Year 9 Day 4 The Long And Windy Road
01 February 2016 | Prickly Bay Marina, Grenada
Dave/Mostly Sunny
Early this morning I drove over to the Spice Island Marina, where the rigging company we will be using to replace our head sail furling system is located. I talked to the rigger and discovered that they could do the work this coming Wednesday. I then walked over to the marina office and booked the use of their limited docking space where the rigger would be working on our boat. We are now all set to start the first of many retrofit projects that we face this year.
Once I returned to Leu Cat at the Prickly Bay Marina, I picked up Mary Margaret and we hopped in the rental car to explore Grenada. Our goal was the Belmont Plantation. Located at the northern end of the island, it is an active plantation that dates back to the late 1600s. It has a rich but tainted history that includes slave insurrections, murder, and incest dating through the 1700 and 1800s. In 1944 it was bought by the Nyack family, the first Grenadians of Indian decent to own an estate on the island. They enhanced the plantation and expanded it operations. It is now an eco-agricultural venture where tourists can come and stay and help work the organic gardens. They now specialize in cocoa production and have a goat milk farm.
To get there we only had to drive 26 miles but the road was the adventure. Roads in Grenada are something to behold. They are narrow, windy, do not have any markings and typically have cars parked not only along the roads but also on them. During our 1.5-hour drive, it was not uncommon to round a sharp curve to find a car or truck parked right in our path. Many times the driver was sitting in the car talking to a friend who would be standing in the middle of the road not paying any attention to any of the cars passing closely by. Unbelievable!
The roads we took traversed between the high mountain ridges and the easterly coastline. At one time we were on the highest ridge where we could look to the east and then the west to see both coastlines. During this stretch of the road, it was just a single lane with hairpin curves and a concrete open trench that collects and channels the rainwater. If one was to have the wheels fall into the trench, that would be the end of the car as the tie rods and wheels would be torn off the car.
The local drivers just take all of this in stride as they zoom around blind curves at breakneck speeds. It was a bit hairy at times as a vehicle would zoom toward us and pass by with just inches to spare between us. It was a hoot!
When we arrived at the plantation we were famished so we opted to sit down for lunch before exploring the grounds. We were treated to a variety of local foods including green papaya soup, cucumber and tomato salad with nutmeg dressing, curried beef, chicken baked with local fruits, rice and macaroni pie. The meal finished with mint ice cream and mint ice cream swirled in chocolate cake. Boy, were we stuffed!
After walking some of our large lunch off, we returned to the car and faced that long and windy road to get back to St. George. Along the way we stopped at a local vegetable stand and loaded up with wonderful home grown veggies.
Tomorrow, we will be working on getting Leu Cat ready to sail over to the Spice Island Marina on Wednesday. It is just a mile or so away but we have a lot of work to do to get ol’ Leu Cat seaworthy for the trip.