... that's how they describe Carriacou. Needless to say, the temptation was just too much and despite having visited briefly in June, we have again found ourselves in Tyrell Bay on the Southern side of the island discovering the delights of Caribbean island life.
Since the time of last writing, we have sailed from Prickly Bay in Grenada, to St George's the capital where we provisioned and stopped one night and then a six hour sail to Carriacou. As we left St George's, one of the many cruise ships was just arriving - a pretty spectacular sight but who says five masts are better than one?!
The wind was not all in our favour for this forty-odd mile trip but after a short period of motor-sailing, we cut the engines and made good speed towards the underwater volcano of 'Kick 'em Jenny'. Although the volcano last erupted in 1988/89, there is an exclusion zone around it which we duly abided to. We were now in the open Caribbean Sea making headway towards Carriacou. This short video clip hopefully gives a taste of the passage.
As we began to close on Tyrell Bay (our anchorage for the next two days), we passed a traditional sailing ship heading south to Grenada - a beautiful sight. The purists would say wood and canvas is preferred to fibreglass and dacron!
Eventually we entered Tyrell Bay and having picked up a mooring buoy we went ashore and handed over a big bag of laundry for a service wash at the Carriacou Yacht Club. On Saturday we decided to walk across the peninsular that separates Tyrell and L'Esterre Bays. Along the way we passed the local version of neon advertising, the artwork was fantastic ... almost up there with 'Banksy'!
The main purpose of our hike was to track down a 'container' that's been turned into a shop selling Caribbean Art t-shirts designed by local artists. Our walk took us along Paradise Beach - aptly named we summise ...
Yesterday saw us leaving our mooring buoy to spend the day anchored off Sandy Island, just around the headland. We'll update you as to how we get on in our next blog which we hope to post from Union Island later in the week.
Best wishes to All, from the Crew of Oceans Dream.
Having both worked hard we decided we should enjoy an exciting and challenging retirement whilst we were young enough and fit enough. To realise this dream, we replaced our monohull with an ocean-going liveaboard catamaran. [...] Through our blog we hope to stay in touch with our family and friends sharing our experiences to ensure others learn from our mistakes!