On south past the Grenadines

A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back
Sam and Alex Fortescue
Fri 24 Dec 2010 13:20
11:58.25N
61:41.65W
 
The spinakoo is aloft as we close the coast of Grenada and the sun is shining brightly. It's not a typical Christmas Eve. For a start there's no sense of festiveness in the air. We breakfasted on American style pancaks and tea, and we're trolling a couple of lines out for supper, so far without success.
 
Normally, we'd have spent the past few weeks frantically shopping and attending Christmas parties. I'd have taken a day off work to get an early train down to Dorset, which would have been rammed with people who'd had a similar idea. Then, today, there'd be a host of Chsritmas preparations: bringing in the tree, listening to carols, making bread sauce and stuffing, hanging holly and deocrating the tree. The lack of all these things makes us miss home.
 
On the plus side, it's been something of a typical Luxembourg Christmas to date. We tucked into some astoundingly good homemade bratwurst last night, along with some local beers, in the style of the Christmas market in the Place d'Armes. We're planning a big (Caribbean) supper tonight, for which Jesse, Will and the Twoo have already departed to the market in St George's. And we've managed to find some token presents for everyonew for tomorrow as well.
 
All we need to do is arrive. This, however, looks as if it may never occur, as we've been due to get there in two hours for the past six hours. The wind has dropped, and we're barely sliding along with the spinakoo up. Prickly Bay is little over 4 miles away, and we're looking forward to mooring up to the private jetty attached to Jesse's bolthole. Any idea that we're heading into an isolated spot is dispelled by the forests of masts that we can see as we pass each of the fjord-like inlets on the south of the island.
 
We slid past all of the Grenadines during the night - each island - Mustique, Bequia, Battowia, Carriacou - betrayed by a dome of light looming over the horizon. We'll take our time in the New Year, ducking into as many of them as possible.