and 2 short bow lines which I did and when I arrived they told me to hang around for 15 minutes which meant engaging forward and astern gear every couple of minutes - it was quite windy. They would send a boat to me when they were ready to "dock" me. No DIY efforts in this marina!. Unfortunately one of the stern lines fell over and caught the prop. I knew immediately and put the boat out of gear and radioed the staff - "Please come and tow me to a buoy" I asked - I was 20 feet from them. I radioed again a few minutes later "Urgent, please come and tow me to a buoy" A few minutes later I said - "I will anchor in 2 minutes if you do not come and tow me to a buoy". 2 seconds later I heard their rib and they came and sorted me out. I still had to dive to clear the rope - solid plastic that took 15 minutes of breadknife hacksawing. Good job I have a pony diving bottle on board.
The weird thing is that I had been thinking to myself just last week that I have travelled nearly 20,000 miles in Shadowmere (this trip plus 4,000 miles in the Baltic) and I have never picked up a lobster pot... sigh
St George's Grenada is a pleasant town. In fact all Grenada is nice - a few poor places, a few people begging but there is a lot going on in this island, lots of good houses, shops are good and the chickens are fat...
If the locals like Cruise ships so much why do they point their cannons at them?
We have some local sloup in a market
and that night try pina colada and fruit punches - a good way to get your vitamins!
Now Mackeson stout rings a bell - nice, made in trinidad! (and the UK)
we take a tour around the Island - "free lunch" and entry into various places. We pass a well decorated road side - the Grenada colours. There are competitions every year for best dressed town - they task the kids with collecting litter and the prizes are used for children's facilities. So if you drop litter in a town most kids will ask you to pick it up. The really smart kids tell you to pick it up... and drop it in the next town.
Yes we have bananas
The ground is so hilly it is typical to build houses on stilts - but the practice is perpetuated on to the (little) flat land as a matter of style/fashion. In fact it is quite typical to build a staircase and build the first floor - when you gather more money together then you build up the ground floor or second floor. Our driver is a font of knowledge - locals don't use mortgages - you save a few grand and put up the stilts, you save a few more (10,000 US) and put up the first storey and so piecemeal construction is normal.
We also visit a waterfall and a man jumps down - you can just see him at the top of the photo. He is looking for tips. My tip would be don't do dangerous things...
Grenada does spices. The nutmeg is particularly interesting - did you know that the first layer of the nutmeg has red coloured bits that are the Mace spice. You grate the inner bit to get actual nutmeg - two spices from one plant!
The driver introduced this as a world famous eggplant. Yes, those are eggshells stuck on the tips of the bush - apparently this makes drying clothes on these bushes much easier - how clever.
We also visit a chocolate factory - here is the cocoa fruit
Which has funny fluffy white bits inside - nice to suck but not to chew
We also buy a couple of bars and then move on to a rum distillery, whose rum is so potent it cannot be put on an airplane - Rivers Rum is made mainly by hand in a very traditional way (the machinery is very old) It has been running continuously since 1875. Makes 30 gallons in 2 hours. Emplopys 75 people.
They burn both cane sugar and wood depending how hot they want the ovens
The water wheel (from the rivers) crushes the sugar cane
Their chain drive is well greased (and very very old)
The humans feeding the cane through the rollers (twice) do not have any safety guards which makes me cringe a bit
Puts a smile on your face - 75 degrees proof (normal spirits are 40 - 42 degrees proof) It tastes like lightly flavoured neat ethanol (I remember tasting neat ethanol in chemistry class in school)
Here is a line of boats - Shadowmere is towards the end. We leave for a four day passage to get to Bonaire - passing within 80 miles of the Venezuelan coast (within 20 miles of its islands) and we elect to switch off our navigation lights and not transmit AIS. Pirates and violent crime are a real possibility, though we have boisterous winds that should dissuade people motoring out on spec (we hope).
Grenada is a fully functioning island. lots of jobs, agriculture, good housing stock and fat hens...
The marina is full of yachts and people, a lot of charters are based from here. The marina is quite upmarket - we enjoy its pool! We also enjoy meals out in the real town. with Real People.