Carriacou
Hillsborough is the main town. It is a really busy place,
the dock is a real hive of activity. From ferries coming and going, traditional
Carriacou sloops with a real mix of cargoes to the modern hydrofoil ferry.
Yachts checking in and fishing boats buying diesel from an old fuel barge
anchored in the harbour. |
| Traditional Trader |
You can sit here and watch the world go about its business
for quite a while.
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| Sunset Hillsborough |
There are many Pelicans, Boobies, Laughing gulls and Frigate
birds and we regularly get to watch their feeding frenzies. One of them spots a
school of fish and as soon as it starts diving they all come to join in, dozens
of birds at a time. The nasty Frigate birds soar above and dive down to try to
take another birds catch. The Boobies know what to do – they just land in the
water to enjoy their meal. The Frigate birds cannot take off from the sea so
they swerve off and try to take another bird by surprise.
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| Pelican Fishing |
We are anchored close to ‘Exit Strategy’, so the social
round of ‘sundowners’ and some water aerobics continued.
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| Carriacou Museam |
While in Hillsborough we took the opportunity to visit the
local museam. Although small it was really interesting with artifacts dating back
to the Arawaks and the Caribes. The
enthusiastic young curator told us that the local population could track their
ancestry back to the tribe they came from in Africa from their European
surnames which they took from their owners upon the abolition of slavery, and how many African traditions were still preserved on the island.
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| View of Pettit Martinique from Windward |
We took the local bus to the village of Windward where the
traditional sloops are built. There was no boatbuilding going on at the moment
but it was interesting to note the large number of Scots surnames buried
in the local graveyard. Many were boatbuilders or schooner captains, some
living to well into their 80’s as long ago as the early 19th Century.
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| 'Windward' Cottage |
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| Pizza shop Windward |
Shopping in Hillsborough has pretty much everything you
need, including a really nice delicatessen and some interesting souvenir shops,
local café’s, and a lovely restaurant run by a South African woman who sailed
to Carriacou and just stayed. It is easy to see why.
After a couple of days in Hillsborough we are moving on to
Tyrell bay. There is no wind for the 5 mile trip so we motor.
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| Carriacou Marine |
Tyrell bay is one of the most sheltered anchorages in the
area, and the mangroves make a good ‘hurricane hole’. There are lots of boats
in the anchorage and quite a ‘boaty’ community. People here really make you
feel welcome and look after each other. After our first evening here we ended
up looking after a lovely Spirit 55 (Spirited Lady) while her owner was away
for a few days on a camping trip!
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| Laughing Gull sheltering in the Mangroves |
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| Wreck in the Mangroves |
Ashore there are a few small grocery stores giving a good selection including frozen meat
and chicken and fresh bread every day. There are two vegetable stalls but the
best is on Saturday when Rufus brings his own fruit and veg, eggs and fresh
chicken. There are also a few souvenir shops, 2 dive shops, 3 laundrys (!!) and
several bars. With the boatyard offering quite a range of services and a
sailmaker too, it is a good spot to hole up and do repairs as well.
Every morning we listen to the Grenada cruisers net on Ch
66. It is all the usual stuff, the weather, arrivals and departures, sales and
wants, social activities and local business giving themselves a plug. We also learn that Grenada seems an endless
social whirl – not that sure that we will be able to take the pace!
Not to be outdone, the
weekend here is going to be hectic with Friday at the ‘Lambi Queen’ and a steel
pan band, Saturday is the ‘Fisherman’s Birthday’ celebrations and Sunday a
local ‘Oildown’ cooked by the veg stall. We may miss out on the Sunday as you
really can have too much partying!
The steel band at Lambi’s was excellent, attended by locals
and yachties alike, as was the fishermens celebrations with excellent fish
dishes, tug - o - war and other games just on the street. As Rowena is not keen
on fish we walked up the side street to ‘Miss Luckys ‘ a BBQ chicken shop where
we met the crew of ‘Sea Schell’, ‘Kaya Moya’ (a South African boat) and ‘Celtic
Spray’.
Every evening we seem to be invited to something either on
another boat or ashore. We met 2 other South African boats here as well, Lycaen
and Stingo. Together we had a great evening on Sweet Chariot (USA) who we had
met on Sea Schell (USA) with some great guitar music.
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| Rasta Cannon Tyrrell bay |
The talk here is of the first tropical storm to be named in
the Caribbean, Chantal is its name and the track is being closely monitored. When
in Bequia we met Lubin who used to be a schooner skipper trading under sail, he
told us that any storm ‘named’ north of 9 deg north would always miss Bequia.
Chantal was named at 9.9 deg north. A
few boats here have moved into the mangroves although we are not even on a
storm watch let alone a storm warning, windspeed is predicted to be 15-20kts
with gusts up to 25+Kts. As it turned out, Chantal passed between St Lucia and
Martinique with minimal damage just some heavy rain. A couple of days later the
boats that were hiding away crept out of the mangroves, as for the rest of us,
well we just continued to party! Looks like Lubin was right.
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| Paradise Beach Carriacou |
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| Sunset Tyrell Bay |
After a week here we are ready to move on to the main island
of Grenada. We will go down the leeward side as we want to spend a few days in
St Georges. We have booked into the Grenada yacht club marina where we can get
fuel, water and electricity and they have a laundry. Town is a short walk or a
dinghy ride away, we can tie our dinghy right outside ‘Foodland’. At EC$54 (£13) a night it is good value and we
are right in the centre of town.
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| Sailing to Grenada |
