Sail, Anchor, Eat, Sleep, Repeat, Repeat

We had a pretty good window to get from Dominica to Grenada. It was long enough to stop every night but not to stay and visit.

Good Bye Dominica! We’ll be back!

We left the northern end of Dominica early and sailed to the southern end of Martinique with just enough daylight to drop the anchor. We ate a light dinner, slept and were up again before first light.

This was going to be a long day. We’d heard reports of thievery and an attitude of cruisers being unwelcome in both St. Lucia and St Vincent, so we sailed right past them.

Sailing past

Lots of empty anchorages along the coast. The sailing community is good about communicating both the good and the bad about marinas and anchorages.  We arrived in Bequia in fairly good time.

No time to stay

Hello – Good-bye. I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!

Dropped the anchor, got fuel delivered to the boat, ate, slept and headed out the next day to Carriacou.

We were making good time and thought we would stay in Carriacou for a few days. It is part of Grenada and a good place to clear into the country. When we arrived we were greeted by our friends Diane and Richard aboard Rodinyard. We hadn’t seen them since we made the overnight passage from Turks and Caicos to Dominican Republic. They had plans to leave to the main Island of Granada the next day.  So we decided to tag along. Anchor, eat, sleep and off we go again!

Finally! A beam reach!

The sail from Carriacou is one of the nicest sails we’ve had. Our original plan was to sail the windward side because the wind would be better. But when we got out and started heading in that direction the waves were nasty. So, we angled across the north coast, through the dotting of lovely little islands to the leeward side. The angle was just perfect and Moorahme was a happy girl gliding through the waves like she was meant to do.

Sail! Past Kick ’em Jenny

Of course the thing about the leeward side is when you get somewhere near the middle there is no wind. We tried to turn the engine on and….nothing! Oh oh! While Randy went below to figured out the problem, Rodinyard caught up to us and waited until we were underway again. Thank goodness for handy husbands and caring friends!

Once underway the sea was calm as glass until we made the turn along the southern coast! The wind and waves were pretty strong out of the east, so, right on the nose, again! I’m tired of this on the nose business! We made it into Clarks Court bay where we planned to haul the boat for painting.

Because we were concerned about the starter, we requested tying to the wall. Weekends in the islands see pretty much no one around. We were told that customs wasn’t open and we’d have to wait til Monday. We know we can’t step off the boat if we aren’t cleared in so we stayed on the boat at the concrete wall. Rodinyard was nicely anchored and came over to visit.

“We Made It To Grenada” Award

They brought us an award ribbon “We made it to Grenada!”.  They are so sweet!

Monday we got a taxi ride (with our soon-to-be favourite driver, Kerry) into Prickly Bay to clear in. We also got a lecture. Yes they are open and we must clear in within an hour of arriving and we should have called them. Really? How was I supposed to know they were open when I was told they weren’t! How do they expect me to call if I’m new in the country and can’t leave the boat to go get a phone until I’m cleared in! Do they have a VH F radio so we can contact them? Heck no! Why make it easy? Unpleasant customs and immigration – contact number one. There will be more. I try so hard to find out what we have to do and how we should proceed when we are entering new countries. It frustrates me greatly when the information isn’t on an official government website and the sites I find have conflicting information. Just write it down somewhere so I know the rules. I’m good with rules! Rant done!

Our taxi driver Kerry was great and has become our go to person, here in Grenada.