Month: November 2019

Who knew when we arrived in May that Gary and I would log 40 dives each while here in Grenada? We were very lucky to hook up with Eco Divers. Today was our last dives and we went out with Dirk, Keone and “Capt” Ron. Just us. Talk about feeling special.

 

One of the nice things about being anchored out is that whenever it rains we get a beautiful rainbow or two. Since it’s been raining every day and sometimes twice a day that’s a lot of rainbows. It’s also quiet and peaceful and I’m back in my happy place!

The other thing we’ll say a fond farewell to is our sushi restaurant at the end of the dock, Yolo. We consistently got really good sushi and a chance to share it with “friends”.

This will be our last night on the hook until we leave on Sunday. We have to go back into the marina onto the “super yacht” dock and fuel up and see if we can get our davit fixed. It broke yesterday when we tried to put the dinghy back on top of the boat. If not, we’ll be towing the dinghy until we get to St Marteens Island in February. Oh well. At least it broke with the dinghy in the water-not on top- and not halfway up!

We continue to prep the boat for travels north. One thing that has really spoiled us is the unlimited wifi we have utilized as part of our marina fee this summer. Binge watching several shows and catching up on a couple movies has become our evening norm. As Gary says, after Friday we’ll be back to books and playing cards. I think it’s a good trade off.

Our diving adventures continue with a wreck dive this week that we hadn’t done before. The guys at EcoDive have gone above and beyond to make our diving a great experience while here in Grenada. So much so that they agreed to pick us up off the boat in the anchorage next week so we can finish out our stay with a few more dives.

Three days to go and we’re “on the hook” once again.

We’re starting to get our heads wrapped around the fact that we’re leaving the marina here in Grenada  soon and leaving the island a week after that. It comes up fast when you start tallying up all the things that must be done before leaving.

Things like a final order with Fast Manicou who have been bringing us great salmon and steaks that you can’t get anywhere else, deep clean the inside of the boat (back in the states it’s called spring cleaning), wash and wax the outside of the boat (required twice a year), make new screens for the portholes that fell apart as we arrived in Grenada, redo the fishing reels and make sure they are in working order, yet another grocery run to knock off more on the provisioning list, update all charts while we still have reliable internet service and the list goes on. Being underway again will be so relaxing!

One thing we’ve discovered in Grenada is the laid back approach to getting things done. You’ve heard of GMT, Greenwich Mean Time? That was replaced by UTC or Universal Time Coordinated. So now there is a new meaning for GMT… Grenada Maybe Time. Whenever someone here gives you a time or date that they will show up it really is just an approximation. You either get frustrated or you roll with it. While we still get frustrated some times we’re rolling more and more.

For instance, Tevin is a nice young man that has been doing repairs to our a/c system all summer. As parts are delivered he shows up to perform the next set of repairs. It’s been a process but Tevin is a gem and everything is finally working as it should. Tevin is also a musician and we had expressed an interest in seeing him perform. Last Friday he said he would we playing at a bar in Phar Bleu and offered to pick us up from the marina and drive us to the restaurant. Originally he would pick us up at 6pm and we would eat dinner there. At 7pm we ate at the local marina restaurant. At 8pm he showed up with members of his band and we all squeezed into his car and took off for points unknown. We got to the bar to find out that they wouldn’t be playing that night as the bar had scheduled someone else. So we had a couple drinks and talked with Tevin who then drove us back to the marina. Did we hear him play? No but we had a great adventure. GMT in action.

After not diving at all last week it was great to get back in the water yesterday. When doing multiple dives back to back you have to maintain a “surface interval” to allow your body to out gas nitrogen. The longer the surface interval the deeper you can go or the longer you can stay at a specific depth. We typically do two dives and Eco Dive finds a nice place to set the boat for 30-45 minutes or so. We pour the ginger tea and pass around the snacks. Yesterday during our rest time we encountered spotted eagle rays all around our boat. One of the dive masters jumped in with his snorkel gear and our camera to get some close ups.

During the second dive Shark Reef lived up to its name with 3 shark sightings as well as some more sting rays and the assorted lion fish, lobsters and shrimp that we normally see.

In 16 days we will finally leave the marina here at Port Louis and anchor out for a week or so prior to heading north. It’s been fun being here in Grenada but we will be very ready to get moving again.

In the meantime we’ve acquired a lobster man who comes most afternoons and will catch lobster on demand. He brought 7 yesterday so we had a wonderful dinner and consigned 5 to the freezer. Some of them are big enough that we can split one between us and not go hungry.

We also decided with recommendations from several people to engage a sail maker/upholsterer to make new cushions for the bow and the chairs in the aft seating area as the ones we currently have retain water and make a mess. A nice navy and white stripe will jazz up the looks of the boat as well. Always a good thing!

The cruise ships have started up again with St George’s being one of the stops. That means timing is important if we need to go into town for anything like the fish market or just lunch because if we choose poorly we’ll get run over. Definitely time to leave.