Greetings from the Grenadines. We just cleared in on Union Island after a full month in Grenada and are settled in Chatham Bay, one of our favorite places to anchor. We remained in Grenada a bit longer than we had planned but then we live on a sailboat and have gotten accustomed to a change in plans. This time driven by a wait for a watermaker part. Of course, we made the most of our stay and have lots to share.
But we will start with the watermaker. We had previously shared that our watermaker was malfunctioning when we left Trinidad. Fortunately, there is a reputable Spectra watermaker dealer on Grenada and we made arrangements with the owner to have one of her technicians visit our boat shortly after arriving on the island. In a highly usual occurrence — at least on the islands — the technician came out to our boat as planned shortly after arriving in Grenada (just after our kids left — more on their visit below) and we not only had the problem diagnosed but also a short term workaround that allowed us to make water, albeit at a lower gallon per hour rate. For those of you who like when we get technical, the problem was a bad booster pump and DC to DC converter that prevented an adequate energy supply from getting to the unit to push water through the system. The technician worked with the dealer to order new parts and we were supposed to have them in a week. We should have remembered that island time is sort of like dog years and a week turned into a much longer wait.
Have no fear! As we mentioned, we made the most of our time, even before the technician’s visit. First, our younger son and his wife and our daughter and her girl friend came out to visit us for the Thanksgiving holiday. Stefan and Monique arrived first, the weekend before Thanksgiving and Kerrigan and Bailey were not scheduled to arrive for about 3 more days. That gave us the opportunity to take off with them for a sail to Sandy Island for a few days. Sandy Island is a little slice of heaven off the Grenadian island of Carriacou. We waxed poetically about our time anchored off Sandy Island in our blog entry entitled “A few weeks in Grenada on our way to Trinidad — May 23 through June 9, 2022 (subtitle: A great last Caribbean hurrah before Trinidad and flights to the States)” so we won’t spend a lot of time describing it here. Suffice it to say that it was as beautiful and special as we remembered it and we enjoyed a full day exploring the tiny island and snorkeling its reefs as well as two fabulous dinners at Paradise Beach Club (across the bay on Carriacou) under the auspices of the gracious and warm host/owner Allison Caton. The highlights of our brief visit included an octopus sighting while snorkeling — this rather large fellow was just swimming along the bottom entertaining us with the graceful swoosh of his legs — and a cairn building contest. The cairn building contest was inspired by the pictures we took of the cairns that dotted this small island during our last visit in the Spring. Apparently, they were not able to withstand the winds of hurricane season because there was a dearth of them on this once cairn replete sandy spit. We all had fun restoring the cairn population!
Oh, and we almost forgot one of most memorable moments! As dedicated readers of our blog know, we have underwater lights below the stern of Che Figata. When we shine them at night we attract marine life, most notably, Tarpons. For those who are not familiar, Tarpons are large silver fish that can get up to 8 feet in length and 280 pounds! In short, they are massive and when they swim in our light their scales often catch the glow just right to create brilliant flashes of silver underneath the water. It is really fun to watch, especially when there is a group of 5 or more as there often are. During our first night on Sandy Island we turned on the underwater lights, attracting a sizable school of particularly large Tarpons. Stefan and Monique put on their face masks so that they could stick their heads in the water and get a better look at these impressive fish. Well, one thing led to another and they decided that it wasn’t enough to put their heads in the water. Before we knew it they had both jumped in with their snorkel gear to get an up close and personal look at the Tarpon. Of course, Tarpons are notoriously shy so it didn’t take long for the population to quickly disperse. They had quite a bit of fun while it lasted and we got a kick out of watching these young professionals splash around in the water at night with the excitement of teenagers.
