Carriacou and the Legendary Maroon Festival - April 21-26
26 April 2015 | Carriacou
Linda
After Dave and Ellen left, we reprovisioned, refilled water tanks, got laundry done and set out for the island of Carriacou, part of Grenada, only 7 miles away from Union Island.
We had planned to stop here for several days but we ended up staying 6 days , partly because it was a friendly place and partly to participate in their annual Maroon Festival. The immigration officer who checked us into the country enthusiastically told us of this 3 day Festival, so we decided to stay to join in the fun.
During the day, we changed anchorages from the town of Hillsborough to mooring buoys in the marine park at Sandy Island and Paradise Beach. Sandy Island is a long spit of sand and palm trees with good snorkeling over coral. Paradise Beach was a perfect dinghy landing beach, and the owner of the beach bar "Off the Hook" was very friendly. Friday night we met 20 young Danish trainee sailors from a beautiful square rigger anchored nearby. They had left Denmark in March in the snow and were enjoying the Caribbean sunshine.
The town anchorage at Hillsborough was handy for the sturdy well-lit dinghy dock.
We were impressed by the local bus service around the island. The cost is only 2.50 - 3.50 EC ($1 - $1.50 US) and the mini-vans come often, stopping pretty much where one flags them down. It appears that Grenada has avoided all the cost and maintenance of a government service by simply licensing individual van drivers. While we don't know the license fee the drivers pay, it appears the drivers keep all the revenue, so they are eager to pick up passengers, drive quickly (mostly crazy-fast on narrow windy roads!), and are very friendly. The question of liability insurance in the event of an accident was a question we didn't want to think about.
We took one of these buses to the north side of Carriacou to the town of Windward where we saw large wooden boats being built by hand in the same methods as introduced by Scottish seamen centuries ago.
The 3-day Maroon Festival was a true experience - not because of the event itself which was "under whelming" by our jaundiced American entertainment standards, but because we had a lot of opportunities to observe local citizens. Friday stated at 6 am with the "wetting of the ground" by killing a chicken, sprinkling blood from the chicken, mixed with rum and water on the ground for the "ancestors". We were told by locals that this ceremony never really started on time, so we took a local bus (yes, buses run at 6 am) up to the BelAir Regional Park where the ceremony was to be held. A journalist from St Vincent was also on the bus. We were all disappointed when we arrived at 6:30 am to find that the ceremony was finished. This turned out to be the ONLY event during the whole festival which started on time!
Friday night at 6 pm, the food which the community had been cooking over campfires in huge pots all day at the park was served to everyone free of charge. There was a program of local schoolchildren's talent set for 7 pm but the glad-handing speeches by eight different local and regional politicians took so long that we almost left. The log on the hillside where we sat was getting hard on the "bum" (as our Brit friends would say). When we left at 9:30 pm, the program hadn't started. Well, what can you expect from free entertainment, we thought!
On Saturday morning Dave went on a local dive boat to the "whirlpool". This name sounds a little daunting, but "champagne" would be a more appropriate name. The bottom sent up a steady stream of bubbles from underground volcanic activity. There was also a wreck completely intact with a huge lobster hiding inside the stern portholes.
Saturday night at 8 pm (advertised) was the highlight of the Maroon Festival, costing 70 EC ($28 US) for 2 of us. This outdoor concert featured two "famous" headliner musicians from Trinidad. Knowing that things don't start on time, but hoping to secure a seat instead of the hillside log, we timed our bus trip to arrive at 7:45 pm. We were amazed that only about 10 people were around and the stage was totally dark. We started to wonder if we had the wrong location! We had our pick of the 100 plastic chairs set out on the lawn. Around 8:15 pm a load of technicians arrived and started sound testing and blasting super loud music. People trickled in slowly and concert scheduled for 8 pm, started at 9:30 pm. Once again first on stage were the welcoming politicians. Then local talent acts started. There were MANY of these local groups and between each group, the stage needed to be re-set. Sometimes a "stagehand" would come out in the audience and take several of the precious plastic chairs from the audience to be used for the performers on stage! Eventually the local talent acts changed to regional talent acts from other Caribbean islands. Some were interesting, such as the 5 man group from St. Vincent featuring a set of 20 empty tin cans he played like a xylophone.
By 1:30 am, the local and regional talent acts were still going strong and the 8 pm concert showed no sign of the featured Trinidad musicians for which we had paid the tickets. We left and as we walked out of the park, people were flocking in, just arriving. The crowd now covered the park and hillsides, all standing because the 100 plastic chairs were now just a scattering of unorganized groups. We are not sure when the headliners from Trinidad finally came on stage.
Sunday's event was free on the beach near our mooring buoy, and all the SAME local and regional talent acts from Saturday night were repeated! We could have saved the ticket cost and gotten a lot more sleep!
All in all we enjoyed Carriacou and ranked this little island as one of our favorites because of the friendly (albeit time challenged!) islanders.