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Alex’s holiday to Grenada started at full speed today with a day’s diving with her Dad through Aquanaut’s Divers in True Blue Bay where she will be taking here PADI Advanced Open Water certificate as her 15th Birthday present from us whilst she is here. Alex is a very keen diver and was up very early for her preparing her kit. She performs 5 different skills as part of her course – Deep Dive, Navigation, Drift Dive, Photography and Wreck Dive in that order. Their first dive today was on Sherwood Forest a local reef where she had her deep dive, unfortunately cut a little short due to a leaky octopus regulator (spare mouthpiece) followed by her navigation drills on the second dive.
Dive 1: Alex on her first Caribbean dive
Dive 1: Alex performing drills on her Deep Dive (20 meters) to prove she did not have Nitrogen Narcosis
Dive 2: Another less friendly reef visitor
Dive 2: Alex doing navigation drills by compass
Dive 2: Alex looking under rocks for lobsters and Conger eels
Meanwhile I was ashore at True Blue Bay with my family, Kevin and I were checking into the hotel today for 3 nights as a bit of a treat for our wedding. We were therefore entitled to use the kayaks and the Hobie catamaran dingies owned by the hotel. Sean and Mark were first out on the kayaks, through with the heat it was a fairly short trip round the bay before they were putting their feet up on the beach. I enjoyed some time around the Infinity pool with my sister and parents catching up on all the news from back home. Dad went to the local mall to fetch roti’s (Caribbean version of the Cornish pasty, slightly curried vegetables with chicken or fish etc in a wrap) which went down very well.
Sean, Donna and I cool off in the pool at True Blue Bay
When Kevin and Alex returned from diving to move Invincible onto the dock whilst Alex and Sean are staying on board on their own then went to check into our hotel room. We had selected a Tower room which had wooden beams, a Jacuzzi bath, deep pile carpets, air conditioning and best of all a Tower over looking the bay. Sean and Alex then went off with Jonny on the Hobie cats round the bay which they both thoroughly enjoyed.
If today hadn’t been quite busy enough, tonight was our Stag and Hen night. Kevin had already nabbed Banana’s just up the road from True Blue, which has a snack food restaurant / pizzeria and nightclub. After such a busy day we had about 20 minutes to get ready to go out (I can’t imagine it can possibly be our wedding tomorrow, how has it got here so fast!). We head out to our separate locations, I am joined by Donna, Alex, Marie-Jeanne and Kate (unfortunately Mum is struck down by the heat today and sensibly decides to get an early night to prepare for the next day) for the Mexican Night at Dodgy Dock where we make full use of the Margarita’s on special offer and enjoy a very nice meal before moving over to the dance floor where a number of excellent local dancers are already performing some very impressive salsa dancing. All being fans of Strictly Come Dancing we are keen to give it a go and Kate lines me up to dance with one of the local dancers who is an excellent dancer and most gentlemanly waltzes me around the room. Kate and I are now very much in the swing of things and force the other up to dancer, especially Alex who as a teenager we reckon is obliged to be embarrassed this way by her elders. We have an excellent night – thank you so much to all the girls.
The boys later down to the Dodgy Dock, looking in a reasonable state – though I am not sure my dire warnings to Sean (Best Man) to protect Kevin or to Jonny and Mark the most likely culprits to sabotage had much to do with it. Jonny’s response to my assurance I had told Sean to look after Kevin, this being a risky stag night the night before the wedding (and Friday the 13th!) was just met with the response that they would have to get Sean drunk first then and indeed he did seem the slight worse for wear!
Thursday was change around day in hotel Invincible, Pete & Jan were moving into the higher grade Rex Hotel, Sean from Alex’s cabin into the guest cabin and Alex also arriving into her own cabin. My parents headed off early with the hire jeep for a drive around and to go and check in and I gather spent the morning on the beautiful light sand beach off their hotels with it’s crystal clear water – the more south eastern bays are a bit more muddy with run-off.
Kevin had promised Sean a day’s fishing so we headed out round Point Saline, on the south west of the island to head out over the depth contours where the bigger fish apparently roam. Unfortunately with the large swell running in the last couple of days even the lee of Grenada which is traditionally quite calm was pretty choppy hitting us beam on making for a fairly uncomfortable fishing trip so we were forced to turn back after an hour. Luckily though we were escorted home by a pod of local dolphins, including a mother and it’s calf (?) which was a fantastic sight, being small dolphins anyway the child was very small.
