Grenada

It was great to see Gary and Donna after all that time.  Easy to see why we clicked with them so long ago and stayed in touch for 35 years.

We are going to be storing the boat in Grenada this year and so we set out to get close to our haul-out spot in Saint David's Bay where Grenada Marine is located.  We are always surprised by the wind speeds so we set out with one reef in the main and a partially deployed jib.  This might have been our best sail of the year.  We were in 20-plus winds off the beam for the whole trip with gusts that made the trip exhilarating.  We covered the 21 miles of open water between Carriacou and Grenada in 3 hours - 7 knots average - crazy!  And other than a few choppy spots it was very comfortable.  The currents were crazy - sweeping us west and then east - and we had to change our heading continually to keep on our path.

We passed across "Kick Em Jenny" an active volcano about 600 feet below the surface.  There hasn't been anything alarming in recent years so we crossed our fingers as we transited through the exclusion zone.

Diamond Rock - near Kick 'em Jenny

Skooting past Kick 'em Jenny

Grenada behind reduced jib

As we got into the lee of the island the winds started to go weird so we motor-sailed the rest of the way around to Pricky Bay and anchored behind a small patch of coral for protection.  We had a beery reunion with Chris and Linda from Troubadour and got the skinny on the local area from them.  Lots of fun.

An outboard pool bar - now y'er talking

We took the bus into St. Georges to find an Island Water World and explore the town.  Bobby and Leslie from Gra'inne and Glenn and Sylvie from Gemma's Inspiration were at Port Louis Marina so we did a tour there and had a nice visit on both boats.

We are going to enjoy the Grenada cruisers community for the next 10 days and do small "shut-down" jobs to prepare Blue Pearl for summer on the hard.

Saw this sign on a restaurant door - thought we could have used it around our school.