There and Back Again - Prickly Bay, Grenada
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Tue 21 May 2013 13:16
11:59.57N 61:45.69W April 23, 2013 - May 16, 2013 After saying good-bye to Monkey and Rick in Antigua, we returned to Prickly Bay, Grenada in record time. Ok, not really. The roughly 350 miles between Antigua and Grenada is something we would normally cover in a little over two days at sea, but we took the long route, stopping in St. Lucia, Bequia, Union Island, the Tobago Cays and Carriacou before finally landing back in Prickly Bay 14 days later. Having never visited the Grenadines before (which include Bequia, Union Island and the Tobago Cays - all governed as part of St. Vincent), we found their less developed bays and beaches to be a nice break from the overdone tourist gloss that exists elsewhere in the Caribbean. Bequia and Union Island, although doing their best to promote tourism with accessibility by air and sea, still retain much of their Caribbean charm. Most of the locals will still meet your eye and return a greeting when encountered on the street, and many of the buildings in the still small towns are spruced up versions of the original wood structures. It didn't hurt that we visited these places as high season wound down, leaving only the more hard-core boaters and tourists (or at least the more cost conscious boaters and tourists - all looking for end-of-season bargains), which made it easier to find pleasant places to anchor and stay for a while. A highlight for us was the Tobago Cays, one of St. Vincent's national parks, which consists of a collection of tiny islands surrounded by big reefs, and nothing else. Accessible only by boat, the islands are untouched and provide a safe haven for the sea turtles who live in the area. Although much of the reef coral has been damaged over the years by hurricanes, the water is the clearest we've seen since…since…Vanuatu in the South Pacific. Snorkeling in the Tobago Cays is like swimming in an enormous pool - every grain of sand twenty feet below is perfectly visible. Most of the anchorage area is protected by the Atlantic Ocean swell by a series of reefs, but completely open to the sometimes brisk trade winds, which churn up a choppy surf on a good day, and a bouncing, lumpy mogul field on a not-so-good day. We chose a not-so-good day to paddle our kayaks over to the designated turtle watching area to do some turtle snorkeling. Don paddled, battling his way through the whipped up mess. I struggled and straggled behind, thinking perhaps this wasn't the best day to paddle around in a little kayak powered only by underpowered arms. It's not like we were in danger - there were anchored boats all around with lots of people aboard. No, it was more the issue of potential embarrassment. What if we (I) couldn't make it to the beach and had to be rescued by dinghy? How many boater blog stories would be written up boasting of the rescue of a hapless middle-aged boater woman on a kayak in the Tobago Cays on a not-so-nice day? Ooooh, way too embarrassing. So, as it usually does, the prospect of humiliation provided the necessary incentive to power on. After successful arrival on the beach, we dumped the kayaks and donned snorkel gear - all the while thinking there was no way the turtles would be hanging around in this choppy mess, waiting to entertain us. The thing we forgot was that no matter what is happening above, the sea below remains serene. And so it was. The turtles were there, gliding about, waiting for us. Once we floated close above, they commenced to eat. Sea grass is their thing. Lots and lots of sea grass. They didn't seem to mind at all while we floated above and they chewed below. Occasionally their heads swiveled in our direction, still chewing, their bulbous eyes blinking, probably wondering why all these large floating people feel the need to constantly watch them eat. After a little while longer in the silent sea watching the turtles blink at us as we bobbed around in the surface chop, we returned to the beach, re-launched the kayaks and paddled back to Harmonie. Another day, another something to remember - the quiet sea, the big turtles in their tastefully decorated shells gliding effortlessly below us, and then lifting our heads just high enough out of the water to return to noisy, choppy, sea level reality. The next time we encounter nasty wind and seas during an off-shore passage, we'll have to remember what it was like with the turtles, down there where the waves don't matter. One of St. Lucia's Pitons, as seen from our 'bat-cave' mooring near the town of Soufriere. Although the view was excellent, we didn't love the unfriendly locals, the untended moorings yachts are required to use, or the giant day-charter catamarans that pick up all remaining moorings each morning, swinging ever so close to our hull until their departure each afternoon. We cleared out of St. Lucia in Soufriere on an unusually rainy day, and had no trouble clearing customs, but found the immigration office closed and locked at 3:30pm even though the sign posted outside indicated afternoon office hours of 1 to 4:30. A dash through the rain to the police station next door left us with only a vague indication that the immigration officer might be 'on a break'. We stood on the doorstep in the rain for about twenty minutes before checking with the police station again. Still no joy. Deciding it wouldn't be the end of the world if we left St. Lucia without immigration clearance, we carried on through the town in search of an internet cafe. Just as we passed one of the local bars, Don caught a glimpse of a uniform. "Wouldn't it be funny if that was the immigration guy?", we laughed to each other. Don decided there was no better time than the present to find out, so tromped directly into the bar and politely asked if the uniformed guy was in fact, the immigration officer. He was. And he was in the middle of watching a soccer match on the bar TV - but seemed happy enough to meet us back at the immigration office in 'a few minutes'. We moved back to our post on the immigration office doorstep and waited another twenty minutes before he came around the back way (avoiding anyone watching from the police station, we noted) to meet us. Five minutes later, we were done and all was well. There is a first time for everything and pulling an immigration officer out of a bar in the middle of the afternoon was a first for us. "Only in the Caribbean", Don would say. Sunset over Admiralty Bay, Bequia. The boating guide for the area raves about the 'lovely purple Bequia