The Trip: 4/13/13 Grenada

Hi everyone,

After we left the Virgin Islands, we spent four days traveling to Grenada (which includes the main island of Grenada and the two smaller islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique). We had a beautiful trip, seeing many mountainous islands and lots of sea life. Mom even got hit with a flying fish while she was on watch. We also found a lost dinghy floating miles offshore, which we returned to a charter company. We arrived in Hillsborough, Carriacou and checked in at the customs office, then headed over to Sandy Island to rest after four days of travel. The next day we moved to Tyrell Bay and began experiencing the island. Tyrell Bay had one main street with all the markets and restaurants, and that was the extent of the town. We walked from one end of the town to the other and back in under two hours, pausing to look in small shops and markets.

Tyrell Bay, from the dinghy dock.

The family walking into town.

After a few days, we sailed on and arrived in St. George’s. St. George’s is the capital of Grenada, and is a full city with marinas, cruise ship docks, and plenty to see and do. We arrived on the 28th of February, and took a slip at a marina because of the proximity of Julia’s birthday. The next day, we woke up early and took now-14-year-old Julia out to breakfast at a local bakery called The Merry Baker, which made incredible chocolate-drizzled croissants. To make things even better, we even met a local orange cat who stopped by to be pet and to beg for a part of Dad’s sausage roll breakfast. After a wonderful breakfast, we headed back to the boat and changed into our bathing suits. Julia and I went to the pool for several hours while Dad worked on the boat. While we had been at the bakery, we learned that on Fridays at noon they had a build-your-own-burger lunch. Being Friday, we headed back to the bakery for another great meal. Afterward, we walked into the city for an afternoon of exploring the culture of Grenada and doing a few errands. We came back to the boat just at sunset and just had time to squeeze in a second swim before having a great birthday dinner and going to bed.

The city of St. George’s, as seen from the marina.

Julia opening her presents. For some reason, she didn’t feel like sleeping in on her birthday.

The Merry Baker bakery, where we went for breakfast and lunch.

Julia enjoying her chocolate croissant at The Merry Baker.

The family walking around St. George’s.

A street vender posing with her wares. We bought a necklace made with local spices from her.

During our trip into town we got thirsty, so we bought a coconut. Julia is holding a water bottle filled with coconut milk and Dad is eating coconut jelly from the inside of the coconut.

A cobblestone street we walked down during our walk around St. George’s.

As we were walking back to the boat, we stopped at a vender called The Soup Man for some local callalou soup.

When we got back from our walk, we still had enough time to go for a swim before dinner.

The next day, we left the marina for Hog Island. Hog Island is a very small island on the south shore of Grenada, with only a beach bar perched on its pristine beach. Mom and Dad went there to hear live music, while Julia and I stayed home and did our school work. The next day we headed to Prickly Bay. Prickly Bay had a marina with a restaurant that we anchored just near, and one night we went out to have pizza and listen to a local band. We also took an island tour on one of the days that we were there. We got up early and went to the marina, where we met our tour guide for the day. He took us on a huge loop through the mountains and winding roads of Grenada, and we stopped several times to experience the culture of Grenada. We stopped once at a nutmeg processing plant, which happens to be one of Grenada’s main exports. We also stopped at a waterfall high up in the mountains, and went swimming in a natural pool. After a day-long trip all around Grenada, we stopped briefly at The Merry Baker to pick up some baguettes, then headed back to Prickly Bay and Island Cat.

The view from our van as we toured Grenada.

Julia and I stand next to two locals with baskets of cocoa pods and other local produce.

When we stopped at a small tourism office on our tour, we met a kitten.

This is Crater Lake. Located high in the mountains of Grenada, it is slowly shrinking due to encroaching growth and will be gone in a few years.

Here we are hiking down to Crater Lake for a better view.

We were just about to get back in our tour van after visiting Crater Lake when we spotted some monkeys. They are well trained, and love bananas.

This is a cocoa tree. You can see the brown cocoa pods slowly ripening on the branches.

The two trees in this picture are Royal palm trees, as we learned. They can grow to be over a hundred feet tall, and are usually incredibly straight.

Here we are touring a nutmeg processing plant. The nuts are left to dry in large racks like these for months at a time.

The nutmeg plant had a small gift shop, filled with nutmeg-related products. We got a bottle of nutmeg syrup, which is surprisingly good when poured over pancakes in the morning.

After we visited the nutmeg processing plant, we swam in a natural pool fed by waterfall.

Mom and Julia cooling off in the pool.

Julia and I getting ready to jump into the pool.

The day after we had our tour, we went to a local restaurant for dinner. They had marimba band, who played local songs in addition to hits such as “Someone Like You” by Adele.

We spent a few more days at Prickly Bay, and then we had our second visitor. Uncle Rob flew into the nearby airport for a week of vacation, and we picked him up in the dinghy at a local restaurant. The next day we left for Union Island, which is located 48 miles from Grenada. Being a part of St. Vincent & the Grenadines, we had planned to check into the new country just after anchoring. Unfortunately, not all plans go accordingly. The anchorage in Union Island is on the deeper side, around 40 feet, and as we were almost done anchoring, the windlass (the thing that pulls up and down the chain, for you landlubbers) suddenly ground to a halt. After half an hour of deconstruction, Dad determined that the gears had broken, rendering the windlass useless. This was bad news for me, because I am the one who usually controls the windlass. Now without a windlass, I was forced to manually haul up a sixty pound anchor and over a hundred feet of chain every time we wanted to anchor. This was not a good long-term solution, although it was probably a great alternative to going to the gym. We stayed in Union for a night, and the next morning we had to check out of St. Vincent & the Grenadines and head back to St. George’s in Grenada to get a new windlass. We managed to squeeze in another visit to The Merry Baker though, so it wasn’t all bad. This was the last time that we would stop in Grenada, so the rest of our trip is a story for another post.