Caribbean – Diary – Page 04

08.01. – 14.01.2024

And we are alone again, alone…

For Jonah and Toni, the Caribbean sailing experience is slowly coming to an end; we'll be spending our last days of vacation together in Grenada. Since there's so much to see here, we decided to rent a car for a day to explore the island. Renting a car isn't that expensive, but you do need a certified driver's license, which costs €25. It would be valid for three months, but we won't be there that long.

After clearing customs in Carriacou, an offshore island in Grenada, we enjoy dinner at Pizzeria Lambi – lambi is a local specialty – concha meat. We serve it with Juicy Lucy cocktails.

The next day, we continue to the main island of Grenada. We make a stop at the Underwater Sculpture Park, where underwater sculptures have been sunk for tourists, which you can now view while snorkeling or diving.

There are mermaids, stone slabs, groups of figures, a man at a desk with a typewriter and colorful fish that are busy with it...an entertaining stopover - then we continue on to St. George - the capital of Grenada.

We anchor in the bay and try to find a restaurant in town – but everything is closed – we've caught another national holiday…

So we take the dinghy along the coast – two American tourists sitting on a jetty by the water recommend the West 61 restaurant. Since we can't find any alternative, we stop there and get excellent food and delicious coconut ice cream for dessert.

The next day, everything is open again, and we visit the local chocolate museum. Museum is actually a bit of an exaggeration—it's a salesroom with cocoa-related products, plus a small bar with cocoa treats: cakes, chocolates, ice cream, hot chocolate, and chocolate tea.

At a demonstration table, the extraction and processing of cocoa is explained with visual aids to touch, see, and taste. We learn that the roasted cocoa bean is ground and formed into cocoa balls, which are then used to make chocolate tea.

When the white cocoa butter is extracted from these cocoa balls, chocolate is made from them and the cocoa butter is processed into white chocolate or used as cocoa butter for cosmetic purposes.

After the lecture, we sample ice cream and hot chocolate drinks. Since there are no other visitors in the museum, a museum employee sits down at our table with a drum and sings us a song about the beauty of Grenada.

We sail further into the bay of . From here, we rent a car and spend a day in the countryside, visiting a cocoa plantation and two waterfalls and enjoying the green island. It's very hilly, so the drive is constantly uphill and downhill.

It's not easy to find a restaurant outside of the tourist area, so we eat in... a very traditional place - simple but good.

On Thursday, the boys set off early for their return journey, and we have a mammoth laundry day. There are coin-operated washing machines and dryers in the marina, and since we haven't been able to solve the power problem yet, the dirty laundry has piled up.

The dinghy is towed back and forth between the boat and the marina – and then the next problem arises: the dinghy motor starts, but then shuts down again. The mechanic recommends replacing a hose, which works fine, but doesn't solve the problem.

And so, on the final trip to the washing machine, with happy hour and dinner, the only option is rowing. Unfortunately, we're very far out...

Shawn, an Irishman who lives there, comes to our aid in his dinghy and tows us the last bit into the marina. As a thank you, we want to buy him a beer, but he waves us off: "I belong to the old hippie generation - I don't drink alcohol, I only smoke mushrooms..." Well, we don't have any mushrooms - but he agrees to tow us back to the boat in the evening - just give him a call... Bernd, however, prefers to try rowing... and so we end up with another night-time rowing session.

He also has a tip for us as to why the dinghy motor isn't working anymore: contaminated fuel. Bernd checks it out, and he's right—but it doesn't solve the problem permanently.

In two weeks, the next guests will be coming on board in Martinique and we are planning our return journey – we will set off first thing in the morning on Friday, as the winds are favorable and the crossing from Grenada to Carriacou can be rough.

Besides, the authorities are closed on Sundays, so we have to clear out and back in by Saturday… and the next dealer for our dinghy motor is waiting in the Blue Lagoon on St. Vincent… rowing is simply not a long-term solution…