Oct 14– Nov 1 We went back to Prickly Bay one last time. The other anchorages on the south side of Grenada are nice, but nothing beats the convenience of Prickly Bay. We restocked the boat with groceries, got the laundry done, made a trip to the dentist to get our teeth cleaned, got together with cruising friends we may not see again and enjoyed the Friday night music at Prickly Bay Marina.
Jennifer got together with friends she hadn't seen in awhile and got in as much play time as she could. Kashara was back form Washington state, Olivia was back from British Columbia and Josie was back from spending the hurricane season in Trinidad.
We said goodbye to Prickly Bay and the island of Grneada Oct 24. After an overnight stop and snorkel at Isle de Ronde we arrived at Tyrrel Bay in Carriacou. This is another place that feels like home. We've probably spent a total of 2 months here over the last 1 1/2 years and there are a lot of local people who know us: the lady at the fish market where Jim gets ice, the vegetable lady who set us up with all the limes, rasta Thomas who made us fish head soup, the ladies that play the steel pan drums at the Lambi Queen, the lady who runs the kids Optimist club, one of the kids that sailed one of the Opti's even ran out and said hi to Jim when he passed the school yard, Cigarette and his brother Michael, the guys who used to run rum and cigaretes, Denise from the bar boat. There are more, but the point is we are very welcome in Carriacou and feel comfortable here.
We hung out and enjoyed the island for a few days until we got the Friday morning weather report. There was a very high probablility that the weather disturbance to the east of Grenada would turn into a tropical storm. Jim quickly investigated our options and decided we needed to take Opus to the mangroves and do it now at high tide or we might not get into the creek. We headed in and inched our way through the shallow water. Other people were already moving their boats in and gave us advice on where the deepest part of the channel was. We made it around the shallow part of the creek with probably only inches of water under the keel. Things were tense, but we made it through and got back into 8-10 feet of water again. Now we just needed to pick out a spot in the trees and tie up. It wasn't clear which side of the creek would be the safest as we didn't know if the storm would pass to the N or S of us. Jim picked a spot and put the bow right in the mangrove branches. He sent Jennifer off the bow with lines and had her crawl through the trunks, roots and branches to tie us up. After that he took the dinghy and put 2 anchors off the stern. Then he added 2 more lines into the trees and he felt we were set. Everything was pretty snug and still back in the trees - no rocking, no rolling, felt almost like being on land. Ahhh, now we could relax again and watch all the other boats come in. One catamaran after another came in. Jim and Jennifer took the dinghy out and helped our new friends Matt and Karen on Where II get their catamaran in and get tied up. By Friday night it was beginning to look like a boat parking lot, especially at the entrace to the mangroves where the water was deep enough for the bigger monohulls. Even the ferries and work boats were coming in. Tyrrel Bay was almost empty. Now we just had to wait for the storm.
By Saturday morning the area of disturbed weather had been upgraded to a tropical storm. Then it was upgraded to Hurricane Tomas. By the 11am weather update it was already N of Grenada and we knew it wouldn't be a serious threat to Carriacou. Still, it was windy and rainy. We could hear the wind and see it blowing the trees on the hills above us, but down in the mangroves it was almost still. It was neat to experience first hand why a mangrove swamp makes such a good hurricane hole.
After a day and a half in the mangroves Jim needed to get off the boat and go exploring. He found Denise's bar boat in the mangrove and spend one afternoon visiting with the people there. Several were crewing on ferries that were waiting out the storm, others were visiting from England and just on the bar boat for something to do. Of the handful of people there, 2 others had a surname of Gay. Jim came back to Opus and announced that he had met 2 of his "cousins", so we all went back to meet our new "family". By that time only Tony Roy Gay and his friends Mikey "B" and Winston from England were there. All 3 had spent part of their childhood in Carriacou, with parents, aunties or grandmothers, and felt a strong need to come back and visit. The island just has a good feel and they were back to recharge their souls on it.
On Monday the storm had passed and the sun was out again. No matter how safe and secure the mangroves feel, you don't want to stay there in times of good sunny weather. It gets hot and sticky in a hurry with no breeze. We joined the parade of boats leaving that morning and continued our journey further north.
Oct 1– 13 Hog Island After spending a few days in Prickly Bay to catch up on shopping and misc. errands we headed to Hog Island, another popular anchorage on the south coast of Grenada. Hog Island is tucked behind a shallow reef and offers calm water in a quiet setting. There's nothing there but Roger's Beach Bar which is usually only open Wednesdays and Sundays. We found an NSA burgee at Roger's which meant someone from our sailing club in North Carolina was there before us. If things got too quiet at Hog Island, Clarks Court Marina and Le Fleur Bleu Marina were only a dinghy ride away. We all went to Movie Night at Clarks Court one Tuesday. Jim popped 2 grocery bags of popcorn that we took to share while we watched "Water". Le Fleur Bleu is known for it's French bakery, so Jim made several bread runs in the dinghy while we were at Hog.
Hog Island could just have well been called Kid Island for Jennifer. Her friend Jordyn, who she met in St Maarten, was anchored there. They got together on Jordyn's boat or on the beach every day. Besides Jordyn and her 3 siblings, there were 3 other kids (9-10) who played at the beach frequently. Opus was closest to the beach, so it became the center of activity. The kids had kayak and dinghy rowing contests to and from the boat. One Sunday afternoon Jim grilled hotdogs for the kids on Opus. That was the highlight for Jennifer and definitely an all time record for the number of people on Opus - 12! (8 kids, 4 adults) As for the hotdogs, the kids had 24, the adults had 0. They sure smelled good.
Despite all the kids, Jennifer and Linda made progress with school. It helped that all the others were in school or home schooled on their boats in the mornings.
Jim and Sim took the bus to St Georges to get ice and check out the fish market and meat market. They both came back with big thick pork chops cut fresh from the pig that morning. They looked great and we could hardly wait for supper imagining how juicy and tender they would be. Wrong! Tough as nails. Next time we'll try beef and cook it as stew in the pressure cooker. Or maybe we should just stick to seafood. We had some good wahoo, a gift from "Ubuntu" who caught a 40 pounder while out sailing. We also had fresh lobster Jim bought from a fishing boat.
We'll be leaving Grenada soon to sail north. Jim built a new motor mount to carry the new dinghy motor and then he deflated the Tinker and packed it as a life raft again. We said our goodbyes to friends at Hog Island and sailed back to Prickly Bay one last time.