Stargazer of Southampton - St George and St David's

St George and St David's - Grenada

Stargazer of Southampton

Susie and Adam (both think they are skipper)

Sat 30 Apr 2011 16:04

29:04.11, 12:01.24N 61:40.77W

Went for a walk yesterday up Grand Anse Beach in Grenada - it's 2 mile long with clean pale sand and warm water and surprisingly few people, there are almond trees growing along the beach and it's very pretty. There are a few hotels at one end but they look very quiet, then again it is now pretty much end of the season.

I made the fatal mistake of being attracted by the words 'local crafts' and wondered into some craft centre - we were instantly honed in on by people wanting to sell us shells and other stuff. One guy came up to Adam in an attempt to sell things - Adam was sporting his tasteful Lanzarote t-shirt which has some gecko's printed on it (which I got him for 5 euro's as he kept running out of T-shirts and it wasn't too tasteless), the crafty salesman spotted said shirt, poked Adam in the chest and triumphantly stated 'Aha! - so you like Gecko's eh? well I have lots of stuff with gecko's on it' - we weren't sure what to say to that, it may be a sales pitch that works on someone who is 10 - Adam's reaction was - 'it's... ummm. . . .. just a t-shirt' (It's a hard statement to answer, you can't really say 'No! I can't stand Gecko's' or 'Yes! I love them, I am a Gecko fan'). We promised to go back and see all the shops then legged it out of the back of the centre. We're not used to this - on all the French islands you are basically ignored, same on St Martin and Antigua (unless you look like someone off a cruise ship). But everyone is friendly enough and you have to expect to get people selling things down at the beach.

Had a walk around St Georges too - there are lots of hills, some of the buildings are really nice old buildings (suppose they have fewer hurricanes here than further north). St George's is very busy and bustling compared to some of the other main towns we have been too, and packed with very smart school children.

Good news on fruit and veggies here - it's about the cheapest island for fresh stuff so far, the vegetables in the French islands are expensive and often not very good, on St Martin and Antigua you could get every veg you would ever want but I think most of them were imported from the States which seems strange - even avacado and things that do grow out here. So we've stocked up with all sorts of things - cherry tomatoes, Papaya (enormous Papaya for about 75p), cucumbers and bananas, our fridge looks most healthy.

We have left St George today and gone around to St Davids Harbour on the SE tip of the island (this is where stargazer will call home for the summer), it's a beautiful little bay, with mangroves and forest coming right down to the water. In one corner is the boat yard and a bar which was quite lively last night - we went for some drinks but forgot the mozzie repellant and so suffered for it! Had a walk to the top of the headland which is covered with greenery and flowers. Will sail back to another bay tonight before heading to the Marina in Fort Louis.

Some Pics

George town from the fort at the top of the hill