Sunday  March 16th ,  2014

Tobago Cays, St Vincent and the Grenadines  ,   12 38.2N 61 21.8W

Today's Blog by David (Time zone: UTC – 4.0)

Five days in Port Louis marina was something of a luxury.  Although we had  maintenance and provisioning to do, we did get out to see something of the island.  It was quite interesting.

Hurricane Ivan, in the winter of 2004/5, trashed all the yachts ashore,  making good editorial material for the newspapers which sought to draw out the irony in the damage suffered by Fat Cat yacht owners. Whilst it is true that some of my best sailing acquaintances do have a tendency towards feline obesity, the vast majority of Yotties live on a shoe string and hardly deserve  the slur.  

What did not register so much at the time  was that the Hurricane pretty much trashed Grenada – wrecking local communities  - and took years to recover.  Like most Caribbean islands, the economy was once based on sugar cane (and where there is sugar there is a rum distillery). The majority of the sugar plantations had been allowed to ‘naturalise’ as  competition from other countries, led producers to diversify into other products, particularly spices – nutmeg, saffron, cinnamon etc.,   the products that the “Spice Island” is best known for. However, Ivan took out much of the island’s agricultural production capacity.  This severely damaged the economy. For example, about 70% of the nutmeg trees were uprooted. Whilst they have been replanted, they take up to 12 years to reach maturity and so production is not likely to get back to pre-Ivan levels for another couple of years.

There are about 110,000 people in Grenada, and island 15 miles long and 8 miles wide. 30,000 of them live in and around St Georges. Unemployment is around 40%.  The very wealthy live largely in the south west coast, in open area  without any fencing nor obvious security and  is a Gary Rhodes restaurant on Grand Anse,  targeting your children’s inheritance.  The west of the island is more characteristic of island life. Crime exists, but is not prevalent.  The unemployed retain a Micawber-ish optimism that it will come right in the end.

The new government of a couple of years’ tenure is focusing on inward investment.  A new Sandals’ resort has been built near the airport (on the south coast) employing up to 800 people, and the Chinese are funding all kinds of infrastructure projects (from schools to flood protection) thus providing employment  in return for fishing rights and access to agricultural produce (no change there then!).

St Georges itself is quite pretty.

The Carenage – St Georges; not exactly a hive of activity

Despite their desire to attract tourism, there has been absolutely no development of the harbour front. Anywhere else,  this area would be  alive with shops and restaurants and nightlife competing with dive shops and tour operators – but not here.  About half the harbour front comprises government buildings; while there are perhaps four restaurants worthy of the name around the front, the rest are warehouses and commercial premises.   It is not that well lit, making one think twice about walking around at night.

That is not to say there are no entrepreneurs at all. Our favourite was the owner of this rather appropriately named Bar:

The Bumpy Corner Bar (er… right on the apex of a sharp corner rounded by traffic  - as if in dodgem cars!)

Set on the doorstep of her home, the appropriately  contoured  proprietor of the establishment combined caring for a son of perhaps 7 years with looking after those thirsty travellers that can’t make it round the corner in one go!

So that’s about it.  We are presently hiding below from a day of wind and rain while at anchor in Tobago Cays.  Attractive though the anchorage may be,  we have not been able to venture into the water to snorkel here . Whatever the weather, tomorrow,  we  have to move on. …… there will be other opportunities…….