Grenada to Carriacou

Current Location: Prickly Bay, Grenada

So, here we are again, back in Grenada, after a nightmare four months. A blog is not the right place to go into all the details. Suffice to say my dad died aged 90 on my birthday in March and my nephew Sam died tragically a few weeks later. In the meantime we have had an offer to buy our Cumbrian home of 30 years which we have accepted and we’ve bought a two bedroomed flat in Stroud close to my brother and only a few miles from where my mum now lives alone in Dursley.

We did manage a couple of trips to France for welcome breaks with Marcus’ mum and dad in the Dordogne and then to Jack and Fizzy’s mountain hut in the Pyrenees. Fantastic times and very welcome. Thank you all.

We finally flew back out here a week ago to get our head round things and to put Petronella to bed for the hurricane season. Straight back into local politics where the local marina management has had a big shake up with sackings, deportations and recriminations. Small fry though compared with the larger national English political and sporting disasters as we left the Euro zone twice in a week. The rest of the world seems totally bemused by Britain’s vote to leave the EU and mildly amused at our departure from the Euro football competition.

But it’s great to be back in the warm weather and the warm welcome from our friends here, to know what the moon is doing, to watch the sun going down and to not worry (much) about care packages and wheelchairs but how the solar panels are charging and why yet again the dinghy won’t stay inflated.

We are on a mooring ball next to a boat named Freya with a Texan skipper and his partner Jules from Australia. They’ve spent the last couple of years cruising round the western Caribbean including Honduras, San Blas (home to our party boat earlier this year) and other exotic and mildly dangerous sounding countries and islands we’ve barely even heard of. They take guests from time to time to top up their cruising kitty and to help people who are considering buying a boat to see what this life is all about. In a previous life she set up a charity foundation helping a small village in remote rural Zimbabwe. We spent a fun evening with them reminiscing on our various African travels.

Today we caught up with Jenny, our friend with the dogs and the big cider drinking pig and the neat wooden house up in the hills and her good friend Paul, the Grenadian ex BBC documentary maker. We took them to lunch at Umbrellas (you know the place D&V). Turns out Paul is from Stroud, has worked at The Space where sister-in-law Jane used to work and has even drunk coffee in the square that our new flat overlooks in Ebley near Stroud. Coincidence or what? Paul has built a bamboo hut next to the stream that runs at the bottom of Jenny’s fruit and vegetable small holding. It sounds almost as basic as Petronella and we have been invited to stay there for a few days once Petronella is on the hard and before we leave for the UK in just a month’s time. It has a cooker, a bedroom, a small veranda, a swimming pool (actually the stream) and a toilet (though this has to be moved as at present Jenny can see Paul doing his business at the bottom of her land)!

We’ve also decided we really do need to sail somewhere this year so we’ve been putting the sails back on for in readiness for a short sail up to the next island, Carriacou. It’s part of the same country as Grenada so no need to check out. It’s much less developed than Grenada and the intention is to simply chill out there for a couple of weeks. So the water tanks are being slowly filled, things stowed below and charts idly studied.

Meanwhile our family of circus troupe friends on Island Swift have finally left The Azores heading back east to the UK. Fair winds to Jojo, Simon and the boys. I’m envying you back on the ocean if not the fact that every day it will be getting colder.

PS - Now in Carriacou after along day motor sailing northwards with too little wind and strong, not predicted, west going currents. Chilling out in the Iguana Cafe next to the boatyard. Strong winds forecast for later in the week.