Chilling in Grenada

On April 12th we arrived in Tyrell Bay, Carriacou (part of Grenada) and after checking in with Customs during their lunch break (for which they happily charged us overtime!), had the best fish tacos in the Caribbean at Las Iguanas. Due to some developing weather, instead of continuing onto the main island of Grenada, the next day we moved the boat to Sandy Island and the beautiful anchorage off Paradise Beach. There we enjoyed some good snorkeling off the island and a fine dinner with Barb & Ted (s/v Raven) at Paradise Beach Club.

A few days later, the weather had cleared and we sailed the 35 miles south to Grenada. We decided to go down the eastern shore of the island, where there was still plenty of wind (17-24 knots) and 6-10 foot waves… not an easy, breezy passage! Instead of going all the way to our originally intended destination of Prickly Bay, we pulled in at Woburn Bay for relief from the dead down wind sailing coming around the southern end of Grenada.

Shortly after our arrival in Woburn, a 128 foot monohaul named Genevieve, parked her ‘professionally’ crewed butt (auto correct from ‘boat’) right where we had just dropped our anchor. It wasn’t blowing hard, so not a big deal but the crew on the boat knew they were in our space and guiltily covered the boat name on the transom with a dark blue and a white T-shirt and sent the tender over to say that they would be putting out a second anchor and leaving first thing in the morning. The harbor was basically wide open but I guess they wanted a close up view of Billy Ruff’n!!

We spent a few pleasant days at Woburn, visiting the second hand boat shop hoping to find a fitting that broke off our Mantus chain hook, running to the Clark’s Court Chandlery and enjoying the locals sail by on their cocktail cruises.

On 4/17, we moved the boat to Prickly Bay and spent a few days doing errands and enjoying the local eateries. We got laundry done and caught up with our cab driver friend, Short Boss, for a ride to the grocery & hardware stores. We took a walk out to L’ance aux Epines Lighthouse for a rooftop view of Prickly Bay and scoped out St. George’s University Club as a good spot that we could dinghy to for lunch. We also walked to the West Indies Beer Company brewery to burn off some calories before consuming flights of beer and fried food.

In an attempt to get out of the swell and change the scenery, on 4/22 we moved the boat around the corner to True Blue Bay. From there we could walk to St. George’s University campus and visit the Container Park for lunch where you can get a great selection of inexpensive international foods including Greek, Lebanese, Italian, Indian, American, etc. One of our favorite dishes is the curry at Indian Summer…highly recommended!

While in True Blue Bay, we decided to take a break from the boat and check-in to True Blue Resort for two nights. We had a wonderful room with a kitchen & bathroom (that more than one person could fit in) with fresh flowers strewn about for our arrival. Our view overlooked the bay, where we could see the pool and Billy Ruff’n from our porch. We enjoyed a couples massage, yoga, Water Zumba class and a local street food dinner at the resort’s Dodgy Dock restaurant, during our stay but had to return to the boat before we even stopped rocking! 

On 4/28, we moved back to Prickly Bay to prepare for a new batteries installation in a slip at Spice Island Marina. Everything went well, including a rig inspection and oil change, so now we are back in our new favorite Prickly Bay anchorage with a view of these nice homes with orange roofs and sailboats moored out back. Tomorrow, I fly off to Boston to visit the grand kids and leave Andrew to his own devices for a few days!