Tobago

We stayed anchored off Whisper Cove Marina, Woburn, for a week. One day we caught the bus to St George’s bus terminal and then boarded another one for the 45 minute journey to Grenville on the windward side of Grenada. The road went right across the island, through the rain forest interior and over the mountains before descending to the non-tourist town of Grenville. It was good to see how the local people go about their everyday lives. Jeremy wanted to come here on the boat, but I was not keen as the harbour is surrounded by reefs, has many shallow patches and the wind and current would set us on to the reefs. I thought my doubts were justified when I saw the entrance to the harbour, but Jeremy maintained it was “a piece of cake”. We had lunch of local Creole food at a café called the Melting Pot. I was unsure what to choose, but the food turned out to be good and inexpensive. Many local people went there for lunch. Later, we shopped at the supermarket beneath the restaurant, bought fresh fruit and veg from vendors and caught the bus which went down the windward side of the island. The driver said he would drop us off at the cliffs, which sounded a bit ominous, but turned out to be a place where 5 roads met. We soon caught the bus to Woburn from the cliffs.

There had been an annoying whining noise over the bay for two days and, at last, we discovered its cause – a kite. We couldn’t see the string but we could see the kite. Apparently, it’s an Easter pastime in Grenada.

By now we were listening to the Grenada Cruisers’ Net everyday and we heard there was to be a boat jumble at Whisper Cove. We went along and Jeremy bought a catapult and some fish hooks. We stayed for the BBQ lunch and met one of the volunteer net controllers, Inga, a Danish couple, Nonne and Jogen, from “Luna” last seen at Bequia and a Canadian, Brian, from “Magique”. The next day, Mothering Sunday, we took the dinghy to Hog Island and joined in the Sunday afternoon BBQ held on the beach in the shade of the trees. We promised Inga we would introduce ourselves on the Net and Jeremy did this the next day. We heard that a yacht near us, “Isle Escape” had 600 Trinidad and Tobago dollars to exchange so we went over and gave the guy 100US$. He gave us a carrier bag of leaflets, maps, a cruising guide and a boaters’ directory all related to Trinidad and Tobago as well as the TT$. We were a little disturbed to learn he’s not going back to T&T because of the level of crime. We’re going there next!

We left Clarke’s Court Bay on 24th March and motored through the reefs to the next bay called La Phare Bleu, which has an upmarket marina where the office and facilities are in an old, refurbished, Swedish lightship. We bought a gallon of petrol for the outboard and a loaf of bread. Bread normally costs $4, but here they charged $7. The bilge alarm went off just before we went ashore. The water pump on the engine was leaking sea water and would have to be replaced. Jeremy pumped the bilges and we weighed anchor and steered out through the reefs, which were marked with buoys. We went to Egemont Bay, where there is a hurricane hole. It was almost unnerving to be perfectly still with no wind or swell and a good place for Jeremy to replace the water pump. The leak was caused by a rusty spring clip, which had broken. This is an infuriating design fault in a pump which costs £150+. Later, we enjoyed snorkelling near the mangroves and Jeremy scrubbed Sal Darago’s bottom while I made supper.

We thought we might try to find Fort Jeudy the next day, but I wasn’t feeling too good having been awake in the night with pains in my chest and stomach. The anchorage in the outer bay was very deep so we kept going to St David’s Bay, the last anchorage on the SE coast of Grenada. We had a look round ashore and later took the dinghy to a reef and snorkelled for a while. We both came out bleeding having cut ourselves on barnacles. The next morning we went ashore and bought the most expensive loaf of bread (10EC$) at a resort restaurant. Next stop was Customs and Immigration so that we could clear out of Grenada. They’re supposed to be there at 8.00am, but they weren’t. A man told us they might be there at 9.00 or 10.00. We went back at 10.30 and they still weren’t there. We asked at the boatyard office if Customs and Immigration were coming today and they kindly rang them. We were told they were coming after lunch, probably about 1.30pm. At 12 noon we went ashore for the third time to have lunch in the beach bar. The same man as before saw us and said, “They’re over there.” Sure enough, two officers were looking at a boat so we went over and, after a short wait, we were seen and Jeremy filled in the required paperwork for the Customs Officer. Unfortunately, the Immigration Officer had disappeared so we had to leave all our documents, go and have our lunch and return later. This we duly did and….finally…..we were cleared by Immigration and we could leave.

Sal Darago was not ready to leave. I started the engine as Jeremy started winching up the anchor. There was no water coming out of the exhaust pipe, which meant the water pump was not working.