Month: June 2019

 

June 24th

Our next adventure took us up the west coast heading north and into St John’s and St Mark’s parishes to see a nutmeg processing station, Concord Waterfalls, Jouvay Chocolate Factory and Grand Etang Lake which is in the center of the island. We went as far as Victoria before turning inland.

We furthered our nutmeg education watching workers husk, sort and seal the nuts in large bags for export at the nutmeg processing plant. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the processing plant but it was very interesting. In the sorting section we were allowed to look over the shoulders of the workers and watch. One nice lady gave me a few nutmegs to add to my collection. At the height of the nutmeg production there were sixteen processing plants but now there are only four that are working. The others have been leased to individuals to operate as restaurants, stores etc. until the nutmeg crops come back to their full potential.

The nutmeg backstory is that 80 percent of the nutmeg trees were destroyed by a hurricane in 2004 because they are very tall trees with a shallow root structure. They are now at about 40 percent of the original production and increasing every year. Even so they still ranked at number two for worldwide nutmeg production.

Along the coast at Grand Bay we found the ideal seating area to watch the sunset. Apparently someone stops trucks with tires on the way to the landfill and adds the tires to this “stadium” area. This is recycling at it’s best.

Every year, a few weeks before Grenada’s Independence Day in February, the local paint stores give away free paint in the national colors of red, green and yellow. Each town uses the paint to create something be it a mural, signs or just painting something to look better and a contest is held to see who is the best. As a result you see the green, red, yellow paint everywhere. It really does look nice.

We drove up to Concord Waterfalls, one of the few that are accessible by car. The rest you have to hike into and it can be a 90 minute hike or longer depending on which one you go to. At this point we’re more interested in driving around the island and learning as much as we can. If we get bored later in the summer we may consider hiking but it’s doubtful.

In Gouyave, where they are famous for the “Fish Friday” street festival each week, it was interesting to see the shacks on the beach where the fishermen live next to their boats and then a few streets over, the large houses where their families live.

The Jouvay Chocolate Factory was a great experience and we came away with many chocolate bars and even some chocolate creme liquor which we taste tested last night. As Gary said it’s like drinking chocolate mousse. Chilled, it goes down easy. Good thing it’s only 20% alcohol.

There are three more chocolate factories on the island and our intention is to visit all of them.

Grand Lake Etang, one of three lakes, sits up in the mountains in the center part of the island. At the entrance there are Mona monkeys. Apparently you only find them here and in Africa and the locals are very protective of them. One in particular knows that the humans will bring him bananas and he gets up close and personal to get those bananas.

We climbed the hill for the lookout over the lake, a ten minute hike straight up the hill. The flowers are beautiful as this is the interior of the island and is not affected by the dry season.

Our driver, Rawl, continued to amaze us with his extensive knowledge of flora and fauna. Apparently his grandmother was responsible for much of this knowledge as she would take walks with him and ask him to name the various plants. He taught us how to tell the difference between banana, plantain and bluggoe trees without seeing the fruit. It has to do with the color on the edge of the leaf stems.

We continue to play golf and the course is starting to “green up” with the advent of the rainy season. It should look really nice in a couple weeks.

Diving was a grand adventure on Wednesday. Our first dive was a wreck dive called Shakem. Apparently a ship was coming into Grenada with a load of warm concrete and got caught in a storm a few years ago. The ship floundered and the cargo shifted resulting in the ship now lying on the bottom of the ocean in about 100 feet of water. As we dropped onto the wreck I was watching my dive computer to make sure I didn’t descend too quickly. When I looked up I was staring into the eyes of a large (3′) hawksbill turtle. Usually when we encounter turtles they swim away as soon as they see you. This one was totally unconcerned and just stayed there with me so of course I reached out and touched his shell. Now I can say I’ve petted a turtle in the water. Of course this was the one day we didn’t bring our underwater camera so no pictures to document this incredible experience. Guess it will just have to be a “Kodak moment” in my mind!

Our second dive was at Northern Exposure which was a shallow reef with lots of corals and fish.

On both dives we entered the water in sunshine and came up in pouring rain making it a little chilly moving from one site to the next. EcoDivers has turned out to be a really good group to dive with and we will see them once a week for the rest of the summer.

Now that we’ve settled into the marina and squared away the boat we’re looking for things to do. We played golf at the Grenada Golf and Country Club and have a month to month membership that is all inclusive. It’s a nine hole course and if you want to play eighteen holes you simply use different tee boxes for the second nine. You are required to use a caddy and we lucked out with Sam and Kelly who couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful. Especially since we haven’t played golf since February.

