Last Week in Grenada

Roysterer
Peter & Penny Hesleden
Mon 20 Jan 2014 22:30
First mate here. We've spent 8 days in Clarkes Court Bay marina - only meant to stay a couple of days but it's a great place and hard to leave, with some real characters. The rain has finally stopped - we have whole days with no rain at all now. The marina is very laid back with a great bar that has live music on  a couple of times a week. From here, you can dinghy over to Whisper Cove marina, where they have a proper butcher's shop, and also to a little dinghy dock at Woburn, where you climb up to a little restaurant with a great view over Hog Island. There is a goat tethered on the path who obligingly gets out of the way for you when he sees you coming.

On Saturday morning I went to help at a Young Readers' Group inland - a bus comes round and collects people, mostly cruisers, and takes you there. I had 2 girls to start with, Kayanna and Nikayah, both 8 and cousins, who loved reading, but then Kellona arrived and was a challenge, to say the least. It was very interesting though, and a lot of the very small children read and spelled very well.

We went on an island tour one day, with 9 other people in a minibus. Cutty, the driver, was great, kept stopping to pick leaves and fruits (often from people's gardens), most of which were instantly identifiable by the smell - tangerines, cloves, ylang ylang, which all the women recognised from bath oil, noonie, a fruit that smelled like blue cheese and lots of others.

We went to a rum distillery that has been using the same wooden equipment since 1800. Unfortunately the sugar cane crusher had just broken down, so we couldn't see it in action. The less said about the look of the rum in the big pans the better - let's just say they're not big on Health and Safety out here. We also went to a nutmeg processing plant, also with ancient equipment. It'a another world!

I think most of the pictures are self explanatory. Eagle eyed readers might recognise the caterpillar. The picture of the mansion in ruins is the governor's mansion after Hurricane Ivan in 2004. They've now built a new residence elsewhere. Pete and Dennis are trying to work out how to fix the cane crushing machine. The field is sugar cane. The tree in the last picture is a nutmeg tree. The catamaran is Lady Caroline in Clarkes Court Bay Marina. Caroline spotted the iguana, which looked just like part of the branch from a distance - very impressive. 

We leave tomorrow to anchor in St George's then on to Carriacou on Wednesday.


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