Standard disclaimer: as of Nov 1, Grenada has 4 active COVID cases, zero community spread. Remember you can click on photos for a larger view.
In a bid to be closer to our friends on Kraken, we sailed from St Georges around the corner to Egmont bay. The first leg of the sail was glorious and fast (with our nice new clean bottom), with flat water and wind slightly behind us as we zipped along past the rest of the long anchorage.
Then we turned the corner, and things became less pleasant. We thought we would be able to tack down past the bottom of the island, but with a stiff current and close-spaced, choppy waves, the proposition was somewhere between unpleasant and untenable. So we took the direct route, motoring into the wind for an unpleasant hour and a half until we turned the corner into the bay. By the time we arrived, we all felt like this.
But Egmont bay is lovely and flat, so we recovered quickly.
And soon, we found ourselves driving around the island with the Kraken grownups. (Grenada has lots of sailing kids, so we saw much less of the Kraken youngsters on this visit than we had previously.) We found coffee, this wild old goat, and ultimately, sundowners at Grand Anse.
The following day was Sunday, and the Funday celebration was at XXXX, with a pleasant beach (not pictured) and Kim from Dorothy Rose teaching us to play Mexican Train dominoes.
Monday’s chief accomplishment was sending Jazz up the mast to change a light bulb. Our anchor light had started to burn out, so we needed to pop out the old one to see what kind of replacement we even needed. Sending her up is pretty routine at this point, but Captain was pretty well mystified as to how she’d managed to climb the metal tree. Kraken, anchored next door, also supplied a nice picture.
On Tuesday, Kraken gave us a ride into town to get our faces poked with needles in a bid to stave off the passing years a bit. Here’s me before, and Jazz after handling it like a not-needle-phobic champion.
Having accomplished that mission, we met up again to explore more of the island. We had planned on touring the rum or chocolate factories, but all were closed to visitors in these troubled times, and we had to content ourselves with lunch at Laura’s.
(Somewhere on the way, we were maybe unduly amused by this tirewall.)
From Laura’s, we swung by Prickly Bay to pick up Russel from Ddraig. After getting an unexpected, agitated lecture about how we shouldn’t be wearing masks “because you need to breathe, ::big long sniff::” from some random old sailor, we got back in the car and headed to West Indies Brewery. Lisa celebrated her friendship with Russel…
And Jazz celebrated her friendship with Lisa…
And generally we all had a good time.
I have no segue for this, but Captain continues to scrounge for sandwiches.
We did get to see a little bit of the younger Krakens. Here we are at Chicken night at Le Phare Blue, witnessing the magic of a color-changing gin.
Another highlight of Egmont: the owner of one of the properties on the shore has installed a super bright light that shines out into the bay. At first we were only mildly annoyed about this, but when coming home after chicken night, we discovered that the bay is massively bio-luminescent — but it’s very difficult to see due to the big overpowered spotlight. We may have planned, and then failed to execute, a little bit of petty vandalism.
Fortunately, because we have great friends, we didn’t have too long to spend plotting. Someone had organized a tubing trip, and we piled a big group into a pair of taxis and went floating.
The group ended up being split three ways, which meant that by the time we went in the last shift, the guides had had enough: rather than let us float, they were pretty much shoving us down the stream. Still, we had a good time, bouncing around the obstacles with pop remixes blasting from Jazz’s ever-present speaker.
It was nearly time for us to leave again, and we sailed back around to St Georges, but before we left, we had time for one last Sunday Funday. We met up for the taxi at the Port Louis marina, where I once again proved my skills as a cat whisperer. And this time, the taxi brought us to Sur La Mer at BBC Beach, which is lovely and remote.
This felt like a fitting goodbye-for-now to these lovely people. We keep saying farewell and then finding ourselves in the same place again, so here’s hoping!