Weeks 56-57: Grenadines to Grenada (91nm)

Another couple of easy weeks enjoying time with old friends and meeting some new cruisers as we worked our way down to the bottom of Grenada.

Captain’s Log

26th May: After a sedentary four nights in one place, we decided to move onto new pastures and left Canouan for Carriacou (how fun is that to say?) – this meant we were changing country despite staying in the Grenadines, as Grenada owns the lower couple of islands. The sail was a glorious beam reach in 12 knots of breeze and Serenity rolled back her years (and excessive fouling below the waterline, since we are getting lazier at cleaning the closer we get to haul out) and galloped down at close to seven knots. We were greeted by the now normal flotilla of boat boys, although at least they had a diversified product range of Chilean white wine and oysters for us to decline.

27th May: Spent the morning and early afternoon getting checked into customs (which was being renovated on our first visit) and prepping Serenity for our new guests – Lauren, who is one of Laura’s oldest friends from Virginia, and her fiancé Felix. They met us at the Lazy Turtle after a fairly intense set of flight connections on the back of a raucous wedding the previous night, so we went out for some pizza and then took the opportunity for an early night in this mellow bay.

28th May: Chugged round to the small nearby Sandy Islet where there was meant to be good snorkelling, but had a nightmare tying up on one of the mooring balls, which took five attempts. The sealife seemed like it was worth it; however, the mooring ball then broke free from the seabed (thankfully after we had returned to Serenity!) and we decided this place was no longer for us. So we continued our journey round to Petite Martinique (no visual relation to the larger one) and found a good spot amongst the coral rubble to park for the night – the low level of light pollution meant we could enjoy some ego-suppressing stargazing with our guests.

29th May: The wind looked to be favourable for a longer sail down towards Grenada, so we picked an island on the way that seemed to be fairly isolated and headed off after breakfast. Conditions were ‘dynamic’, but our guests enjoyed the rollercoaster thrills of the waves (especially when unjamming the main furler), and we even bagged a small barracuda on route. Invisible stinging jellies made the swimming less appealing, but we found an old campsite on the beach and cooked up our catch whilst watching the swirling masses of birds fishing in the dusk light.

30th May: Despite a lovely short sail down to our next intended stop of Sandy Island (different to the one mentioned above – again a real lack of naming imagination), we were disappointed to find the significant swell meant we couldn’t spend any time here. So we worked through the alternatives and decided to push on down to a bay on the southern part of Grenada, where we arrived late afternoon after a mix of pure and motor sailing. A nearby restaurant was preferred given a lack of cooking enthusiasm amongst the crew, which was made all the more exciting given it was on the other side of a reef that we had to carefully navigate in TJ.

31st May: The day started with a topsy turvy game of Catan that Lauren eventually won, after which we turned our attentions to a bit of boat maintenance. Our guests insisted that they wanted to be involved and so took to the water to give Serenity’s hull a clean, whilst Laura and I had our second exploration of rope splicing in trying to create an ‘endless furling line’ for the mainsail. It was significantly tougher than the YouTube video made out (when is it not?), but we were pleased with our efforts (of four hours). Later, we headed over to the nearby Lightship bar to meet up with with Lauren and Felix who had explored some of the shore (including a local rum distillery from which they had bought us a gift).

1st Jun: Our next stop was only 0.5nm down the coast, but we decided to make it more of a sail by heading out to sea for a bit with fingers crossed that we might bag another fish on what we thought might be our last use of the fishing gear this season. No bites were forthcoming and we also discovered our endless line was too thick at the splice to pass through the furling gear – but at least the sail itself was nice. The mooring help at the marina was indecisive and chaotic but we eventually got settled (after Felix had to swim the bow line out), and then we enjoyed the pool and other facilities that had been recommended to us by Arcturus.

2nd Jun: On our final full day with Lauren and Felix we rented (or perhaps borrowed?) a car from someone at the marina and toured some of the inland sights. Highlights were the monkeys and hiking in the Grand Etang National Park, and as always it was refreshing to spend a day on land to get a different perspective on the island. We finished the day in the West Indies Brewing Co, which was reminiscent of a US West Coast Brewery experience and a perfect venue for L&F’s last night.

