After finishing up the paint job on the tender, we headed down to Grenada. It took a few hours, but was a nice day with winds blocked by the island. We anchored just outside the St. George harbor, which is the capital of Grenada. The waterfront along the harbor is beautiful. After dinner we decided to head into the harbor to find the dock across the street from the large grocery store, Foodland. This was a good place to stock up on some much needed items. One of which was cereal, and they certainly had a good amount to pick from, and in bulk sizes, which was even nicer. We loaded up on sliced bread, as I have not yet gotten in to the mode of bread baking since we’ve been back on the boat. They had a very good amount of American imported products. Pushing around an overflowing grocery cart in a poor country definitely got us noticed. In fact a store employee approached us and asked if we were on a Yacht. We replied affirmatively and he asked us to use check stand #5, where the cashier would be waiting to give us a 5% discount. How is that for service! But we didn't pay cash, so the discount was cut in half so we could use our credit card. Still happy to have some discount as prices are a good deal higher in the islands than back home.
The St. George anchorage is open and exposed to swell, so we rolled a bit all night. We were able to sleep fine, but it isn't the most pleasant during daytime hours. There is a gorgeous beach nearby so we thought we might stay longer, but in the morning we decided to head down to the south end of Grenada and check out the bays and anchorages over there and see if we could find a little less roll. Our friends on the motor vessel Searcher wished us luck as they had heard the south anchorages roll as well.
We thought we had just enough time to make the hour journey to the south bays before General Conference would start. I love this day and age we live in. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we have a worldwide conference of our church twice a year. It is a wonderful time to listen the our Prophet and Apostles as they speak to us of the teachings of Christ. It is wonderful that we can receive their guidance and counsel all around the world at this time through technology. Even on our boat at anchor in Grenada we can receive the broadcast of these meetings.
We pulled into the crowded Prickley Bay anchorage and found lots of boats, and lots of swell. while looking through the anchorage we spotted our new friends on Seabatical. We decided to head over one more bay to the east and check out Mt. Hartman area. There we found a nice calm anchorage and less boats. In fact it was so calm the boats were facing different directions. Which makes it hard to anchor, not quite knowing where anchors are placed and how the boats will line up when the wind does blow. Luckily a little wind came along and the boats lined up nicely so we could drop our anchor and fit in. Mt. Hartman has a small Marina with a dinghy dock for getting ashore, plus we were able to take the tender around the point to some of the other anchorages to explore and over the Prickley Bay, although that directions was a much wetter and harder ride due to waves.
We got settled in time, and ready to watch conference, but found the best internet available was through a sign up network for boaters. So we missed the first little bit of the morning conference session while getting signed up for the internet network.
The next morning we wanted to make arrangements for an island tour. We decided to ask for taxi recommendations on the boaters vhf net. Often in areas where there are a lot of boaters, they set up a network where daily or weekly they hold a meeting on the VHF radio in the mornings. In Grenada several boats live here year round, or throughout the summer hurricane season, so they have their net meetings every morning. It is a great opportunity to arrange for social events and activities, or exchange area information, discuss local security problems, or here from local businesses. We asked for a taxi referral and were supplied with a name and phone number.
An hour later we were on the dock ready for our island day tour with John our taxi driver. We were excited to see beautiful Grenada.
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