sunsets'. Yeah, yeah, we thought - every place in the tropics is described as having this or that kind of sunset (which, of course, many of them do), but after a week anchored in Admiralty Bay watching a deep purple sunset every evening, we have to agree with the author. Lovely. Happy Island. Just the name alone is enough to put a smile on your face, isn't it? I'm referring to the tiny island to the left, which is just big enough to hold the bar/restaurant sitting on top of it. Apparently, this island hasn't existed for long. An enterprising Union Islander took it upon himself to take a pile of the empty conch shells fishermen leave in a mountainous heap on Clifton's beach, mix them with a bit of cement, and build himself an island on Newlands Reef just off the coast of Union Island. Ta-dah! Happy Island was born. We tried to go to the bar for a rum punch on several occasions, but it never seemed to be open when we thought it should be. Instead, the shutters usually opened and lights came on just after we hauled the dinghy back aboard. We suspect foul play - either that or a bad case of poor timing. To the right is one of the giant day-charter catamarans we are so fond of. Grenada is filled with more blooming flowers than almost any other place we've visited. Love the color. You may recall that brief interlude in 1983 when 12,000 US troops (and soldiers from other Caribbean nations) were sent to Grenada to stamp out the hard-liner Communist threat brewing here. The skirmish was brief, with all but 300 US soldiers returning home in December after only two months in-country (the remaining 300 troops returned home after two years). Based on our limited experience in Grenada, we would venture to say it is one of the more stable/prosperous/secure nations in the area (not to mention one of the most beautiful). This display of thank you graffiti remains after all these years. It's nice to see, when so often the news brings images of less than complimentary graffiti concerning the US in so many other places. We are pleased to report that while anchored in Prickly Bay for over a week, Canadian yacht Tagish arrived. First met in Chagos a year ago and last seen in Richard's Bay, South Africa six months ago, we were more than thrilled to see Brian and Dorothy's friendly faces again. In between a few excellent shared dinners, we took a Grenada island tour together. Tagish will be moving on to Trinidad soon, and after a visit home (Vancouver), will head west for the Panama Canal and the long trip home (via Galapagos, French Polynesia and Hawaii). You never know…it's possible we'll see them again on the west coast in the not too distant future. Although tourism is important to Grenada, agriculture is just as important. If it weren't for hurricane Ivan, which decimated 99% of Grenada's nutmeg trees in 2004, Grenada would be the second largest producer of nutmeg in the world (after Indonesia). Grenada's nutmeg industry is recovering, albeit slowly, but cocoa production, which had an easier time of it during and after the hurricane, remains strong. This was our first good look at cocoa trees, the pods that grow from every available surface of the tree (trunk, branches), and the all-important cocoa beans inside the pods. The cocoa bean processing 'plant'. The word 'plant' brings to mind big, efficient machinery churning out heaps of product in a highly automated fashion. Not so in Grenada where all processes are manual, and most involve the natural power of the sun and warm sea breeze. Nothing wrong with that. In this plant, cocoa beans freshly arrived from the farms are piled in fermentation tanks (more like square wooden holding cells) to sit for about five days covered with banana leaves while micro-organisms grow and cause the chemical reactions and heat necessary for the cocoa color and flavor to develop. Once fermentation is complete, the beans are spread in the huge trays shown above and left in the sun to dry. At night (or if it rains), the trays slide neatly into the side of the concrete building for safe keeping (not unlike the cadaver storage drawers in morgues - a rather morbid analogy, and certainly the cadavers are never rolled out into the sun to dry, but you get the picture). That's Dorothy from Tagish on the left, the cocoa processing plant guide in the center, and me on the right. Grenada's oldest (and most unique) rum distillery. The River Antoine distillery has been in operation since 1785, and it looks like it has been around for that long or longer. They claim this water wheel is the oldest in operation in the Caribbean, and it is still used to drive the sugar cane crushing operation. The witches' cauldrons. Boiling off the excess water and concentrating the sugar in preparation for the fermentation process. Looks mighty appetizing, does it not? The final distillation process. Gotta love the copper tanks. The stamp on the front indicates they were manufactured in Louisville, Kentucky sometime in the 1800's. The distillery's rum tasting room was set up in a dark cellar with cracked walls, a few cases of rum and bits of sugar cane strewn about. Three bottles were set up on a rickety table and we were invited to try them at will. Rum #1 was a barn burning 75% alcohol, which caused steam to exit Dorothy's ears. Rum #2 was a more tolerable 50% and rum #3 was mixed nicely with passionfruit to disguise the alcohol. We went for a bottle of rum #3 after learning there would be no problem storing it on the boat for the seven months we will be away (lots of alcohol in there to keep it fresh). Cleaning up. Our haul-out date is approaching rapidly (May 22), so preparations began while we were anchored in Prickly Bay. Don emptied and cleaned all deck lockers, cabin lockers and bilges in an attempt (a successful attempt) to re-catalog all the spares, re-organize all the lockers, and clean out the stuff no longer needed after six years at sea. A big job. Surprisingly, there weren't that many surprises during Don's whole locker re-organizing exercise. One would think more long-lost items would have surfaced from the depths of the bilge, but it seems not. Too bad. Believe it or not, all that stuff piled on the deck (and more where you can't see it on the other side of the boat) came out of the stern locker, which we fondly call the garage. Even our car (the dinghy and motor) fits in there (rolled up) when we are on passage or the boat is in storage. Don enjoys spending time in the garage (as he is doing here), it reminds him of all those hours spent building airplanes and helicopters in various garages at home. Up next: Season Six Ends Anne |