Return to Carriacou

As we were living it up during carnival, Gwen & Guillaume on Slow Waltz mentioned that they were going up to Carriacou for a haul-out, and a little get-away sounded like a fabulous idea - especially as we had rather rushed through this northernmost island of Grenada on the way down.

Carriacou lies just 16 nautical miles north of Grenada and on this crossing the wind and seas were very calm, such that we had to motor sail the entire way.  Instead of much sailing excitement, we enjoyed the sights along the way.

One of the rocky outcroppings is called London Bridge.  On the day we came south, along with the orange alert for Kick'em Jenny there were reports that the bridge had fallen.  We were happy to see it still sturdily standing.

London Bridge has not fallen down.

The chain of rocks extending off the north shore of Grenada, ending with the Bridge.

The Sisters, with Grenada in the background.  At least there was some navigation to pay attention to.

At one point we were surrounded by small jumping fish, which brought on the sea birds.  Take-off and "feet up"!

We even managed to thread ourselves between squalls - the sky behind us was black with rain, this one passed in front and we stayed remarkably dry.

We settled into the anchorage at westward facing Tyrrel Bay with anticipation of some great sunsets in our future.  In the meantime, we made plans with Slow Waltz to do some hiking over the weekend.

We got in a short walk on Saturday and then on Sunday set out early morning to expore the hills above Tyrrel Bay.

I always dry my fish on the line, don't you?

Yep - this is just about the state of the internet some days.

Don't trip (over) the anchor line!

Checking that the boats are still there in the anchorage.

Lovely pastoral views across the island to the north-east with Union Island in the distance.

Somewhere up in the hills we reached a crossroad and reluctant to go downhill, we continued on until we had actually walked into Hillsborough - the main town on the island.  Being a Sunday there was ZERO activity around other than a ferry that had just arrived from the big island.  We took a quick look around and made note of a few shops that would be open during the week, and then headed to Paradise Beach on the north-west corner of the island.

Our goal was to walk to the end of Hillsborough Bay Beach and around to Paradise Beach; just get past the wreck and around the corner.

Have I got a real-estate deal for you!

To get past the wreck we had to pick our way through the mangroves.

And just when we thought all obstacles were out of our way, this little girl showed up.  Her mother kept a very close eye on us to make sure we passed quickly.

Of course we rewarded ourselves on reaching Paradise.

Carriacou has some beautiful villa-style houses along with more quaint accommodations, but all are surrounded by beautiful flowers and trees.

Back at Tyrrel Bay, it was lunch-time so we stopped at the Lazy Turtle for pizza.  Here's a beautiful idea of what to do with that shell collection you've been lugging around!

Walking back to the dinghy we met up the family from "Three Little Birds".  They have got the most patient dog in the world!  Apparently this happens regularly and she is quite content.

Did I mention that it is incredibly hot and humid at the moment so we were all in desperate need of a swim/shower to cool down and clean up.  However, we'd left ourselves a bit late and it was a quick affair to get back to Iguana's for 3 o-clock Grenadian Train Dominoes.  Thanks to Edie and Blair back in Bequia we weren't complete dominos virgins and had a basic understanding of the game - it didn't help our scores though and I think the tables were quite happy to have some new victims (company?).

Grenadian Train - a variant on Mexican Train - a variant on dominoes.  Who knew there was so much fun to be had!