After 2 nights anchored off Sandy Island it was time to return to True Blue Resort and meet up with Kerrigan and Bailey who were flying in the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We had big plans — mostly revolving around diving and eating. With the exception of Bailey were are all certified divers. In anticipation of her visit Bailey took an open water scuba class. So we arranged for a dive package with our now good friends at the the Aquanauts that would allow us to all dive together while Bailey completed her certification with her open water dive. (Bailey passed her certifying dives with flying colors — she’s a natural underwater! Looks like it’s finally time to teach her the secret Hummel family handshake). We had a couple of great days diving, seeing all of the usual marine suspects. The added bonus for the kids was that they got friendly with the dive masters and ended up going off to watch the World Cup with them one afternoon at a bar frequented by locals. They had a really terrific time. Evenings were spent enjoying the culinary treats of Grenada including Street Food night at the resort, the best ever Indian food at Indian Summer at the Container Park near the resort, excellent sushi at Carib Sushi and a dinner next to the beach at Umbrellas. In what seemed like a blink of an eye, it was time for our kids to leave. Stefan and Monique, with a long trip back to Seattle, left the Saturday following Thanksgiving while Kerrigan and Bailey, who had the luxury of a relatively short direct flight back to NYC, stayed an an extra day. After a great visit, and knowing it will be some time until we see them again due to our upcoming circumnavigation, it was hard to say good-bye.
Of course, we are not a couple to wallow in self-pity so we decided to make the most of our remaining time on Grenada as we waited for our watermaker parts. It’s hard to feel sorry for yourselves in paradise! We filled our time with a couple of land tours of the island as well as some additional dives. For our land tours we were joined by our friends Ruud and Laurie on Blue Pearl as well as Mark who crewed for them on their recent sail from Las Palmas to Cape Verde and then Cape Verde to Grenada. (More on Mark, our new crew member, below). We had great fun doing a full day tour of the island which included a visit to Concord Falls, a chocolate factory, a rum distillery and a drive through the interior of the island that boasts a verdant rainforest. The rum distillery, River Antoine Estate, was the highlight of the full day tour. It is owned by an absolutely elegant and articulate older woman who has continued to operate the distillery as it first operated over 300 years ago. And we mean that quite literally. A working water wheel powers the conveyor that transfers the sugar cane to the crusher and then powers the crusher. The early stage rum is transferred to a series of different vats during the fermentation process by hand using large ladles. Bottles of the finished product are filled one at a time by hand and then sealed, one at a time, with a hand controlled mechanism with a lever. We met this lovely woman briefly at the end of the tour and she stressed the importance of continuing to use these olds ways to preserve both jobs and history. We wondered out loud how this distillery could compete against other local distilleries that had adopted a more automated process made possible by machines and we were told that despite the labor intensive process, they sell their rum at a lower price point than their competitors. One has to surmise that the owner is truly committed to this preservation and, to do so, is willing to sell her rum at little to no profit. In addition to the full day tour we did a half day tour to the Seven Sisters waterfall, giving us all a good cardio workout! Our feature image for this blog entry is what greeted us after walking down the steep forest path. That pool of water is as inviting as it looks at we enjoyed a quick swim before the long and arduous climb back up and out of the forest.
We also enjoyed our additional dives, including a deep dive to a sunken cruise ship, the Bianca — now famous for the deepest swimming pool in the Caribbean! — and a night dive. We described our previous dives with the Aquanauts is great detail in the same blog post mentioned above so, again, we will not repeat all the details. We will simply say that swimming underwater among the marine life never gets old. There are marine treasures everywhere: colorful coral, sea anemones, sea urchins, large and small crabs, the elusive seahorses, nurse sharks, a variety of different eels, brittle starfish (delicate, lace like creatures that Jill loves to watch), banded coral shrimp, and, of course, an assortment of colorful saltwater fish. We call it aquarium diving!