3rd Jun: After kindly helping us tidy and replenish Serenity for the next few weeks, we made our farewells to Lauren and Felix (but not without a last round of Hanabi in which we finally achieved the maximum ‘legendary’ score). We then headed round to the next bay that had better access to shore side amenities and spent the rest of the day thinking through the plans for our remaining few weeks in Grenada (and afloat on Serenity this season!).

4th Jun: Collected some bulky items from the crew who will be joining us in the Pacific and also managed to get some groceries – the limited time we have left aboard means we are shifting into ‘what’s in the pan Fran’ mode and trying to use up our food stores. Then spent the afternoon experimenting with TJ to see if we could get him planing with two people without needing a bigger engine – results were inconclusive.

5th Jun: Continued our experiments in upgrading the dinghy by purchasing and installing some hydrofoil fins for the outboard, which made an impact, but we’ve decided that it ideally needs just a bit more grunt to get going. The swell working it’s way into Prickly Bay wasn’t abating, so we moved round to another densely populated cruiser hangout behind Hog Island where the water was dead flat. The lean-to on the beach turned into a semblance of a bar around 6pm and became a fun cruiser hangout including many dogs – our favourite was Knox the Collie who had found a coconut to use as a ball.

6th Jun: Had a very enjoyable morning walking through Serenity from bow to stern to generate the long list of boat projects that we could tackle during the refit – with 170+ lines in the project database we may be biting off more than we can chew, but it is fun to dream. I then took the afternoon to create a front porch on the foredeck whilst Laura prepared for our upcoming convoy to Trinidad. We spent the evening at a local bar that hosts a live music session on Thursdays, which boasted a very impressive session band that we learned about from the daily radio net (which happens in Grenada every morning – see Parting Thoughts below).

7th Jun: Today was the day that I decided to stop the mind-bendingly frustrating saloon knocking noise that Serenity produces whenever we are experiencing anything more than small waves. Having tried to fix this three times previously and never been able to get access behind the wooden panel, I decided a more forceful approach was required – three hours later I finally freed the trapped fibreglass off cut that was the culprit, but the jury is still out on whether I will be able to repair the interior damage that accompanied this success. We celebrated at another of the regular cruiser hangouts that evening where we met Rick & Lara (S/V Mai Tai), Shaun & Shannon (S/V Breeze), and Carolyn & Andrew (S/V Azkari), some of whom are also setting up to cross the Pacific next year.

8th Jun: A combination of a non-ideal parking spot (too many nearby boats on mooring buoys) and a desire to be closer to some of the other cruisers we had met meant we made a very short trip round to the other side of Hog Island, where Breeze was parked. Once we were settled, we took care of a couple more jobs and then Breeze invited us over / we crashed an amazing dinner of coconut shrimp with the crew of Mai Tai, which was accompanied by a a never ending procession of cuddles with Batman (their rescue pitbull) and a vigorous game of a variant of noun-box (that involved a half-time song to minimise game tensions). 

Parting thoughts

Grenada has been a wonderful discovery, and a combination of it’s more remote location in the Caribbean and the approaching hurricane season means that it is packed with cruisers (as you can probably tell from the entries above). One of the most enjoyable byproducts of having such an active community is the daily VHF radio net at 07:30, which, using repeaters, is able to connect the cruisers across all the different bays on the island. There is a rotating host who runs the net, and a set agenda that covers topics from Security and Weather, to Social, Trivia and Treasures of the Bilge.

Our favourite moments thus far have been the old school, infomercial-style adverts that people put out to promote their social activities such as Noodling (“forget low impact, this exercise is no impact”) and Dominoes (“throw away your woes, come play dominoes”). On a slightly more sombre note, we also heard an impressive reaction when a heart attack was reported a few bays round (outcome currently unknown), which really underlined how much the people in this community look out for each other.

And now for something completely different – this lyrically diverse song is dominating the airwaves in Grenada (for better or for worse…)