We're in Grenada now. I won't say much about Union Island because not much really happened there. There was supposed to be a Full Moon party thing, but it was cancelled. However, we did go to a nice little bar on a tiny island, only just big enough for the bar. This guy who was working in the bar kindly gave us a tour of the house behind the bar, where the employees of the bar lived. It was pretty cosy in there, with little cabins for the beds. It's still in working progress, and they're planning on getting a Wi-Fi router in there. I wonder what it will be like in six months... :)

The first port we went to in Grenada was Port Louis, which had a swimming pool, the first one I'd been in in ages. The water in the pool felt oddly soft compared to the salt water, and that felt extremely soothing. :)

After Port Louis, we stayed in Prickly Bay anchorage, where we heard our first Grenada cruiser's net (on channel 66 on the VHF, there's a scripted network which includes asking cruisers in the bays of Grenada general questions). We introduced ourselves, then everyone who listened to the net that day knew who we were.

If I told you every little bit of detail about what's been happening since our first day of arrival in Grenada, we'd be here all day, so I'll just briefly give the highlights that I can remember from the top of my head so I don't bore your socks off:

First off, I'll talk about the Young Readers programme. Every Saturday during school terms, taxi-driver Patrick (a.k.a Shademan) drives cruisers who have volunteered to take part in the Young Readers programme up to Mt. Airy, where there's a building where a group of local kids come to learn to read, spell and do arithmetic at all ages, with the help of the volunteering cruisers. Mum and I went the first two times, then Paul came with me the third time while Mum went to the market. I'm in a group with Stan, who advertises the Young Readers programme on the cruisers' net. The schedule was that we all stand in a circle, hold hands, then start praying. After we've finished, we take songbooks and sing the song Mrs. Jeanne Paskell (us cruisers call her Jen, but the kids call her Mrs. Paskell) select for us. Then we begin the reading. Stan and I help a group of the older kids (who are around my age) with reading a book for older children, who haven't quite entered their teenage years yet. After this, we play a game - perhaps Scrabble or Uno - then end the day with group spelling, reading, and arithmetic and recite the "End of the Day prayer".

I made a new friend in True Blue Bay! We met up with Neptune II in the swimming pool in TBB, who have a girl onboard called Marina, who's ten years old. We became great friends after a few days, and met up in TBB a lot.
We met Higgins in the pool as well. Higgins, if you haven't read my blog about Bequia, is a boat housing Nick and Jo and their three kids: William - ten - Olly - eight - and Milly - six. We met them in Bequia, and they came to Grenada for the hurricane season, like us.

My grandad, Derrick Eames, has come to see us for a couple of weeks, and then my sixteen-year-old cousin Reece will be flying over after Grandad has left. It's always wonderful having Grandad over. :)

On 8th June, we went to see some leatherback turtles laying their eggs! Oh, don't look at me like that. I understand you're jealous, and for good reason! It was fantastic! We had to leave at six o' clock in the evening to take Shademan's taxi to the beach. The journey took two full hours, but it was worth it! We had a prep talk once we got there about the turtles and not to get in front of them at any point, otherwise we'd disturb them. We weren't guaranteed to see them, but we did! Oh my gosh, we did! We were split into three groups, and walked along the beach. Soon, we stopped to rest (don't forget, it would have been nine or ten o' clock at night by this time) while we waited as one of the experts looked for the turtles. It wasn't long before we were called over, and there she was! A beautiful leatherback turtle, nearly five feet long! It was hard to see her in the dark, and we were strictly only allowed to use red-glow torches (or flashlights, whatever you call them) on the beach, but it was enough to be able to see her digging a huge, deep hole in the sand. After she had finished and was totally exhausted, she laid her eggs. A researcher declared she had laid a whopping 130 eggs! After she had done this, she set about filling the hole with sand and patting it down firmly all done with her back flippers. Then she rested for an hour or so before making her way back to the sea. She was totally exhausted by this point, but she managed it.
But seeing the leatherback turtle lay her eggs wasn't the best part of that night! As we were making our way back to the taxi, we saw tiny tracks. Our expert guide told us they were baby turtle tracks, and we followed them to see where they came from. And - get this! - we saw loads of tiny little leatherback turtles clambering out of the sand! It was an incredible sight, watching them climb on top of one other to get to the surface.
If you have had a more incredible experience at any point in your life, I'd love to hear about it. It was just unbelievable.

We met up with Mark and Tracy from Wet Dream before they leave their boat here in Grenada and fly back to England. They had their daughters with them - Savannah, Ellie and Jasmine - and we all went to Wine & Something for a karaoke night. It was a great night. We stayed until one in the morning, singing songs. We were also with an Australian boat called Ansotica's crew - Simon and Marit (who is actually Norwegian, but she has a very strong Australian accent).

Mark has lent me his paddleboard (still fancy a go, Alison?) while they're back home. I've had a go at it and realize I need a bit of practise, especially on the steering. 😂

Finally, I'll talk about the sign language sessions. Steve, from yacht Slow Flight, has started up sign language lessons. He has his deaf sixteen-year-old granddaughter, Emily, with him for the summer, so he's started up some lessons to teach us sign language. We've been to one so far and it was brilliant. I have already learned the full sign language alphabet after one lesson. We'll be doing another on Saturday. Really looking forward to it!