Sailboat Discovery: Grenada

Finally.... Grenada

We left Miami Florida on January 14, 2015 with our final destination Grenada so we could be out of the hurricane Zone! The trip was close to 2,000 km, it saw us clear in and out of 12 countries and visit 18 islands. Now just before June 1 we make landfall on the island of Curracou the northern most point of the country of Grenada. On Curracou we anchored at both Anse Roche and Terryll bay,the first a small but wonderful little hole in the wall bay located on the northern most point of the island, its a turtle beach with beautiful white sand with 10 feet of water almost right up to the beach. It has great snorkeling on both sides of the anchorage and seldom have we had to share the spot! Terryll bay on the other hand is a large protected anchorage on the south end of the island. It has a customs office and is a great place to clear into Grenada! Its a handy place to stage to make the final trip to the main island.

After spending a couple of days clearing in and enjoying the island we left early in the morning headed for the Main island of Grenada and the port of St Georges the capital. We anchored just off from the channel into the harbor and explored the town of St Georges! The best beach on the island Grand Anse, is just south of the anchorage and it makes a great playground to beach walk and snorkel on the reefs just hundreds of yards off the beach!

We spent a couple of days off of St Georges and then sailed around the south point to the first of the main anchorages on the south end of Grenada, Prickly Bay. The south end of the island is home to most of the protected anchorages, Prickly Bay, Mt Hartman, Hog, and Clarke,s court. Prickly is the home of two of the most prominent cruising spots on the island, Prickly Bay Marina and Spice Island Yard. The marina has a few slips and a great restaurant along with a bandstand and a tiki bar. They have pizza night specials, sponsor domino tourneys and great live entertainment! Spice Island is a large and very secure place to haul your boat for repairs or a hurricane season. It also is the location for the largest budget marine chandlery on the island and a great place to eat called timbers! Its also has a great dinghy dock and its a short walk to a main street to catch a cheap bus to get to just about anywhere in the St George area! We spent a couple of weeks here to arrange for the haul out of our boat and move around town to both sight see and get some work done on the boat.

The only down side of this anchorage is the rolling that occurs on a regular basis, It can get so bad that sleep is difficult so when we got our projects done and had enough of the rolling we moved south one anchorage to Mt Hartman, wow what a difference its protected by several reefs that cut down the swell and make this a quiet anchorage, sleep is much easier! Its also a scenic place with beautiful mountains surrounding it and a wonderful marina called secret harbor, It has a number of slips , dressing rooms, laundry etc. It also has a great restaurant and bar that provides a great overlook of the harbor! It requires a pretty good walk to get to Prickly bay marina and a even longer walk to get to a highway where you can catch one of the great buses to take you into town cheap. But it makes up for this by being such a pleasant place to drop the hook!

The cruisers have developed a very full list of options for those that drop the hook around the south end of the island, they have arranged for buses that will pick up at all the major anchorages to take you to the groceries, the shopping mall and the chandlries. Also by listening to the cruiser net on channel 68 you learn of the sightseeing trips that the bus drivers promote, some of the trips are to the turtle beaches on the north east side of the island to see the leather-back turtles as they lay their eggs in the early summer, and the interior plantations like the organic chocolate factory at Belmont plantation, as well as the many rum tours to the rum factories, and lastly the trips to a small fishing village on the west coast called Quave and their Friday block party called fish Friday. We did it all and had a great time.

We arrive in Grenada on June 1st, we finally hauled our boat out on July 12th and spent 4 hectic days getting the boat ready for its 5 months on the hard! Finally it was time to turn the page on a fantastic adventure and return back to our family and friends in the states and reconnect with our loved ones. Discovery will sit patiently until we return in November to begin another chapter in our Caribbean discovery!