We’ve now moved in to anchor off Hillsborough which is the main town in Carriacou.  Carriacou is lovely – no cruise ships go here, not many tourists other than those on boats and small groups who get the ferry from Grenada.   It is famous for the fact it has 1 petrol station and 100 shops selling Rum!

There are a few guest houses here but no big hotels or anything. When Adam was diving off Jack Adam’s island I sat in the tender and watched the fishermen casting their nets  from the island into the big schools of bait fish which attract larger fish into the bay.

We had a wander about ashore today, Hillsborough is really pretty with lots of little shops and groceries and brightly coloured buildings.  We did go into Patty’s Deli and treated ourselves to some nice cheeses (and HP sauce!).  Then caught the bus over to ‘Windward’ on the other side of the island where they build Carriacou sailing sloops on the beach – they were only building one at the time. . . . . We were the only people on the bus back from Windward. .  so the bus driver was running a few errands – took a teacher home from school, dropped some oil off  at someone’s house down a unmade track. (a ‘short cut) .  .and chatted to us a bit  - pointing out the largest goat farm on the island– you can’t complain getting a little tour for 90p each.

From Windward you can see Petit Martinique which is also part of Grenada and even smaller than Carriacou.  All the school children were getting on the ferry back to PM and a chap who works in Carriacou and lives in PM.  He said that his name was Fire (pronounced FiYah!) and that we should go to PM, he will cook us dinner – to be honest I think if we did turn up and ask for Fiyah – he would probably live up to his word, thinks Carriacou is too big and busy and PM is much better.

The people here have been really friendly so far, there are only a couple of towns and 3 different bus routes so you can’t go too far wrong.

Thought we would try some local sweets today so purchased some ‘Tamarind Balls’ and some ‘Ginger Fudge’ – they are good at lots of things out here but making sweets is not one of those things.   Ginger fudge is essentially ‘Kendal Ginger Cake’  - solid sugar with ginger flavor.  And Tamarind Balls I think must be an acquired taste – they are really just tarmarind, sugar, salt and pepper – but there is a reason that they don’t seem to have made it to the UK.

Hillsborough is set on a beautiful golden sandy beach on the west of the island – strangely the beaches on the east are all black sand.  There are some small ships anchored about half a mile from us but the water is crystal clear and clean.

Petit Martinique from Windward village

Hillsborough Town Beach

Shops in Hillsborough

Patty's Deli

Hillsborough High Street