9-05-02 Had a great time with Pat's parents, they left yesterday. Luckily we had super weather while they were here - sunny and breezy, with no rain (very unusual). They really felt the tropical heat though, being only 12° from the Equator. Doesn't bother us - guess we are acclimated to it since we've spent so many years in the tropics without air conditioning. When it's too hot for us, we just jump in the water to cool off. We walked around the capital of St. George's and toured the museum, shops, spice market, Fort George (built 1706) and a waterfront restaurant for lunch. Fun day. We also toured the island more extensively via tour guide and minivan. We discovered the unspoiled beauty of this natural paradise - Concord waterfall, Gouyave nutmeg processing plant, Dougaldston spice plantation, River Antoine rum distillery (1785 and the oldest in the Caribbean), rainforest, crater lakes, Grenada chocolate factory, and a beautiful old plantation house for lunch. We covered the island south to north, and east to west. Quite a long day, but thoroughly enjoyable. The rest of the time during their visit, we relaxed on the boat. The week flew by fast, hope they enjoyed it as much as we did. We may sail 20 nm north to the island of Carriacou (part of Grenada) in the next few days and then we're not sure where ..... stay tuned.
9-21-02 We decided on a change of scenery and sailed to Carriacou today. We arrived in Tyrrel Bay (Lat 12°27'N/Lon 61°29'W) on the southern end of Carriacou this afternoon after a lovely sail up the west coast of Grenada. Carriacou is a small island (3 by 7 miles), just 17 nm NE of Grenada. It is geographically part of the Grenadine Islands, but politically part of Grenada. Most of the other Grenadine islands belong to St. Vincent. It's a rural island with small villages and a population of 6,000 - the inhabitants live by farming, fishing, seafaring and boat building (wooden Carriacou sloops). This is an island of over 100 rum shops and only one gasoline station! Rum shops are little shacks were you can purchase anywhere from a tot of rum to a full-sized bottle, fresh veggies, eggs, bread .. the bare essentials. Rum shops seem to be an institution in the Caribbean islands we've seen so far. The weather may deteriorate in the next couple days. There's a Tropical Depression (TD) east of us that we are monitoring. If it heads this way, we'll move into the mangroves. Tyrrel Bay has one of the best "hurricane holes" in the Caribbean in the form of a vast mangrove swamp. (A hurricane hole is a sheltered area for boats to moor during severe weather.) Only a handful of them in the Caribbean, glad it's close by.
9-24-02 Yesterday we moved into the hurricane hole along with about 20 other yachts and many local Carriacou vessels (small fishing boats to larger inter-island ships). Tropical Depression (TD) #13 evolved into Tropical Storm (TS) Lili yesterday and was on a westward path towards us. SIMMER's bow is in the mangroves with numerous mooring lines tied off to the strong mangrove root system and 3 anchors in the deeper water off our stern. Our bow is facing eastward where we experienced the strongest winds. Luckily Lili remained a TS and didn't develop into a hurricane as it passed a mere 25 miles north of us last night. We did experience 40+ kts of winds (with higher gusts), thunderstorms with horrific lightening and torrential rain. Not sure how much rain fell, but it was a deluge for 4 hours and we had to bail our dinghy many times or it would have sunk. Our water tanks, and every bucket we own, are happily topped-off and SIMMER sat out the storm perfectly thanks to those healthy mangroves. A few casualties this morning in the form of small sunken local boats, but all of us in the mangroves are counting our lucky stars. Now waiting for further improvement in the weather - still rainy and windy (20-30kts) today. Hope to move back out into Tyrrel Bay tomorrow and explore Carriacou. We're sure lots of flooding and mudslides ashore with all that rain. We'll stay in Carriacou another 7-10 days, then sail back to Grenada since Colleen is flying home for a visit Oct 8-24th.
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