On south past the Grenadines
A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back
Sam and Alex Fortescue
Fri 24 Dec 2010 13:20
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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.
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