If you can tell the quality of an organization by how they approach the little details, Spice Island Marine does a pretty good job. Here you can see the straps that go under the boat have been covered with plastic before haul-out. This is so that any crap leftover from a previous boat doesn’t get embedded in the fiberglass on your boat.
I had been told that we would need to pad the boat where the straps touched it because of this, but the boat yard did it for us so we didn’t have to. Nice touch.
This is a shot off the stern (back) of our boat (you can see our dinghy and outboard, which hang off the stern) as we go into the slip.
As I explain in another post, we had to go in backwards because the fore-stay on our boat would have hit the cross beam on the travel-lift if we went in forwards.
Also, now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t know who took this picture. I certainly didn’t as I was so nervous just trying to back the thing in straight. There were about 4-5 people per pier (out of the shot) trying to keep the boat centered and from rubbing against the concrete/steel side of the pier.
This bay, on the south coast of Grenada, is called True Blue. Lovely little bay. Fancy resort on the other side of the bay, a small marina, and a mooring field to hold your boat. This bay is right next to the bay where we hauled out our boat, so this is a couple of days before haul out.
There was a mooring field in this bay, so we tied up to one of the moorings. Since COVID was ruining the cruising industry that season, there was no-one to take payment for our stay. We looked and called and emailed, but couldn’t find anyone. So we just stayed one night. Also, there were a lot of swells, so we didn’t sleep all that well. It is interesting how swells are usually from the north, but somehow also come into bays opening to the south.
BTW, this is the medical school where Reagan rescued the hostages back in the 80’s.
There are not many good harbors on the west coast of Grenada. The main port, St. Georges, is great, but busy and still fairly exposed to swells unless you are in the inner-harbor where it is way to busy for anchoring.
So, on our trip from Carriacou to the marina in St. Georges, we decided to stay the night in Halifax harbor on the west coast of Grenada. It is about 2/3 of the way down the island from the top, so just a short ride for us the next day to pull into the marina.
Unfortunately, Halifax is not a great harbor. Still not very protected from any swells, it has overhead electrical lines crossing that you have to watch out for, the bottom is fairly steep from the shore leaving little room to anchor, and the area of anchoring has huge coral heads that you have to watch out for so your anchor doesn’t ruin the coral and so that the chain doesn’t get tangled. In addition, when we pulled in, some local “boat people” came out and tried to “persuade” us into giving them some beer in a rather threatening way. I ignored them, but still.
This picture is of a small, tall island in Halifax harbor that we were anchored close to which has a dwelling propped at the top, a rope bridge from the shore to the island, and windy walks down to the water. I haven’t looked how they advertise this, if at all, but this is one of those places that they could make sound wonderful and adventurous, where in reality, I bet it would be buggy, dangerous, and unbearably isolated (also, one of the island refuse dumps is further in the harbor, so probably smelly also).
Sandy Island is a small sand reef off the north part of the southern part of Carriacou. Nothing on it. A mooring field where you can pay to spend the night. The day we were there, it was pretty windy and not very protected from the waves, so we ate lunch, walked ashore and left for better a better anchorage. The island is pretty idyllic, as you can see. Hopefully, we can go back as there is supposed to be good snorkeling here. South of here on the mainland of Carriacou is Paradise Beach, a nice long strip of beach.
This picture was taken off the coast of very south coast of Carriacou. We had decided to take a hike one day out of Tyrell Bay and ended up walking most of the way out on the southern-most point of Carriacou. Down a dirt road, there were grazing farms, mostly for goats, and a couple of large waterfront properties that also had a large amount of land. We got to one point where we made it to the shore and there were conch shells everywhere. They were also piled up onshore as well.
We looked, but couldn’t find a perfect one. Everything we found had at least some kind of flaw.
BTW, on our trip home through the airport, I saw a pile of conch shells that had been pulled from passenger’s luggage as they left the island.
While we were anchored in Tyrell Bay on Carriacou, we decided one day to see how far we could walk and ended up at the Paradise Beach Club bar on Paradise Beach, around the corner from Tyrell Bay.
We were, of course, the only people there (around noon), again, largely due to COVID restrictions. There were half a dozen people or so working and when we got there we were met by a nice woman who chatted us up a little before she showed us a table. I’m pretty sure the woman owned the place. Turns out that she knew of New Hampshire because she had sent her son to college in Vermont.
I got a guava daiquiri – don’t know why, just felt like it. Interestingly, they didn’t remove the seeds from the guava before they threw it in the blender – I think this is the normal way they’re served down there – but I thought it was terrible. The taste was OK, but you couldn’t drink it. You had to strain it with your teeth and the seed husks didn’t taste good if you ate them.
Anyway, beautiful beach. We’ll have to go back if we get a chance. And Sandy Island is right off the coast.
While in Tyrell Bay on Carriacou, a guy came by the boat one day selling stuff. Most of the stuff they sell was just trinkets, or wine and mostly grossly over-priced. They will also pick up your trash for a fee. Normally, I just politely say no. This guy asked if we wanted lobster, so I asked him how much it would cost. I think he said $10 ECD, which is about $3.75 USD per pound. I think it was a 5 pounder, so about $20 USD. I also had him take our trash away as part of the deal.
We stopped for the night at Anse Cachon on our trip down to St. Vincent/Carriacou from St. Lucia so that we could save a couple of hours enroute. Turns out it was a little rolly this night so we didn’t sleep as well as when we had visited the time before.
The next day, we got up at the crack of dawn to head to St. Vincent. We were going to stay the night in St. Vincent and then go on to Carriacou. As I recall, this was a fairly uneventful sailing day – very little wind in the lee of St. Lucia, but once we got out of her shadow, we found some wind.
We got into St. Vincent just before dusk and took a mooring ball between Young Island and the mainland. It was very crowded and fairly close to shore with lots of shore noise, but the water was calm and we were able to get some sleep before heading out the next day.
