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.