Position: 12:27:36N 61:29:14W

A three-hour sail SW from Clifton brought us into Hillsborough the capital of Carriacou.  The town is fronted by a long beach with minimal shelter, so we anchored right off the main jetty and I dinghied ashore to clear in.  An hour’s bureaucracy later and we weighed anchored and continued round to Tyrrel Bay.

Tyrrel Bay seems to be a point of inflection on the world’s oceans – a place where yachts stop and (sometimes) never get going again.  There must have been 50 or 60 yachts at anchor and I would guess that half of them had long-term liveaboards who rarely left the bay.  Tyrrel Bay itself was a lot less developed than I had imagined – I had imagined another Bequia whereas there were just the odd building dotted amongst the trees.

As we motored in, we spotted “Tyche”, our old friends that we had left in Funchal, so we anchored near them and were soon catching up and eating takeaway pizza on board with Robin and Zita.  They crossed from the Cape Verde islands to Grenada with their kids in 24 days, and had quite a rough passage with 15 days where the wind didn’t drop below 25 knots.  I think they were still very tired.  They are talking about shipping the boat back to Europe.

Talking of returning to Europe, I always said that I wouldn’t think about our plans beyond the Caribbean until we had got here.  Our options were to:

• Ship the boat back
• Sail the boat back
• Continue on round the world.

We’ve decided that continuing on round the world isn’t a viable option because the long passages aren’t really viable with such young children.  Whilst they would survive it, it wouldn’t be much fun for them or us.

Having got some quotes for shipping, it is hideously expensive as they all quote in Euros which, given the sorry state of sterling, means that this isn’t particularly attractive.  Besides which, shipping the boat back would mean returning to work early, which I’m not convinced anyone would see as a sensible move with hindsight.  If I’ve got a year, I should cram as much in as possible whilst the going is good.

So, I am leaning towards sailing the boat back to the UK, via Bermuda & the Azores, after Sarah and the girls have returned to the UK in mid-April.   A seed was planted in my head by John from Brimble and Jim from Starblazer, when, over a beer, we started to convince ourselves that singlehanding across the Atlantic was a good idea.  It certainly would be an amazing achievement.  Hmm – more thought required.

Anyway, now I’ve worried my parents, back to Tyrrel Bay.  We met another couple, Andy and Liz, whom we’d last seen in Gijon, Spain, after they had crossed Biscay. They left their boat in NW Spain and flew over to Carriacou and rented a house here.  We went to their house for coffee and they then showed us round Tyrrel Bay.  Andy is keeping himself busy by doing some fibreglassing on some wrecked GP14s which if they were in the UK would have been chucked in a skip.  We had them and Tyche over for drinks and a curry one evening.

Tyrrel Bay, like most of the other places we’ve been to in the Grenadines, seems quite run-down – like quite a lot of effort was spent 5 or 10 years ago to set things up for yachties, but that none of it has been maintained since.  I wonder if that is just the way things are going here, and that the industry is in a decline, or maybe this tatty look is actually the best it ever gets.

What is remarkable, here as everywhere we’ve been, is the friendliness of the people.  We left Millie’s swimming jacket somewhere on our wander round the bay, and the next day, someone had considerately hung it on a bench so we would see it when we came past.  And it all seems quite honest – I haven’t felt concerned about security or safety since we left St Lucia.

Another remarkable thing about Carriacou is the range and price of alcohol.  Everything is very cheap and there is everything from Pimms and champagne, to Mount Gay in 1.75 litre plastic bottles (!) to bottles of Jack Iron rum in old water bottles and methylated spirits lined up with all the other spirits!  We stocked up on Mount Gay – you can never have too much.

We met a nice couple on a Hallberg Rassy called “Moonrise” who invited us aboard and gave us the lowdown on places to see on Grenada, which was very kind.

We went for dinner at a pizza place on the beach.  Within minutes of our arrival, a lovely South African couple came and joined us at our table, gave us half their pizza, plied us with wine and chatted for half an hour before returning to their catamaran.  You know when people are so friendly you wonder what they want?  They didn’t appear to want anything but a friendly chat, we’re so not used to strangers doing this – we are so British.

One afternoon we went on a bus trip. Local buses are great – little minivans with booming stereos.  They often have a driver and a helper, whose job is to open the sliding door and tout for passengers.  They are so friendly.  We took a bus into Hillsborough and changed onto another one which took us up to Windward along with lots of office workers and schoolkids going home. What was interesting was the way that the bus would drop people off outside their doors, even if it meant backing the bus up some tiny track. There were a couple of tiny kids aboard – no more than 3 years old – and the bus driver appeared to act as guardian until one of the parents met their child at the door of the bus.  Can’t imagine 3-yr-olds traveling without their parents on buses in the UK…  Our kids fell asleep so we just stayed on the bus and went back to Hillsborough/Tyrrel Bay.  The scenery is stunning.

Tyrrel Bay is quite a rolly anchorage.  We were woken up (as were the kids) by the swell each night.  I was glad to push on.