That said, we will share a bit about our night dive since it was, well, somewhat unusual. The destination for the night dive was a wreck called the Veronica. The Veronica sits in fairly shallow water near a reef and has lots of hard and soft growth making it the perfect home for all manner of sea creatures. As we reached the wreck and shined our lights on its surface we were treated to vibrant colors of red, blue and orange. As we swam up and down the side of the ship we spotted a plethora of sea-life including tiny colorful crabs, creatures that looked like daddy long-legs on steroids and a basket star. It was a wonderful dive and we enjoyed circling the ship for about 40 minutes until WHAM! As we swam around the stern of the ship headed in one direction there were some other divers heading in the other direction. To be polite, Jill moved away from the ship so they could pass. Unfortunately, just as she moved away from the ship there was a surge of current and Jill was swept away from the ship and towards the surface. It happened so fast that neither of us can really tell you exactly what happened but Zack saw Jill getting pushed away and followed. As Jill was able to steady herself and swim back down toward the wreck Zack was right there with her and followed. Unfortunately, we both soon discovered that Jill was pushed further away from the wreck than we realized as we could not see any lights from the other divers or the wreck itself. Rather than take a chance that we would swim farther afield, we decided to end our dive a bit early and swim up to the surface. Naturally, we did our 3 minute safety stop at 15 feet and we were delighted to be joined by the tiniest lone cuttlefish for the duration of our wait. Though we didn’t want to leave our new friend — we could both watch cuttlefish for hours — we needed to surface and see where we were. As we suspected, we were no where near the dive boat. For a moment it felt a bit like the movie Open Water (Google it) but we were soon able to see the dive boat’s light off in the distance. As we swam towards the boat we flashed our lights and eventually the dive boat saw us and came to retrieve us. We still had quite a swim! To be clear, we were never in any danger and neither of us were afraid at any time but it was a reminder that diving poses real risks, of the importance of a buddy (who actually stays with you!) and remaining calm.
Aside from land tours and diving, we also decided to move beyond the resort and nearby Container Park and sample some more of the restaurants on the island. After our self-directed restaurant tour we would say that, overall, Grenada does not offer a wonderful foodie experience. While we enjoyed Carib Sushi (mentioned above), had a yummy meal in a beautiful setting at the Aquarium (we ate by the beach to the sounds of the surf) and a delicious meal at a no frills local restaurant called Patrick’s, we found our best meals — usually at a fraction of the cost of the other restaurants — were at the Container Park. BTW, because we don’t believe we ever explained this, the Container Park, as the name implies, is a foodcourt created out of shipping containers. It primarily exists to serve the medical students at nearby St. George’s University. (Remember them — they were “saved” by Ronald Regan when we helped liberate Grenada in 1983). The containers create the perimeter of the foodcourt with each container housing a different food vendor. Almost like food trucks. The Container Park has a nice variety of vendors and we were able to enjoy Indian food, Lebanese dishes, poke bowls, burgers, Mexican and Latino food as well as BBQ. And, of course, there was a cocktail vendor with 2 for 1 happy hour specials!
Still our restaurant excursions were not without some excitement. One night as we were in a taxi headed to a restaurant in Mount Cinnamon resort (Savvy’s), we ended up in standstill traffic. Very unusual for Grenada. We got in our taxi at around 5:40 PM for what should have been a ten minute drive to arrive early for our 6 PM reservations. Shortly after we left True Blue Resort, however, we ended up in a bumper to bumper jam and were still not moving at 6:25 PM. At this point Zack looked at his trusty Google maps and learned that the restaurant was just a short 35 minute walk away — just shy of 2 miles. So we ditched our taxi and walked to the restaurant, arriving shortly after 7 PM. It turned out that the streets were blocked off for security reasons due to an island visit by the president of Cuba. In the end, the evening gave us great steps (and we love getting our steps in) as well as a fun story to tell.
Speaking of steps, we definitely hit that 7,000 target most days, often getting in 10,000+. Primarily we achieved this through our epic walks to ACE hardware, approximately 2 miles from our boat. Yes, we said walks in the plural. Why make a list and go just once when you can make multiple trips on consecutive days to get everything you need. Our multiple runs were quite productive. In addition to helping us meet our minimum daily step requirement, we got all sorts of essential sailboat stuff including, among other assorted odds and ends, a new starter battery for our dinghy, shoe goop, plumbing supplies, small paint brushes, cut off wheels, a butter dish, dog poop bags (for our toilet paper — nothing that doesn’t naturally come out of our bodies goes in the toilet) and new noodles for our swimming enjoyment.
Mark! As mentioned above, we finally got to meet our new crew member Mark. As you all know, he will be joining us on our circumnavigation. While we are not sure what he thinks of us, he definitely appears to have lived up to his billing. Very personable and interesting. (We will share more about his 9 lives in a future blog entry). Jill remains excited about having help in the galley (Laurie continued to sing his praises based on their long passages from Las Palmas to Grenada together) while Zack looks forward to having another seasoned sailor aboard to help with sail planning. It’s a win/win! We just want to make sure that we don’t do anything that will cause him to change his mind before we depart. Fortunately, we will not have too much opportunity to mess things up because Mark will be staying aboard Blue Pearl to watch the boat while Ruud and Laurie return to the states just after Christmas and they will not return until mid January. They will then make their way from Grenada North to St. Lucia for our crew exchange around February 1st — just a few weeks before our departure! Perfect timing in our opinion!
