We hired a car and took a trip up the west coast of Grenada to the town of Gouyave.  This is a fishing town with little concession to tourism so feels like it’s ‘authentic Caribbean’:-

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the Sunday before Christmas we joined a group going to the Coconut Bar on Grande Anse beach where ‘Doc Adams’ was playing for a couple of hours.  We have heard him before at ‘De Big Fish’ restaurant in Prickly Bay and he plays really good blues and rock and roll:-

 

 

 

 

 

Then a dancer arrived:-

 

 

 

As you can probably see this guy is really fit and danced away for about 20 minutes.

 

 

 

And again (for the ladies):-

 

 

 

 

 

We put some Christmas lights around the boat, inside and in the cockpit.  These are some of the ones in the cockpit but the picture has not come out very well:-

 

 

 

 

On Christmas Eve we went to De Big Fish with Rob and Rhian from Beyzano for a Christmas Dinner with all the trimmings.  Lin was not feeling very well with a headache and pain behind her eyes.  She was even off her wine!

 

We went back to the boat and had torrential rain most of the night accompanied by almost continuous lightning.  The sky would flash for about 5 seconds followed by a break of a second or two followed by a further 5 seconds of lightening.  There was some thunder and none of us had seen anything like it before.  In some ways a boat is a good place to be when there is continuous rain as we don’t suffer the floods ashore.  St Vincent and St Lucia were more badly affected than Grenada and several lives were lost on both islands.  Houses and livestock were washed away and there was much damage to their infrastructure with a lack of fresh drinking water amongst other things for a couple of weeks.  Very sad.

 

On Christmas Day Lin was feeling very tired and feverish with what we thought was bad flu and slept all morning.  She was still aching all over and the pain behind the eyes was stronger.  We had made a late booking to have Christmas Lunch at the restaurant at Le Phare Bleu Marina as we wanted somewhere quiet.  Lin managed to haul herself from her bed with great difficulty and persistence and we made our way ashore in the dinghy for the taxi over to Le Phare Bleu.  We enjoyed a nice meal in lovely surroundings but Lin’s appetite was poor and we returned to the boat fairly promptly to let her get back to bed.  She had put on a brave face but was really out of it.

 

 

They had gone to some effort to decorate at Le Phare Bleu but there weren’t many people:-

 

 

 

We knew that 5 people around our anchorage had had dengue fever in recent weeks and we subsequently learnt from a doctor that Lin had it too.  The pain behind the eyes and the need to sleep continuously being the symptoms which distinguished it from flu.

 

Lin slept most of Boxing Day and the following days and didn’t eat anything until the 29th.  She slowly regained her strength a little for New year’s Eve but wasn’t back to normal until mid January.

 

We joined the ‘Beyzano’s’ and a number of others for a New Year’s Eve dinner, again at De Big Fish.  They were showing BBC TV so we could see the fireworks in London at 8pm our time which enabled people to have enough time to go to bed early, like us, or go on to party through the night elsewhere.  Lin didn’t even have a sip of bubbly at 8pm!

 

 

 

Rob and Rhian from Beyzano – and Lin’s left arm:-

 

 

 

 

 

The ‘car park’:-

 

 

 

 

 

The London Eye at ‘midnight’:-

 

 

 

 

We returned by taxi to Secret Harbour and the boat and Lin slept throughout most of the next day.