Then on to some diving with the local dive shop EcoDive. Again we’ve purchased a package of dives so we will be busy for the foreseeable future diving and playing golf every week.

We have found a great driver, Rawl, who really knows the island and have embarked on a series of half day excursions to learn about the island and it’s inhabitants. We’ll do one a week until we feel we’ve seen it all.

Our first trip was last Friday and we concentrated on the southeastern part of the island from St George’s south and inland to the spice company.

Grenada is comprised of a series of parishes. which harks back to the early catholic influence. Religiously it’s a very diverse people with about 15 different religions being practiced; everything from Catholic to VooDoo including Muslim and Rastafarian. Religious freedom is celebrated here and everyone gets along just fine. They could be poster children for the rest of the world!

The schools are a series of public and private with kindergarten, primary and secondary. There is a large university in the south with the emphasis on medical both human and veterinary. They are now offering course work in other majors such as business administration as well.

Grenada is the second largest producer of nutmeg in the world and spices are huge here. We took a tour of the local spice company and Gary was amazed at the range of spices used for medicinal purposes. The walkways on the outside tour were covered with crushed nutmeg shells rather than the mulch we’re used to at home.

One of the really interesting things we learned was how to harvest cinnamon. They cut down the cinnamon trees and peel the bark away. Then someone scores the trunks about every foot and the next person bangs on the bark with a glass bottle (Coke was the preferred choice). Then using a sharp blade the inner bark is peeled away in sheets to be ground into what you find at the market.

I had never really thought about where pepper comes from and was surprised to see it growing on bushes. We learned that the various colors of pepper are just the different times it is harvested. Green for early pepper, then pink, white and finally black.

We tasted tamarind right from the pod off the tree (a sweet/sour flavor) and smelled a variety of herbs. Of course no tour is complete without stopping at the visitors center to purchase spices. I came away with cinnamon, bay leaves and a fish seasoning I’m anxious to try.

We then headed to Calabash Resort for a great lunch by the water and back to the boat.

Next week we head north to the chocolate factory. Gary can’t wait!

May 26

We cleared customs in Clifton Harbor on Union Island and slid over to Petit St Vincent for the night. They are supposed to have spectacular snorkeling there but because of the boat traffic and strong current we decided to just have sundowners on the boat and admire nature.

The next day we motored over to Tyrell Bay on Carricaou Island for a couple days. Carricaou is part of Grenada so it was the last time we needed to clear customs and immigration for awhile.

There is a wreck in the bay about 200 yards from where we anchored so we grabbed our dive gear and jumped off the swim platform for a remarkable, shallow dive. Lots of fish, the biggest lobster I’ve ever seen (too bad it’s not lobster season) and a huge sea cucumber.

We also managed to do a couple dives off the point with Raquel from one of the local dive shops. Because we wanted to dive in the marine park we were required to go thru a local dive shop instead of diving off our boat as we usually do. These were also drift dives and we really needed someone in a chase boat so it worked out well and was a fun day.

But all things come to and end and we finally headed to St George’s Harbor on the main island of Grenada. We anchored out for a few days to check out the marina before taking the boat in as we were going to be docking in a whole new way.

We’re staying at Port Louis Marina. Usually when we dock we sidle up to a dock, throw the lines off and can jump on and off the boat with no problem. Port Louis poses a slight problem for us tho. In order to maximize the number of boats at the dock everyone has to pull stern in and tie off to a mooring bouy on the front and a couple dock lines off the back or aft at the dock. The marina sends out a couple guys in a small boat to lead you in to your slot. They attach the bow lines and move the bouy out of the way to allow you to back into the slip.

It’s a european docking system and if you do this all the time you have a passarelle or gangway that connects your boat to the dock to allow easy access on and off the boat. Unfortunately for us we’re ‘Mericans and our boat is not equipped in this fashion and it’s too big a step up from our swim platform to the dock for me. After a couple tries Gary found a small step ladder that he tied to the back so I can just step over to the dock. That works.

The other issue with docking like this is that we are sandwiched in like sardines and you can literally climb from one boat to the next. So we’re going from anchoring out and not having close neighbors to being on top of each other. Guess we’ll get to know our neighbors really well over the next 6 months!

Over the next week or so we’ll be cleaning the boat, getting a few things fixed and setting up a delivery system so we can have things imported from the states while we’re here. We’ve already taken an hour cab ride around the harbor to figure out where things are, get groceries and several trips to various hardware stores. We’ve located the nearest KFC and pizza shop as well as the local golf course so things look good.

