Last Night in Grenada

June 21,2014

Prickly Bay anchorage with marina in the background

It is time to say Farewell to another island.  We have barely scratched the surface but the small taste we have gotten of Grenada tells us we will definitely be back for more.

This also means Farewell to good cruising friends and new cruising friends.  Sv Endorfin II had us over for a farewell happy hour and surprised us with a gift of Nib-A-Licious chocolate from The Grenada Chocolate Company.  Yum.  Thanks guys.

We couldn't resist heading ashore one last time to the tiki bar at Prickly Bay for live music.  Three different musical acts where playing that night.  A hip-hop group was performing when we arrived. While that is not my favorite type of music, I could appreciate the talent of the young men rapping.  One guy even did a test of his rapping skills.  He picked a lovely, young girl (of course) from the audience. When he pointed at her, she would say a single random word.  He would rap about it rhyming and finding a way to flow into the next random word.  It was tough but he did a good job.

Sabrina and The Navigators

The main reason we went ashore was to hear Sabrina and The Navigators.  Yes, you heard right.  They are a very popular local band.  And very good.  They have even played in Europe.  A few cruisers got up and danced.  Towards the end of their set they played a slow song.  Sharon off Sv Hoofbeats, Diane of Sv Endofin II and me found ourselves sitting there without our guys....they had wondered off to the bar.  So we decided to each grab one of the very young hip-hop guys that performed prior to Sabrina and The Navigators.  Luckily we caught them so off guard that they couldn't put up a fight.  There were four total but only three of us sailing girls so the forth hip-hopper wasted no time and immediately started taking pics on his smartphone and then with a 35 mm camera of his buddies slow dancing with the old, white sailing chicks.  I asked my dance partner if he was embarrassed.  He said he wasn't but I think he was.  We visited as we danced.  He works during the day at a regular job and then at night works on his hip-hop either practicing or performing.  He was a very nice and polite young man.  It was a hoot.

We didn't stay for the last band as we needed to get some sleep.  We are sailing from Grenada to Trinidad Sunday night.  

Many, many yachts are already there.  A few set sail Saturday night and a few more this evening.  We are going to buddy boat with our friend Paul on sv Sonic Boom.  His is a singlehander.  The 84 miles to Trini are a bit tougher for him as a solo sailor.  For route planning purposes I always use 5 knots of speed.  I do the route planning on our iPad using Garmin Bluecharts.  It works really well. We hope that we do better  than 5 knots but generally the start and end of a passage is slower so an average of 5 knots tells us the worst case scenario.  84 nautical miles at 5 knots is approx 16 hours.  We know we want to arrive during daylight hours so it's really just a matter of when during the day and then calculate backwards.   We have decided to depart at 2200 or 10pm.  This means only 7 hours of night sailing vs 11 and puts us sailing by two big oil rigs that are in between Grenada and Trinidad at first light vs night time with all the ships traffic an oil rig involves. 

Why are so many cruisers in Trinidad?  Hurricane season.  While Grenada is technically south of the hurricane belt for insurance purposes, it has been hit by a rare hurricane or two and hit hard.  Trinidad is just that much further south that hurricanes are very, very, very rare there.  Because of this fact an entire yachting industry has developed.  This in turn means goods, services, parts, and skilled craftsmen that can do all the things that need to be done on a yacht.  Sv Honey Ryder is in need a little tender loving care and she will be getting it in Trinidad.  The lists have started and they are long.  Have I mentioned that boat maintenance never, ever stops!  We will be doing a few items when we first get there.  Most of these items revolve around prepping Sv Honey Ryder for our departure.  Sad, I know!  We will be leaving her  in Trinidad while we fly back to the states to attend to business and see family and friends. However, she will be under the very watchful eye of caretaker who will be boat sitting in our absence.