After many fits and starts (you can’t make this up: our parts are on the arriving FedEx plane, they aren’t on the FedEx plane; now they are really on the FedEx plane but, oops, they somehow didn’t make it on the FedEx plane; there’s a special, additional, FedEx plane arriving with our parts but, well, no our parts weren’t on that plane either — you get the picture) our parts arrived on Grenada on the evening of December 15. It took the better part of a day for the Spectra dealer to clear our parts out of customs. That finally happened just after 3 PM the next day (December 16) and they were delivered to us by the repair technician just after 5 PM that same day — which happened to be a Friday. (Just how he wanted to spent his Friday evening!). After almost 2 1/2 hours of install work, which included some necessary tweaks to accommodate our new higher powered DC to DC converter without blowing a fuse, our watermaker was back in business. We think our technician was as relieved as we were. When we offered him a drink of water after the successful repair he asked for a beer which we were happy to oblige!
With our watermaker repairs behind us we left the next morning for a return trip to Sandy Island. In addition to being a Che Figata crew favorite, Sandy Island is a convenient stop on the way to the Grenadines. We met Ruud, Laurie and Mark there for what was supposed to be our final few days in Grenada. We enjoyed snorkeling with Mark, another great meal at Paradise Beach Club and a farewell happy hour on Blue Pearl as we said our goodbyes to Laurie, Ruud and Mark who we will not see again until they sail up to St. Lucia for the crew exchange. And then we stayed, and stayed. We were enjoying the tranquility of Sandy Island so much we decided we were in no rush to leave. After a really busy month in Grenada — diving, touring, hiking, hosting family and many, many long walks to ACE Hardware (sounds awful doesn’t it) — we liked that there isn’t a lot to do off Sandy Island other than jump in the pristine blue water and swim off the boat or snorkel. Plus, the Paradise Beach Club hosts a “sip and paint” afternoon on Wednesdays and only Wednesdays. This entails drinking cocktails while you paint a plaque with your boat name to adorn the various physical structures that comprise this open air bar and restaurant. After so many great memories at Sandy Island and the Paradise Beach Club how could we depart without leaving a Che Figata memento behind? So we made Wednesday, December 21 our final day in Grenada to participate in sip and paint. (Jill painted while Zack “sipervised”.) We must say, we were quite pleased with our work product — check it out in our Instagram (@sailingchefigata) account.
With our mission accomplished, we said goodbye to Grenada on December 22 and checked into Union Island, part of our beloved Grenadines. Of course, our final morning in Grenada wasn’t without some excitement. As we were getting ready to pull up our anchor, Zack noticed a dinghy with a motor floating away from a catamaran that had picked up a mooring to our north. The occupants on the catamaran where just watching their dinghy float away. No attempt to rescue it. Without even discussing it and devising a plan, Jill got on her swim suit and Zack got down our dinghy and we hopped in, racing towards the errant dinghy. Though Jill was prepared to jump in if necessary we were able to grab the dinghy and get a hold of its painter. Our plan was to tow the stray dinghy back to the catamaran which would have been a fairly simple and standard rescue. For some reason we can’t explain — because it doesn’t make sense — just as we reached the dinghy the catamaran headed towards us which was more than a little scary. Just imagine a 42 foot catamaran motoring towards us in our 10 foot dinghy and not stopping until our dinghy was practically under the center between the two pontoons. Zack yelled loudly (there were some expletives in there) which might have given the catamaran captain a clue that maybe he should reverse the engine. Getting such an up close view of the catamaran we noticed that it was a Dream Yacht Charter. All we will say is that we should have known and we will leave it at that! Never a dull moment!
We will sail around the Grenadines until early January when we will make our way to St. Lucia. Our older son, his wife and their 2 girls are meeting us there for a week in mid January. We will also be joined by our son’s lovely in laws, Donna and Gordon. Our next post will be when we arrive in St. Lucia. In the meantime, we hope everyone enjoys the rest of the holiday season and the bomb cyclone doesn’t derail your plans.