It’s an interesting next step in our adventure.

Travelling around Union Island we spotted Chatham Bay which looked like a really nice anchorage but there were no boats. Kind of eerie. So we kept moving around to the south side to Frigate Bay where the kite boarders play. We tucked in with about 6 other boats but again the rolliness was more than we wanted to deal with so up anchor and back to Chatham Bay.

Unfortunately when we pulled the anchor up it was twisted on itself and we couldn’t pull it all the way up. After talking about it we decided to drop the secondary anchor when we got to Chatham, set it and then drop the primary straight down so Gary could dive on it and try to resolve the problem. We have a hooka just for working on the boat that serves well as an air source while under the boat. With Gary in the water and me on top fetching tools and lowering them over the side it didn’t take long to get it fixed. We then pulled up both anchors and reset the primary. The secondary anchor works well but it is rope instead of chain so doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence for any extended anchoring. This is something we will fix in Grenada as the primary anchor doesn’t have enough chain for some of the spots we ran into this trip. So we’ll purchase 500 ft of chain for the primary anchor and move the 240 ft we currently have to the secondary anchor and we’ll be set for most anything.

 

This place gets a blog entry all it’s own. We’ve been here nine days which for us is a long time. Admittedly the first few days I had the flu and don’t even remember. But it definitely went uphill from there. It’s a large, quiet bay with some bbq shacks and a small resort. Boats come in and out every day to anchor. Some only stay overnight, some for a day or two and then there’s us.

We’re in no hurry as we still have over a week to get to Grenada. The other day we decided to take a cab over to Clifton on the other side of the island. They said it would only be a 20 minute ride. We said it would be fun and we needed an atm, a small grocery and somewhere else to eat lunch.

The cab showed up and it looked like something left over from a Mad Max movie. No seat belts, no interior door handles, the upholstery was in shreds and we thought “what have we gotten ourselves into?”

Trusting people that we are we got into the cab. After 20 yards we realized that there wasn’t a road up the rather large hill to the top of the island but a trail and we were going 4 wheeling!

Well it was 20-25 minutes to the top where we intersected the main road. Whew. The main road is wide enough for 1 ½ cars, no guard rails and quite a drop off. When we got to the edge of town our driver pulled off and said we needed to get out. What? After a little interrogating we realized he wanted us to get into his other vehicle, the “town” car. This one was newer, clean, a/c and a working radio. This is what we rode into and around town in. Much better.

We did our errands, had lunch, rode back out of town, changed over to the Mad Max vehicle and proceeded back to Chatham Bay. When we got back to the trailhead it was a steep drop into the trail with no visibility. I admit I closed my eyes. Our driver said he makes that trip at least once a day and up to five times a day in season. I doubt my body could take that but he was young and a very competent driver.

When we first arrived I jumped in the water with my snorkel gear to check the anchor and found a galaxy of starfish under our boat, some as big as two feet across. When I snorkeled again four days later they were no where in sight. Where did they go I wondered. Well today we did a dive off the back of the boat and we found them again. There are probably 3000 different species of fish and they are VERY friendly. We’ve also seen quite a few big turtles swim right by the boat.

So it’s been an interesting nine days but tomorrow we leave and head to Clifton Bay to clear customs and immigration and on to Grenada.

It was sad to leave Bequia but we seem to get itchy feet after a week or so and move on to the next island. The islands are so close together here that we’re sightseeing from the boat and checking out different anchorages for next time we pass this way.

A couple hours from Bequia we found Canouan. An interesting island, small and without the charm or amenities of Bequia from a boating perspective. Of course that could be because of the reports of robberies of boats from 2014 and 2015. We really couldn’t find anything recent and had absoulutely no problem. There were maybe 6 boats in the anchorage, most on mooring balls.

Morning brought the rollies so we left after breakfast for Myreau. Before leaving the island we headed south and east to check out the super yacht marina. They seem to be knocking down the hill at the end of the island but we couldn’t figure out what the intentions are. There’s also a Mandarin Oriental and a couple top rated hotels and a golf couse so it seems to be an island of extremes.

On Mayreau we stopped in Salt Whistle Bay for a few nights. An absolutely delightful anchorage, small with a few beach bars (shacks). Ali met us as we pulled in and directed us to a sandy spot to drop anchor. Because he was the first on the scene we became “his” for the duration. He took our trash and explained which beach bbq shack he was affiliated with so we could visit. Cameron brought us fresh snapper, caught that day so we had a good dinner on board and one in the freezer for a later meal.

There are only 271 people that live on Mayreau and the only way in or out is by boat.