This morning, we finally lifted anchor in Prickly Bay,
Grenada, and sailed by jib, downwind, around the headlands and curled north to
anchor in 21 feet outside St. Georges. The
two-hour trip was done easily, but with no fish. The anchorage bottom is mostly just coral rubble,
and, although we arrived before lunch, we were worried that the day would be
spent "anchoring til happy hour".
We tried at least six times before being reasonably satisfied, but only
earned one anchor beer. We need a better
union!
Still, it is nice to be outside of the opaque water of
Prickly Bay, and in water that allows you to see the bottom. Swimming on the anchor was a pleasure. We intend to spend the easy afternoon in this
breeze and blueness, and then join Steve and Maria of s/v Aspen at the Yacht
Club for 5 pm.
We were rather caught up in our chores by Tuesday, and had
intended to spend Tuesday afternoon at the University Club pool in Prickly Bay,
swimming and getting an internet fix; but as things happen, Steve and Maria
landed there in their attempt to abandon their own workload - so we had an
enjoyable chat.
Wednesday, as planned, we joined Steve and Maria as they
rented a car and attempted to give Steve his "archeological fix". He intended to circle the island and visit
ancient caves and petroglyphs. We, and I
guess Maria, were just along for the ride.
We had a lovely hike to a cave at Black Bay, heading down the same river
that forms the Concord Falls (Dawn and I had hiked up to these falls from the
bus stop with Darrel and Loretta of Cankata in 2006, this cave was in the other
direction). We actually didn't find the cave
without help - we had to hire a local, Dillon, who was fishing the mouth of the
river with his mother. It was a grand
cave with two entrances, and a rather flat floor. It would have made a lovely home a couple of
thousand years ago, once the bats gave up on it, and some lovely Carib Indian
furniture was moved in (can't really say we've ever seen Carib Indian furniture
in any catalogue). The hike, with a log
balance over a stream, some mud, and a tough rock scramble, was just tough
enough for Maria to withhold her seal of approval; but a lot of it was through the
old road and orchard of a former plantation, that was being brought back to
life as the cocoa crops are increasing in value locally.
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| Dawn with Maria in the background |
We also found that if you want to get help finding
petroglyphs from the locals, you need to say you are looking for Carib rocks,
not petroglyphs, otherwise, raised eyebrows follow. One was the size of a transport truck engine
and cab, and was in a very eroded stream bed beside a highway. In the past, the government had placed a
little concrete house with a lookout veranda and toilets above it, but this was
in disrepair, and no signage was evident.
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| Petroglyph or Carib Rock as the locals say |
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| Humm...a bridge, of sorts. Let's all go one at a time. Laurie, goes first! |
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| Steve trying to find the path to the caves! |
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| Dylan, the guy at the stream helps us across and shows us the way. He smiled brightly after we gave him a token of our appreciation! |
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| cocoa growing all through the farm we walked through |
The best part of the trip, all agree, was the discovery of
our lunch stop, the Petit Anse Resort and Restaurant, on the north end of the
island. It had a beautiful restaurant
high above the little beach, facing the northern Grenadian islands. The food was as good as the fantastic view -
the best rotis in the Caribbean, easily.
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| Maria and Steve. Steve is all set to find a swimming hole by the look of his swim trunks peeking out below his shorts! |
On Thursday, we got caught up physically and emotionally in
the efforts to find a missing Canadian woman whose parents live in New
Brunswick. Linnea Veinotte was running
and walking her dog in an upscale residential area called L'Anse Aux Epines (an
area that also includes the Cuban Embassy and the British Consulate) on the
morning of Sunday, 06, December, 2015.
There were no witnesses to an accident, but several people in the development
heard the noise of an accident, including the yelping of a wounded dog. One of these persons was walking her own dog
towards the accident scene when a particular type and colour of car drove by
her moving fast and erratically, and actually caused her to have to get out of
its way. Moments later, she came upon an
obvious accident site, and found a badly wounded dog. Assuming a human victim was being rushed to
the hospital she turned her attentions to helping the victim's dog. However, according to the police, there was
no evidence at the scene that Linnea Veinotte herself was injured in the
accident, but there was no sign of Linnea.
We had been able to distance ourselves from these problems
with other appointments, but we ran out of excuses, and went to shore to visit
the headquarters of the efforts to find her.
We got to hear what was known from Linnea's husband Matt (who was in
terrible shape), and then sat through a strategy session. It was concluded that the best thing to do
was to bring pressure on Grenada officials to maintain their efforts, but also
to call in more expertise from Canada, US, or Scotland Yard. Anyone knowing about the police in small
countries, or with experience in the Caribbean would understand our misgivings. It is not their fault that they may not have
the training or experience - but it is not the victim's fault either. We took it upon ourselves to contact media
and politicians in Atlantic Canada, and to attempt to get the Canadian
Government to make a sincere offer of assistance, and spent the rest of our day
in a restaurant with horrible internet attempting to do that.
The situation rapidly changed, however: Late Thursday night it was reported that the
vehicle in question was found and the owner's name was made public as the
search for him continued. Friday
morning, he gave himself up; and later in the day, a body was located -
probably with the man's help. We still
do not know what happened, and wonder if we will ever. I am left to rescind our pleas, and thank
those who were willing to assist. People
live and die; many die too soon, a lot die in greater numbers and in even more
terrible circumstances - but this situation grabbed our attention and it seemed
we could do something.
Last night, we went to a brew pub with the woman who had
taken on the command centre: Kathy (& John) of s/v Katerina, Ontario. She and the other volunteers who accompanied
us had some need of a few drinks and a few laughs. The craft beer was good, by the way - a brew
called West Indies IPA was favoured by Dawn and me.
Our plans are to sail to Carriacou on Monday morning in the
company of s/v Aspen; where we will rendezvous with Lorna and Brian aboard s/v
Peace and Plenty. We'll spend two weeks
with them all, Aspen will head north, and we, with Peace and Plenty following,
will return to the south end of Grenada so we can show them around. We will also pick up our new batteries at
that time. So, Monday = our real
shake-down cruise.
