Position           12:02.66N 61:44.83W

Date                2200 - 15 January 2011

This was good day to tour St George as there were no cruise ships docked.  The local cruiser net on VHF gives warnings of cruise ships as you can get between 5,000 and 8,000 extra tourists in the streets.

A taxi took us from the marina into the main town and to the market place.  Here we were adopted by a young man called Roger who at first just tagged on but by an interesting process inveigled himself into our company and became our guide.  He was excellent and showed us all sorts of things that we would not have otherwise found.  He certainly earned his fee.

St George is fascinating with many buildings still showing the damage wrecked by Hurricane Ivan.

The Anglican church remains without a roof.  Weekly services are held in the nearby Anglican schoolroom.  This requires the screens and other paraphernalia clearing each Saturday and the hall turning into a church, with the reverse on Sunday afternoon.  We were fortunate enough to meet the lady arranging the flowers – all of which came from her garden:

The church may still be without its roof but it does get used; we encountered this drum corps practising:

A further climb took us to Fort George, a national monument with a bloody history.

It is  currently the police headquarters, the previous headquarters having been destroyed by Ivan.  The view from the top over the harbour is particularly striking.

In the courtyard of the fort is a monument to the Prime Minister and half of his cabinet who were executed there during the revolution in October 1988.  It is chilling to see the wall pockmarked by bullet holes.  The actions here lead to the American invasion and the restoration of the democratic process.  The Grenadians are very proud of their history and very knowledgeable.  Many of them of course lived thought his particularly difficult time in their island‘s history.

This is another view from Fort George, looking down into the Lagoon and the Port Louis marina.