Being a leap year, by 29 February 2024, we’d returned to Bequia Island from Mystique Island to clear out, spent the night and cast off the mooring ball at around 0700 to head further south; our destination, Carricou Island, just north of the island of Grenada. It had been 9 years since we last visited Carricou and Elaine remembers it well because the Customs officer, besides being extremely rude to her, but got more than he bargained for as a result, gave Elaine the flu which turned to pneumonia. This turn of events resulted in us spending a month floating in St Anne’s, Martinique, while she recovered just in time for Christmas and New Year as well as for the start of our circumnavigation with the World ARC on 9th January 2016.
With a forecast for strong northeasterly winds, we set off expecting a fairly fast downwind sail, but found ourselves bobbing around at barely 5 Kts until a storm passed over us, increasing our SOG (Speed Over Ground) to 9.5 Kts. Sadly it didn’t last, so on went an engine and we motorsailed the rest of the way. It was a tad disappointing because the last time we sailed this route we had one of our more memorable sails doing 9.5-10 Kts all the way.
Given that it had been more than 9 years since we last visited Carricou, we updated our knowledge of the area by reading the latest comments on Navionics, only to discover that we had actually been sent on a wild goose chase after reading about a change in the location of the Customs office which, according to the author, it had been separated from the Immigration office and moved to the northern side of Tyrell Bay. Confused as to why this had been done, we nonetheless dinghied to what looked like a new marina being built, a new commercial dock already built and a larger haulout facility. It was indeed infuriating to learn that the information we’d read was incorrect and that the Customs and Immigration office was located exactly where it has always been; at the southern end of the anchorage.
Climbing in and out of the dinghy is a mission for Elaine these days, so having to do it unnecessarily is an aggravation, only to be compounded by the ridiculous “musical chairs” she had to partake in while clearing in, not to mention yet another fee to be paid. Unless our memories have totally failed us, we never remember paying all these fees.
It was nice to see the Iguana Café had been spruced up, though, with what looked like very nice breakfast, lunch and dinner menus, although at hellish prices.
The rest of the establishments along the shoreline of the bay looked a tad more derelict than it was in a past life, although we understand a new “supermarket” had opened. Regardless, deciding to eat onboard, we both settled for an early night.
On waking to the stronger winds we thought we were getting yesterday, we decided to take advantage of this gift, so we weighed anchor and continued south to our next destination and a planned stop to collect our antifouling; Prickly Bay on the southern end Grenada Island.
It was somewhat sad, though, to be cruising along this route, knowing that a couple had lost their lives going in the opposite direction less than a fortnight ago, after their yacht was hijacked by three escaped convicts originally from St Vincent, while their yacht was anchored off Grande Anse in Grenada. The perpetrators used the yacht to get back to St Vincent. Fortunately the three were re-arrested, but two cruisers, enjoying their retirement, had lost their lives through negligence on someone’s part. It’s definitely left us very uneasy and uncomfortable about being back in this part of the world.
Another reminder of what part of the world we are in are the certain ilk of French cruisers who persistently anchor on top of us and our encounter in Tyrell Bay was no exception. After hunting around for a nice sandy spot when we arrived and just when we were about to sit down to dinner, along comes a late arrival who thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to anchor within spitting distance of us, over our anchor and swinging across our bow. Too apathetic to engage these kind of cruisers these days, we simply lifted our anchor and re-anchored. Needless to say their eyes grew somewhat larger by the second as Elaine manoeuvred Paw Paw to within inches of them to sit alongside in order to retrieve our anchor, which, needless to say, was buried directly underneath their yacht. However, rather than move forward to help the situation or indeed re-anchor after settling too close to us to begin with, all they did was wave. Incredible how shallow the gene pool has become!
By mid afternoon on Friday, 1st March 2024, we’d returned to our old stomping ground of Prickly Bay, Grenada, surprised again to see the number of yachts on mooring balls as well as at anchor and it wasn’t even hurricane season yet. It will be bedlam by then, no doubt!
For us, though, our time here will allow for some respite before our haulout.
