Steve woke me at 5am to start my final watch of our Atlantic Crossing. The lights of Grenada sparkled in front of me as we made fast speed towards them. It was still dark and, not wanting to arrive before light, I slowed the boat down, reefing the main and then the jib, until we only had the main up as I tried to spill some speed, but it seemed Cerulean was as keen to arrive as we were!
At 8:30am we picked up a mooring buoy in Martin’s Bay, the designated waiting area for arriving yachts who were yet to clear customs and health checks. We celebrated as we turned off the engine and let the enormity of what we had achieved sink in!
As Steve inflated the dinghy, I made us a hearty breakfast using the rest of our fresh eggs, and we sat in the cockpit in the hot morning sun, looking out over the clear water to the tree covered hills that surrounded the small harbour of St George’s. There were no big highrise hotels or apartments to spoil the view, just lots of multicoloured houses that clung to the gentle slopes, surrounded by thick trees. Looking south there was a long sandy beach with a few hotels close to the shore, but not too commercial. A large cruise ship was in the port and we could see the passengers being disgorged and transported off in different directions to make the most of their one day in Grenada.
We jumped into the dinghy and headed to the Port Louis Marina, spotting a small turtle in the water as we bumped over the short waves towards the sheltered harbour. Our first stop was to get health clearance and we visited a lovely man sitting under the shade of a gazebo on the waterfront. After examining our documentation, asking for a recent PCR test (which we couldn’t supply) he stamped an official document and handed it to us. We were in a little bit of disbelief that it had been so easy to clear through and had to be told a few times that we were now able to proceed to customs and immigration, which we quickly did. They were in an office a few steps from the gazebo and, after completing a long form and handing over all the other necessary documentation including our customs clearing out papers from Mindelo, our passports were stamped, cruising permit issued for a small fee and we were free to explore Grenada!
We took the dinghy into town and walked the streets so we could get a feel for the place. It was the start of a long weekend as Monday was Grenada Independence Day so people, cars, buildings and boats were preparing for the celebrations as the locals proudly displayed their national colours of yellow, green and red. As we walked the narrow pavements, minibuses drove past beeping their horns as a way to ask whether we needed a ride – fares are a flat fee of EC$2.50pp which equates to less than US$1, to get anywhere from 1mile to 30miles along their route. The hot muggy morning soon became a wet muggy morning as we dodged rain showers which didn’t make us any cooler as the heat seemed to intensify during the day.
Over the course of the next few days a number of boats we knew arrived and our time seemed to be one long celebration of our joint achievements. We met old friends and new ones as we all shared the same realised dream with stories from our passages, advice, learnings and laughter. After a few days of sitting on a rolly mooring outside St Georges, we decided to leave the clear waters and turtles we saw each morning, and head to Prickly Bay about 8NM on the islands rugged south coast. This coastline has numerous long, protected bays and is dotted with small islands, lovely beaches and calm, clear water. In short, a boaters paradise!
We explored a few of the small protected bays along the south coast, with boats from all over the World that looked like they had been left on mooring buoys for some time. The water was turquoise, clear and warm and the white sands of the many beaches that nestled between the mangroves were empty except for an occasional shack that housed a small bar. Cruisers met there playing cards and backgammon as they sipped beers in the late afternoon heat.
Bus rides were interesting. We really felt we put our life in the hands of the driver as he sped through the narrow, bumpy roads with a van full of other trusting people. To alert him to stop, passengers either clicked their fingers or banged on the roof, at which point the driver would veer abruptly to the left and slam his foot on the brake while very loud rap music blared through the van!
I was excited to see large Frigate birds flying around the boat. They are huge birds with fork tails and 2.3m wing span. It was amazing to see them swoop around us as they hunted for food or chased other seabirds to snatch their fish from them. It may have been these magnificent birds or the less impressive, but equally fun Boobies, that unloaded on the boat and we were cleaning up their mess for days afterwards!!
Granada is known as the Spice Islands and while on a tour with new friends, we saw why. Our informative driver pointed out the many plants and trees growing wild in the forest – nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, cocoa as well as banana, mango, French cashew (a fruit) and papaya. The law is that if fruit is hanging over public property and you can reach it, it’s yours and with over 160 different varieties of mango growing wild in Grenada you’d be unlucky to go hungry when foraging for food!
We visited a waterfall with fresh water cascading down rocks into a deep natural pool which screamed out for Steve to jump into – which he did with glee and grace, several times! On to a cocoa plantation and chocolate manufacturer where we had a tasting and short talk about the chocolate manufacturing process from nut to seed. We sucked on a cocoa seed and tasted the butter, buying lots of the delicious dark chocolate made from cocoa grown on the island by small holding farmers which made it taste even sweeter! Then on to the heart of the island – Grand Etang Lake, a crater lake in an extinct volcano and 530m above sea level. It is surrounded by thick jungle and I wish we had had more time to walk up to the crater rim but this will have to wait for another visit!
We bade farewell to our friends on Ilanda and Juliana and headed up the west side of the island, picking up a mooring buoy in a marine protected area in a bay just north of St Georges Harbour. There is an underwater sculpture park in the bay so in the morning we jumped in the warm, clear water and snorkelled over to the park. My overwhelming feeling was great sadness at seeing so much dead coral. In fact there was no coral left, just the skeletons of a once majestic living organism lay below us with a few colourful fish darting through the water. As a large tourist boat arrived to disgorge their swimmers, we swam back to the boat, had breakfast and sailed north to the small island of Carriacou or more precisely to the small, beautiful, tropical paradise of Sandy Island. This little island consists of a beautiful fine white sand beach, palm trees and the clearest blue water you can imagine. It is the scene used to sell tropical destinations that commuters stare at while riding the tube to work on a dreary day and here we were sitting on our boat, looking at the reality of the tropical paradise. It felt good, although it was incredibly windy so the only movement between boats were the pelicans who were blown off course and landed on our bow, the Boobies who made some clumsy attempts to dive in to catch fish which resulted in a bird equivalent of a belly flop and the odd turtle that poked its head above the turquoise waters for a short while before diving again. It was a magical place and we stayed for two nights until the wind dropped and we headed into the main harbour on Carriacou, Tyrell Bay to explore a little of the island.
Since arriving in The Caribbean we have been making plans for where we could spend the hurricane season which starts on 1 June and covers an area from Grenada in the South to South Carolina, USA in the North. If there is a named storm in this region between 1 June to 30 November, our insurance will not cover any loss or damage we may incur, so if we stay within this belt we must be able to move out of harms way quickly. The last time Grenada was hit by a hurricane was in 2004 so it’s a place lots of cruisers head to as it is easy to sail further south should a storm be forecast. We have some big projects to undertake on the boat so have been gathering names of prospective people who may be able to do the work. It became clear that we needed to meet these people and let them see the boat so we could get a proper quote, so the decision was made to head back to mainland Grenada while we had the opportunity. After spending four glorious days in Carriacou, we retraced our route and returned to the main island to meet with tradesmen, wash the boat and gather our thoughts!
Our last few days in Grenada were spent socialising, doing boat jobs, meeting tradesmen, swimming and getting the boat ready for when we collect our first visitor in a few days time. For now, we are checked out to leave this beautiful island and have negative covid tests which will allow us entry into other islands. When we checked into Grenada a few weeks earlier, the health officer said to us, “A word of warning, Grenada is a big magnet. Once you have been here, you will be drawn back!” He was not wrong. This is still a virtually unspoilt paradise with lovely people, protected anchorages and good sailing. We are already making plans to return here and spend more time exploring. For now, we will sail the 300 miles to Antigua where we will collect a friend and explore a different part of the Caribbean together.