Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Hanging out in Grenada

End of September – middle of November (summary)

WOW !!!! Time really does fly by when you are having fun and living in paradise. As I have mentioned before Grenada is a hurricane season hang out for a LOT of boaters. Each bay and or marina becomes like your neighborhood where you hang out most of the time with occasional visits and or moves to the other bays or marinas for social outings. There are also social outings inland where groups of people go from their various different “home base”. So you are always meeting new people and running into different friends at the many different events. We finally got our arch put on the boat, Nick at Technick in Spice Land Marina did a fabulous job, and we now have solar panels to help keep the batteries topped off. With Hurricane season being over many boats are moving on and many boaters who had their boats on the hard for the season are returning. Some staying awhile and some moving out as soon as they are in the water. So while some friends are moving on we are still meeting new ones or seeing old ones just returning. It is easy to see why Grenada is such a popular place, we have grown very fond of it here and it feels like home. But just like back home in the states you do not always see everything there is to see in your home town or state. So while we did see and do a lot of things, there are some things we missed, but we will be returning again so maybe next time. We got a practice run in leaving last week when several friends from Texas flew in and rented a catamaran for the week. Laura & Rick, Diane & Gary, Terry & Mike, & Paula and Tom we had a great time visiting with you. We sailed up to Carriacou and did 2 dives with them on Monday 11/7. The reefs around there were some of the healthiest reefs we have seen in a long time. No recent hurricane damage like so many of the others we have seen. They wanted to go up to Tobago Cays in the Grenadines which requires checking in & out of the 2 different countries. Since we just renewed our visas for Grenada and would be leaving soon we did not want to go through the process and pay the $ twice, so we stayed a night at Petite Martinique (part of Grenada) and then over to Petit St Vincent and to Chatham Bay on Union Island – both in the Grenadines BUT isolated anchorages that you can spend a night at without checking into the country. Meeting back in Carriacou on Friday for 2 more dives. Spending a couple of nights dinning on board their spacious cat that could easily seat all 10 of us, and dinning ashore a couple of nights with friends Judy & Gordon in Carriacou we had a great week. Reminding us how much fun it is to move around and explore different Islands and anchorages. So now after 3 ½ months we will be leaving Grenada again, temporarily to head down to Trinidad where Sean will come to visit for Thanksgiving.

you may have to copy & paste link ?? looks different this time so not sure how it will come out on blog.

link to pictures;
https://picasaweb.google.com/103931849054358791487/HangingOutInGrenada?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCOycjs-ryoGBBw&feat=directlink