We headed back for some more frantic cleaning and tidying before meeting my parents to collect the keys for the jeep and go to collect Kevin’s daughter Alex, my sister Donna and brother-in-law Mark from the airport. They arrived in reasonable time, with slightly less delay in immigration and thoroughly recommending Virgin Airways. We took them back to Dodgy Dock for a cool beer for refreshment. At the same time Barry and Marie-Jeanne arrived on Pikorua with their current guests Jonas and Paivi who joined them in St. Lucia for the sail down the Grenadine’s. It was so good to see everyone again, though as always difficult to catch up properly when they all arrive at once!
Today we decided to head a little to the east in Grenada where there are a number of other sheltered bays and small islands to show our new visitors the more rural areas of Grenada. We decided a beach barbeque would be the perfect way to do this, my parents finding a disposable one and bbq at the supermarket. We did however need to fetch some fresh meat and some bait for the next day’s planned fishing trip so I headed into the capital St. George’s with Sean and my dad Pete for supplies. We ended up taking a slightly diverted route to the fish market due to the one way system which routes the traffic through the narrow roads and one way Sendal tunnel. The back streets of St. George’s was a bit of a revelation to Sean who had expected the white sand beaches side the Caribbean but not the corrugated iron fences and wooden shack homes in the capital. We bought some flying fish bait, the ballyhoo not being available and some chicken wings. I couldn’t interest Sean and Dad in trying some of the other local cuts available such as salted pig’s snout or chicken feet, though probably just as well as I’m not sure how well they barbeque.
Views in downtown St. George's
Island dressed up in National colours for Grenadian Independance Day
New mall and renovated shopping area for new cruise ship docks in St. George's
After calling at another supermarket for the remaining items we were back to the boat and on the VHF to call Jonny & Kate on Newtsville who were planning joining us with their guests – Kate’s Mum Jane and sister Hayley. We intended to head over to the anchorage east of Hog Island for our barbeque and we motored round to Prickly Bay to meet with Newtsville and head round. We were head on into quite a running swell pitched up by the shallow water in the area, however it was a short run and promised to be sheltered in the anchorage so we pressed on. We reached the channel first on Invincible which winds between coral beds on both sides and is fairly narrow, the pilot books and charts and electronic charts all providing a different version of the buoyage to expect on entrance. We entered the channel by the first green starboard mark (IALA System B here so taken to port on entrance), however after that despite a hesitant run further in and much scanning by all onboard all we could see was what appeared to be orange fishing buoys and reef in front and to starboard. We could not see the edges of the reef very clearly due to direction of the swell, we called Newtsville who were of much the same opinion and we decided to head back to Prickly Bay to have our barbecue on the beach at the head of the eastern side of the bay.
Newtsville on the way out to Hog Island
Heading back into Prickly Bay for Plan B
We managed to find a good spot under trees for the odd passing rain showers lasting only two minutes, but which seem to make our newly arrived British visitors seem more at home when barbecuing with towels etc whipping out to keep the cooking going. We had a very pleasant afternoon under the gaze of the Calabash restaurant owned by Gary Rhodes, I’m not sure he was too intimidated by our cooking but we all enjoyed it. We discovered by one of those small world coincidences that Hayley and Kate went to the same school as Sean but a different year, which just goes to prove my theory that these people from Wigan / Standish etc seem to find each other wherever we go.
Men make fire...
Men make fire...
Kate, Hayley and Jane
Sean
We went round into True Blue bay that evening as did Newtsville trying to find a slightly less rolly anchorage. We went into the Dodgy Dock Bar that evening after our showers and found to our delight that bottles of the excellent local Carib beer would be 1$EC (about 25p) a bottle that night after 9pm (whilst stocks last). However, by the 9.40 when the cheap Carib bar had still not opened and apparently the entire entrance of the neighbouring university plus many locals had also turned waiting for the one cooler’s worth of beer we decided to abandon and drink our own supplies on the boat.
A cloudy day today, which was probably just as well as I for one got a bit burnt yesterday so the cooler temperature was pleasant. Jo & Kev have a busy day today going to see the local authorities to apply for the licence for the wedding with the wedding planner and picking up the hire car which we will all be using for the week of the wedding to ferry people around between the various hotels. They were also having to repack the boat to store everything to make room for Shaun coming, as his berth had been used as storage to an extent. We had a ride into St Georges, and was quite surprised that it looked quite a poor area a little rundown, but very colourful, non the less. In fact riding round the island is a very colourful experience, everything painted in pastel colours, a really lovely sight. We saw all the children coming out of school and were impressed at how neat and tidy they all looked in their colourful uniforms, with the little girls colourful hair ribbons. After Sean’s arrival we all sat on the deck in the cockpit and ate our evening meal. A beautiful spot, a beautiful meal what more can you ask for.
Sean catches up with his uncle and Invincible's plans
Janice Flynn
