True Blue Bay, Grenada

I had volunteered via the Grenada Cruiser net (Ch 68, 07:30 Mon – Sat) on Saturday to take part in the Mount Erie tutoring group arranged by some of the longer term local cruisers and a local school teacher, an opportunity for cruisers to give something back to the local community by giving up a couple of hours on a Saturday morning to help a group of local children by listening to them read or practice some mathematics. A local taxi driver provides his minibus for free to transport the volunteers and at 9am we were collected from De Big Fish at Prickly Bay and collect some more from the very nice looking Clarke’s Court Bay Marina. I was sat beside a very nice couple called Jim & Lindi originally from Belfast but living in Canada for many years who spend their winters in Grenada and the Grenadine’s. They’d been to some of the places we were planning to visit such as Trinidad and the British Virgin Islands so I took some advice on the best places to go.


A group of the Mt Airy Young Readers


Whitney, a real character who was in every photo taken that day, who told me she was going to be my teacher as soon as I arrived!


Mt Airy Readers

When we arrived all the children were outside playing cricket as seems to happen on any spare piece of lawn on the island we were soon assembled into the community centre by a very enthusiastic coordinator who I think is a local teacher. She did a wonderful job in mustering the group and I was paired with a boy of about 12 called Danrick who read Huckleberry Finn to me. I think he was concentrating on the words so much he was missing the story which is surely a classic for all boys of that age and he was suitably amused when we paused to talk about what was going on.

Next we gathered in a group to hear the children read out loud to an audience which most did very well and then have some further biblical lessons before we knew it was 1pm and time to pack away again with a wonderful scenic drive back with views over the east coast and for a small tip a lift to the mall for provisions.