Lush, green island

Prickly Bay is a crowded anchorage and very pretty (as are all the Grenadan anchorages). There are a lot of liveaboards here, many of them Americans, and they run a radio net every morning announcing social events, bus trips to shops, things for sale, help and advice and a weather forecast. This can be useful and we have just bought a crate of beer and a crate of tonic at good price but I don't understand why you would use the shopping bus when the local bus to the shops and back is a third of the price and very regular.

We have been using local buses and getting about quite a bit. The capital, St. George, is about half an hour away and is quite small but with excellent natural harbours. We went up to the fort and looked out across all the bay, which was a spectacular sight after a climb in the heat.

Grenada is known as The Spice Island, with nutmeg being the main exported spice at one and a half million tons per year. We have tried nutmeg ice cream, which is delicious, and nutmeg jam which is quite nice. We also took the bus to Guoyave to the nutmeg factory, where everything is done by hand except the drying. We learnt that mace comes from the nutmeg fruit too and is used in cosmetics among other things. They test the quality by putting the nutmegs in water. The ones that sink are the highest quality as they have more oil in them.  We bought some cream made from nutmeg oil which is said to be useful for arthritic type pain. I have had a painful inflamed tendon in my shoulder for a few months and I have to report that so far this cream is amazingly effective.

As usual we have been doing a lot of walking. The island is mountainous, though not high. The landscape is lush and green with lots of tropical flowers.The walks are quite short but beautiful.

 Lots of rain here too but mainly at night or early morning. Lots of waterfalls too with pools that are blissful to swim in.

We have been learning to eat like the locals to try and cut down on costs as food can be expensive. Scruffbag loves calalloo. I make a drink called sorrel from dried hibiscus flowers, which tastes great and Scruffbag cooks a mean macaroni pie.

The riggers have  now replaced the backstay and are working on replacing all the rivets on the mast, but  the main man went off sick early this morning, leaving his tools on our boat - hopefully they will return soon and then we will head for Carriacou.

South to Grenada

The night before we set off for the 150 mile sail to Grenada, I hardly slept. My throat was sore and I was clearly coming down with something. Scruffbag asked if I wanted to postpone, but, having checked out with customs, I decided to grin and bear it, One of the main reasons for choosing Grenada was that we needed some repairs to the rigging, One of the wires in the backstay had split on the Atlantic crossing (causing some stress for Scruffbag) so we needed to replace it and we needed to check some of the rivets in the mast.Grenada was known for boatyard facilities as well as for being very attractive. Because of this, we had chosen a forecasted day of light winds in order not to unduly stress the mast. We did do some sailing but we also motored a fair bit.

I felt pretty grim as I had by now developed a full blown head cold but the trip was fine. We saw no other boats. Then, on Scruffbag's watch in the early hours he was called up by a ship accompanying a survey ship and asked to divert to avoid the survey ship which needed a five mile clearance, This put the wind forward of the beam and as we turned, a sudden squall increased the wind to 25 knots with accompanying  completely blinding rain!!

Once we had passed the survey boat we continued on our way but the showers continued on and off and we arrived at the anchorage in Prickly Bay, Grenada in a grim, grey downpour. It soon cleared up, however, to reveal a busy but very pretty bay.

Grenada does get more rain than we are used to but luckily most of it occurs in the early morning or at night - you do need to close the hatches in a hurry at times.

The island benefits from this rain by being lush and tropical. It is mountainous and very pretty and somehow has a more caribbean feel to it than Barbados. It is also somewhat cheaper to buy food and wine (though pretty much the same as  UK prices rather than Spanish or Cape Verdean, which we are used to).

We look forward to getting out and about and exploring further.

In Barbados

I arrived in Barbados on 16th December, staying in an airbnb conveniently close to Dover beach. I did  a lot of swimming  and some checking out of information ready for Scruffbag's arrival. On 20th December,armed with beer and fresh food, I was delighted to meet him in the dinghy at the  careenage in Bridgetown. After lunch and beers on board, Matt and Rosie left for their airbnb, promising to meet up before we all went our separate ways. Scruffbag and I caught up on news and talked about the crossing.All had been fine and everyone had got on well.

Time taken. 18 days
Fastest day 138 miles
Slowest day 80 miles
Strongest wind 45 knots
Number of fish caught 5
Minke whale swimming round the boat for a few hours

Scruffbag and I remained at anchor in Carlisle Bay and spent a great Christmas Day on board with Matt and Rosie, who brought vegetable dishes,rum and cocktail stuff.

We joined the sailing club for free for a week, enjoying glunches in a love!y setting and availing ourselves of the water tap which is in a few metres of water attached to a buoy in the bay. Every day a group of race horses was brought down to the beach for a swim. The first time we saw them it was quite a surprise. We were sitting in the  cockpit eating breakfast when we heard a horse whinney !

 New year was spent quietly on board, drinking rum and watching the fireworks. When I say quietly, I am not including  the noise from all the parties on the beach, where the music blasted till morning. This was actually a regular weekend feature, the music being  ok but the shouting DJs hard to handle

It took Scruffbag about a week to catch up on his sleep and then we managed some visits.

We went to Farley Hill, a ruined plantation house.

We went to Andromeda gardens on the  east coast, where we .saw amazing plants in a lovely. setting as well as lots of humming birds,which were, unfortunately, too fast to capture on film.

We also saw the lovely,wild beach at Bathsheba.

On 7th January we walked around to the port and spent a few hours signing out ready to leave for Grenada next day.